001Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining us here on our Thursday, April 24th uh board of education monthly business meeting. Uh I invite you all to please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. That was a that's a big crowd. You guys almost were as spirited as the elementary school kids on Friday morning opening with the pledge there. Uh our first item of business is recognition of visitors. Public comment. Uh the board of education welcomes comments from the public. Each person wishing to speak is asked to speak into the microphone, identify themselves, and respectively limit their comments to
002three minutes. Two opportunities to speak are available, one early in the meeting, which will be limited to 30 minutes, and one at the end of the meeting. Each speaker may address the board only once at both the opening and closing portions of the agenda. Please remember there will be no cross dialogue between speakers and between members of the board. All speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner. Obscene language, lielist statements, threats of violence. Statements advocating racial, religious, or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated. Persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should present their comments and/or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours. Uh before I open the microphone, um I'm going to just answer a few questions, make a few comments uh from last meeting's public
003comment session. Uh we updated our public comment policy a few years ago uh to hopefully make it a little more fulfilling for the public that they could get some answers. Um, and last week we had a lot of comments about the UPK program. So, I just wanted to uh provide a little more information for those commenters. Um, first regarding the lottery process, uh, we had a comment about keeping twins together. Um, so in general, the lottery process, we're bound by New York State regulations. Uh, these requirements mean um, the lottery must be a strict lottery. There can be no uh preferences, no favoritism. Um there has to be full repay repayment for all external providers. There can be no vouchers. There cannot be any incomebased or sliding scale models. Uh and unfortunately we are not
004permitted to offer any other preferences even keeping twins together. Uh other districts are able to do so if they have a program inhouse. Um of course we would love to keep twins together. Um, so we recommend that you um talk to your state senator and state representative. Uh, and hopefully uh I think that would be a win, a very small tweak to a law um to keep twins together at least in a lottery that everybody could get on board with. Um, another comment that we had uh several commenters talk about was a flat fee model. Um, discussions between our UPK providers and the district over the last several months have already laid the groundwork for implementing a consistent flat fee beginning for the 2526 school year. Uh, so very preient on the uh part of
005the commenters at our last meeting. However, it's important to understand that this proposed rate will be higher than what Newberg pays. Um, if you take our current UPK budget and divide it by 137 seats, our current aotment from New York State, it simply doesn't cover the cost our providers are asking. Many of our providers have made it clear if they are not paid their full rate, they will not participate in our program. That's because they're confident they will fill those seats with private pay customers. Um, and just for further information on that, Newberg has 11 providers. Uh however, four of those are in Newberg district buildings, so they don't have costs um relating to utilities, insurance, um etc. um as being in the building. Four of those providers are nonprofits and they obtain additional funding
006through grants. So that's eight of the 11 providers are receiving extra funding or have a cost basis that's different than a traditional um center-based provider. So only three of Newberg's 11 are center-based. Uh all of our providers are center-based. So that explains um some of the reasons why our rate will be different than what Newberg pays. Um our goal here is to continue to offer spots at providers our parents trust, our administration has evaluated as the best fit for our children. And I just want to have everybody remember how far we have come. um 3 years ago, four years ago, 3 years ago we had zero seats, then we had 58, then we had 80, then we had 98. Uh if this board votes to approve the proposed budget tonight to present to the community,
007which I expect that we will, and if the community uh approves that budget, we will be up to 118. The most available from New York State is 137. there's a clear path from 118 to 137 potentially as early as next year. Um so I just wanted to share some additional information on the UPK. Uh with that I will open the microphone for comment. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Cynthia Facilo. I am a parent, educator and advocate for children. I want to first thank the board members and our superintendent for all their commitment and dedication to our children and to the district. I wanted to first ask as Mr. Creating just said and thank you for that by the way that we continue to prioritize our children and vote for the additional 20 spaces.
008I did want to address the question that Christine and Tiffany brought up in the last meeting about will you guys have to pay or will the district have to pay for the empty spaces. And I did have an opportunity to speak to Donna Conklin of Windsor Academy and she has advised that they personally would not charge. I do have that in an email. So if anyone would like that for me, I think I'd sent that to you too. Um Mr. Dade uh that you guys can have that from her stating that she would not charge for any empty spaces. Secondly, I wanted to determine and discuss a little bit about a strategic plan for UPK. I think every year we kind of run into the same things and I think everyone on the board can
009say that as well. We run into the issue of space and run into the issue of budget. So I'd like to just start planning now for next year as well talking about setting aside the funds that are needed and starting to address a strategy. So some thoughts I thought about were a UPK committee created of parents, teachers, board members and of course our superintendent that are meant to help this program continue to expand to help providers come on because we need more providers. As you know we only have four. I think having five or six would be much more beneficial. And finally, I really feel that we can be the difference in creating a strong foundation for our youngest learners. And I feel like it takes you guys and the difference to make that vote
010today to count for our children for tomorrow. Thank you. Hi, I am Dr. Kate Esmazar, Cornwall resident, mom, and public education activist. Um, I want to thank the board so much for um Mr. Kan's message at the beginning about using a flat rate going forward. Um, that's something, as you all know, I've been pushing for. Um, I wanted to just take a step back and try to see the forest through the trees for a minute and kind of reflect on our last the last board meeting. And the question that I have is what is the priority? Is the priority the taxpayers? Is the priority local businesses? Is the priority the children? As an educator, I hope that the priority is for our children. Based on the previous meetings, um about an hour was spent discussing
0110.5% of the funds for UPK and removing a security guard to pay for it. And I'm confident that the district made a recommendation for that security guard for a reason. And I know I for one would be interested in hearing that and making sure that they have that support. About 15 minutes was spent discussing excess funds that are capped at 4%. and the reasonable possibility of what would happen if we exceed those excess funds. So 15 minutes on 4% of the budget and an hour on 0.5%. The goal of universal pre kindergarten is to provide highquality education for all children. It provides access to early intervention services for the children who need it and this will substantially help the children who currently live in our district and do not have this access. If you're representing
012both the taxpayers and the children, then I want to encourage you to please vote for this 0.5% to provide as many children access to UPK as possible. At the next board meeting, I ask for two things to be reported on. You've already answered one of them, which is the possibility of using a flat rate. Wonderful. Number two, providing parents transparency about the cost of before and after care and summer care prior to the ranking. When we're given a spot, we oftentimes don't know what the before and afterare rates are going to be. When we're making the ranking, we don't know and can't make an informed choice, let alone what the hours are and how that impacts our work. I want to leave you with one question. When you vote on the budget tonight, I want
013you to ask yourselves, are you voting in the best interest of our children? Thank you. Hi, my name is Dennis Tminia. Um, I live in the town of Cornwall and uh I moved up in uh 2006 from Staten Island and it was kind of a shock to me cuz I went from paying one mortgage to almost paying two with the taxes up here. So that was a hardship. Uh my wife at the time stayed home with the children for seven years. So I was pretty much the the bread winner um for the family. But my youngest daughter um was later diagnosed with ADHD and I believe that uh the first year that would have been spent in a in a wellorganized prek uh would have identified that and instead she probably went a year without
014ever being identified and I and pretty much went through hell with that. But uh like um Kate was saying um early intervention to me is very important and uh I think for that reason alone amongst others I think you should approve. It's okay. Thank you. Good evening. Uh my name is John Hines and I'm a math teacher at CCHS and the proud president of the Cornwall Central Teachers Association. While I'm normally the only one here at these meetings, tonight I invited a few of my members to join me because it's important to visually see how public schools truly do unite us as a community. I'm pleased to share that the district and association have reached a tenative agreement on our next contract. This marks a significant moment in the labor relations between the district and
015the CCTA. Next week, I'll present the agreement to my members ahead of our ratification vote and your vote. It's a change at that meeting without having to talk about the tribarrow amendment to the Taylor law or how retroactive pay is a negotiable item. So, how did we get here and not going down the same path we walked so many times before? Delay, animosity, mediation, and I'm not just referring to three or four years ago. This has been the culture of the district for decades. In speaking with some of my colleagues who've been teaching even before I entered the district as a student, they couldn't recall when we had a successor agreement in place before the current one expired. Last fall, I sincerely asked superintendent Dade, "What are we going to do differently?" We both knew
016how the typical process played out and sat at the table downstairs and talked about exactly how bargaining would look. Um, we needed a change. The association suggested two simple changes to our bargaining process. Changes that we believed could lead to a more productive process and they did. One was removing third parties from the table. Individuals who do not work in the district and who don't have to live with the reality of the proposals shouldn't be dominating the process and this time they didn't. Number two was minimizing the time between bargaining sessions. With fewer parties involved, there were no scheduling games or delays. And instead of waiting months between meetings, we met nearly every week. A clear demonstration of our mutual commitment. At the table, we communicated. We listened. We shared. We explained and we advocated.
017Yes, we disagreed. I think a lot. Um but we sought understanding. These two simple changes worked. And not just for the CCTA. The district extended our approach to when they bargained with our nit brothers and sisters in the clerical unit and with the admin unit. As a result, all three units have reached tenative agreements before our contracts expire on June 30th. Let's use these past two months as a springboard to change labor relations in this district forever. That goes to the association, district admin, and to every board of education from here on out. Once ratified and approved by the board of ed, that's three contracts down. But we have to acknowledge that three more contracts expire next year. buildings and grounds, our nice pair of professionals, food service, and the CCTA will be proudly standing
018along with these units as they bargain, expecting the same respect that was shown to us be extended to them. In May, the association is excited to get out and engage our community in support of the budget that you're expected to adopt tonight. I'm ready to mobilize the 280 PL 280 plus members of our association along with the hundreds and hundreds of NICET members living within the CCSD to get this budget across the finish line on May 20th. I've stood at these meetings before talking about how public schools unite us and there's no better way to show your commitment to this district, our students, and public education than by voting yes on the budget tonight and again on May 20th. Thank you. [Applause] I'm g I'm going to let them go home. I'm going to steal
019your line. They've worked they worked a really hard day today. So, thank you guys for coming out. Um, go home. Go see your kids and eat dinner. Thank you, John. Hello, I'm Brenda Wright. I'm an eighth grade math teacher at the middle school. when the um board of ed visitation committee came to visit the CCMS back I think it was January 17th um I handed them I had someone hand them one of my concerns which has to do with the budget vote that's coming up. Um my concern is security. Um just recently uh we are required to wear green lanyards um as an increase in security in our schools so that um uh staff members can be rec easily recognized. Um every year there during the vote um we at CCMS rub shoulders and our
020students rub shoulders with the community members. Um they're walking next to us, they're walking out between us. It is not a secure environment. I have not heard from uh any response to my request for how um security at the middle school is going to be handled this year. And um although Mr. I I um thank you for responding to um the thoughts that are or the concerns that were made last week. I would like an email response with how you are going to secure the middle school for this vote so that um staff and students do not have to walk next to um community members. I appreciate all your work in getting this budget together and I thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening everyone. I'm Roxan Zapri and I'm the mom of a three
021and a half-year-old who got a UPK spot and another little one who will be um hopefully going to UPK in a few years. Um, I want to thank you for all of the work you've done um, getting to this budget tonight, increasing the seats, and I just want to um, read a couple things that have already been said, mainly about transparency. We definitely need transparency around the rate paid to providers, and thank you for taking the steps towards um, a flat fee or a flat rate. We need to know the fees for parents for before and after school care and for summer care because I think I I said this last time it it's almost the price of of daycare. So, it's not really a truly UPK experience. And then also transparency in contracts to
022providers, um decisions being made in who gets a contract and why people are turned down and potentially considering uh bringing UPK in house so that other things like um you know twins getting spots um can also be addressed at the same time. Um so with that, thank you and thank you for supporting UPK and supporting our teachers. Thank you. [Applause] Do we have any other takers? All right. Well, thank you everybody for your comments and joining us. Uh we will move on to our next item of business which is our student representative reports. Uh so Maline Larkin and Ava Rich, I yield to you. Good evening everyone. This is the good news for Willow. The character trait for April is sense of humor. Students at Willow Avenue are full of laughter as they share their
023jokes with each morning on the morning announcements. Our third and fourth graders will be taking the New York State ELA assessment this week. They have worked extremely hard all school year and we know what they will do best. We know that that they will do their best. Sorry. Kindergarten students are showing their math smarties. Number partners is their math theme. They learned how to make six, seven, eight, nine, and 10 using number pairs. Ask them to count, they are happy to show. Give us a snack as our counters and off they will go. Spring is an exciting time of year for first graders. Students are becoming stronger readers every day and making it a great time to visit the local library. Second grade students have been working on independent research projects making bottle biographies of
024famous Americans. Students visited the library to take a gallery walk and learn about these famous Americans. Third graders are reading Peter Pan and ELA and are practicing their reading skills by analyzing the characters and the plot. After each chapter, they are learning how to take notes by summarizing the chapter. Our fourth graders are beginning to prepare for their transition to middle school. Mrs. Palumbo came up came to visit our fourth graders before spring break. They are looking forward to visiting the middle school next week. Tuesday, April 22nd was Earth Day. Students at Willow Avenue will be celebrating with activities and participating in a day-long celebration of why it is important to be kind to the earth. And then for the Cornwall Elementary School, what a gorgeous start to spring. With the sunshine returning and the
025temperatures warming up, our students and staff have come back from spring break feeling refreshed and ready to dive into all the exciting things the rest of the year has in store. Our second grade students have been taking field trips to the Cornwall Historical Society. This tradition helps bring local history to life as the students explore artifacts, hear stories from the past, and make connections to their social studies curriculum. From learning about the that oh sorry from learning about the area's early settlers to gaining to getting to create their own personal family tree. The students are always inspired by this trip and filled with curiosity. This month also marked a big milestone for our third and fourth graders as they completed the New York State English language arts exam on computers for the first time. While
026many students were understandably a bit nervous, their hard work and preparation truly paid off. They approached this challenging exam with confidence and focus, and we couldn't be more proud of the effort they put in. Looking ahead, we're excite we're getting excited for some of our favorite end of the year events, including the fourth grade visit to CCMS, the kindergarten trip to the Bear Mountain Zoo, and of course, field day. There's so much to look forward to as we begin to wrap up another incredible year. Okay, so this is the good news from CO. Congratulations to the cast and crew of Newsies Jr. which was held on March 28th and 29th. All of the young actors and actresses did a fantastic job and the audience was thoroughly entertain entertained. Both performances were standing room standing room
027only. Thank you to the many PTO volunteers who made the drama production possible. The first grade visited Black Rock Forest on April 21st. It was their second visit to Black Rockck where they received they reviewed hiking rules, how to read the trail blazes and looked for evidence of animal presence while we hiked around the Upper Reservoir Educator Trail. It was a nice way to get back in the swing of things after spring break and enjoyed our planet on the eve of Earth Day. ELA state testing started on April 22nd and finished today, April 24th. The students put forth their best efforts and the entire faculty and staff are very proud of how the children handled the challenge of taking their first computer-based state test. The testing went very smoothly with minimal disruption to the K
028through2 students. Math computer-based state testing will take place on May 6th and 7th. On April 22nd, the PTO hosted their annual garden cleanup activity for families after school. The volunteers helped to get the garden ready for the growing season by weeding, composting, and mulching. Throughout the spring season, the PTO is planning many activities for the students during the school day and at recess. We are looking forward to the fruits of their labor. This fourth grade student council has been busy preparing a school photo booth for the student body. Students will have the opportunity to show their school spirit and get their photos taken by the student council members during our morning arrival. Payment for having your photo taken is the promise to do two kind deeds throughout the day. Looking ahead, the PTO is hosting
029their annual talent show on Friday, April 25th, beginning at 600 p.m. in the CO auditorium. Come see the many talents of the students at CO. In the past, acts have been included a comedian, gymnast, dancers, and magicians. It should be very entertaining evening. And now the good news from the Cornwall Central Middle School. CCMS students have been working very hard to prepare for all county this weekend. The halls have been filled with music every day after school. Best of luck to all of our musicians and teachers. Have a great show. Mrs. Palumbo and Mrs. Burton are visiting all of the fourth grade classrooms to kick off our fifth grade transition and orientation program. CCMS is very excited to meet these eager and enthusiastic students when they come for a visit with their class. CCMS has
030been offering a wide variety of tutorials to provide support to students in a multitude of areas. These in conjunction with our regular clubs and afternoon and afterchool activities program allow most of our students to stay and enjoy time with their classmates, friends, and teachers. We are very excited. CCMS along with all other schools has switched over to Parent Square for notifications and information. We ask all of our parents to be sure to download the app for quick and easy access to all your CCSD news. Okay, lastly, we have the high school good news. Our school put on an amazing performance of Once Upon a Mattress. The cast, crew, and everyone involved worked so hard and it really paid off. The musical was such a huge success and it was awesome to see so many talented
031students come together for such a fun show. Quarter 3 is officially over and we started quarter 4. It's hard to believe how quickly the year is flying by, especially with me and Ava graduating in just two months. But now it's the time to finish strong as we head into the home stretch. Spring break was a muchneeded break. Whether we were relaxing at home or enjoying the nice weather outside, it was great to have some time off before the final quarter. We're finally feeling recharged and ready to take on the rest of the school year. Huge congratulations to our very own Evan Lol and Selena Dog for being honored at the Orange Olter Bosey's humanities awards ceremony. Their hard work and dedication to academics were recognized and we're so proud of them for representing Cornwall High
032School so well. Another big shout out goes to Ellen Kramer for being named one of the top five finalists at the poetry out loud competition last month. Her performance was incredible and making it to the top five is such an impressive achievement. Congratulations to Christian Green and Hunter Olsen for being our all state winners. They proudly represented CCHS our CCHS band this year's at this year's all state performance showcasing their talent. In addition, both the band and orchestra are preparing for their spring concerts with the orchestra preparing a medley of songs from the Disney movie Coco. Spring sports continue to drive forward with the baseball, softball, track, boys tennis, and lacrosse teams making their Cornwall proud. We can't wait to see what these athletes do as their season progresses. Activities taking place during community lunch
033are expanding. In addition to playing games in the gymnasium, students can participate in Just Dance in the auxiliary gym. Students finally seemed accustomed to lunch and are enjoying their options for activities during the schoolwide free period. Great. Thank you uh very much for that report, ladies. And I will um of course give the usual. If you have homework or tests or need to leave us, please feel free. But of course, we'd love to have you stay. Um, next item on our agenda is superintendent's update. Uh, Terry. Uh, thank you, Jim. Uh, just wanted to give a few, uh, points of thanks. Um, first to, uh, John Hines and the CCTA. The feelings absolutely mutual. Um, I think we, uh, made it a concerted decision and effort that things were going to change and we made
034some promises with each other and all of those things came true. So, I thank you for your leadership. I see Jen Kamacho that was in the room with us. Um, and for everyone, I think it's uh really important that to know that you don't get to this point with just kind of holding hands and uh everything was in agreement. There was plenty of disagreement. Um, but it's how we disagreed and how we move forward that uh that really mattered. So, thank you. Thank you to uh your association for trusting the process. Um, I just couldn't be more thankful for how things uh worked out this year. Uh the other point of thanks I would like to just uh spend a moment um to make is to our uh UPK uh providers. Um so I think
035it's important to remember that three years ago like Jim said we had zero seats. We put out a blanket um message that we were seeking providers that would partner with us on this new venture for the school district. Uh we approached Butter Hill, we approached Sportslex, we approached Ivy League of Learning, we approached um Arc of Learning, Windsor Academy, our Monasuri Village, uh Hudson Highlands, you name it. And then Megan and I went on a road tour to meet with each individual provider to discuss what it would take to partner. Um and the reason I'm thanking our current providers is they took a chance. uh they face um intense scrutiny from office of children and family services and then we were layering on additional requirements that they had to meet uh to partner with us
036as a as a district. So um questions were raised about the RFP process. The RFP process was really making sure that the part the providers could meet all of the regulations expected by the state. It wasn't a ranking or anything of that nature. The initial process was are you willing to take a chance on us and partner with us? Uh and Ark of Learning, Windsor, and Butter Hills said yes. Moving forward, this year was the first time that we added a new provider. As you all know, I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old, so I'm I'm very connected with kind of uh toddler world. uh what our parents were asking at the time was one to increase the number of providers but if we could increase our portfolio let's do that as well. Uh so
037Sportslex was the natural choice uh because Sportslex offers something that a lot of other providers can't um by offering swimming um and uh sports uh environment. So, um I wanted to take a chance uh take a moment to just thank our uh UPK uh providers. Um I'm looking forward to the addition of additional seats and uh potentially expanding. Um but we've had a close uh relationship with them. The last thing I'll uh just speak to um is the uh rates uh because we've had uh kind of competing interest from parents and providers. So the feedback that I was getting from parents is you have to have the lottery as soon as possible because we need to make decision as a family with regards to where we're going to place our children for next year. The
038the further we move it towards January is the sweet spot. That does not work for providers. They're not I currently have again two kids. we sign up for the next year in the spring time frame where we're um solidifying tuition rates that I'm going to pay before and after care. So, there's some dissonance there. So, I just want to make sure that the public knows that parents have spoken loud and clear that they like our lottery occurring in the early winter months because they need to make decisions as a family. We also have to realize that these directors are running a business. So they have to make decisions based on insurance rates um things of that nature. So there that's the dissonance um that that's in place. Again uh I have a chance to speak
039for our providers. Megan and I met with them. Uh Mr. Frink was uh in the meeting as well just to kind of talk about some of the concerns and they were just able to share from their perspective uh just kind of their thoughts on um kind of where we are and how we can improve uh moving forward. So, um, just wanted to take a moment to share some information and and points of of thanks. Uh, and I'll turn it back over to Jim. Thank you, Terry. Uh, next item on our agenda is the president's update. Um, so I have a few brief points. Uh, one is a reminder on the board of education scholarship. Thank you, Christian, for emailing that. um just to our board members. Uh this was implemented uh I believe three years
040ago and uh we've just asked all board members to contribute $100 annually to that. Um we do have enough to fund this year's award. Um probably next year would be a good time to have a discussion on whether we want to raise that award or uh open it to to students uh based on the amount of money we have now. But just a reminder um uh if you plan to donate, please do so soon. And I'll remind myself as well because I'm behind on that. Uh point number two um on the negotiation between the CCTA um the administration. Um I I will uh just echo as somebody who sat in as a neutral observer on that negotiation. Uh and this is something I shared with our board in executive session every time we discussed. I
041said we're going to get a deal here because the attitude uh between both sides is the right attitude. a positive uh collegiality. Everything's, you know, business and not personal and we're working together. Certainly, there were disagreements. Uh but those points were all able to be worked out in a professional manner. So, um, hats off to the administration, the CCTA negotiating team, um, and really a great result, um, for our district to have a contract renewed prior to its, uh, expiration for the first time in recorded memory. So, um, just wanted to echo the sentiments that have already, uh, been stated by John and Terry. Um and a third update um for the public. Uh yesterday I received uh a resignation of our board of education from Tiffany Galliano. She will be or has been sworn
042in uh as a trustee for the village of Cornell and Hudson uh filling um an open term there uh that uh Mayor Kaine left in his trustees when he became mayor. Uh her resignation is effective June 30th. So she will serve on both boards until then. Um since we are having a regularly scheduled election next month, what that means is there will now be four open seats as opposed to three. Uh the three highest vote getters will get three-year terms and the fourth highest vote getter uh will reserve will serve the remaining two years of Tiffany's term. So just uh point of information there for the public. Um and thank you Tiffany for your service here and we wish you well with the village. Um that's it for my president's update. Uh next item up
043for bids is the consent agenda. We have items two through 11 items 2 through 11. Uh the consent agenda permits the board of education to make more effective use of a 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 on the consent agenda may so indicate and that item will be considered and voted on separately. Um so let's move and second this and then we will pull um individual items for discussion. Can I have a motion? Christian. Second, Tiffany. Uh, and who would like to pull any of the numbered items two through 11? Jim, number 10 for me, please. Bass. Number eight. Tiffany, you said number 10. Okay. So, then we will take a
044vote on items uh 2 through 7. number nine and number 11. So that's 2 through 7, 9 and 11. All in favor? I I Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you very much. Um we'll take them in numerical order. Bass. Uh number eight. Thanks, Jim. Yeah. Uh number eight is about the vote on uh uh bos's board members. They have three vacancies. So uh I don't have any information on that whatsoever. Uh are we going to nominate somebody from our district or are the do we know who is running who you know? So we discuss this we we did nominate we did make a motion earlier in the year to nominate um the individuals here. There was three people who wanted it um for three open seats and we made a motion. I can't tell you
045exactly what meeting it was in the last six weeks or so um to nominate and we discussed collection of that. I might be back to something else. Do you mind? Uh I I can talk about some of the candidates. I did this earlier when we the nomination, but I'm happy to do it again if that if that's what you're looking for. pass. I'd like to know who or uh so uh Bill Boss has been on the U Boseies board and on boards of education I think going back to the early 1980s. Uh he's currently the vice president of the Orange County School Boards Association. I think uh you know I think Christine you've know met him as well and I would say that he is incredibly dedicated for someone who has been on boards longer
046than perhaps some of us have been alive and um and the idea that he does take that job very seriously um and not just for the AOSIS but also I think for all the districts in the county. He originally is from was served on the Greenwood Lake uh school board before he was on the um Orange Boseis board. Um Edwin Estrada I believe is a banker who um I'm not gonna I'm gonna it can be looked up but I think it's it's based in Middletown. He has been on the Middletown Middletown he's been on the Middletown board before. Uh he's incredibly active in his community. Um and I think once again he's someone who comes to every meeting. He has uh been on the Orange County School Boards Association pretty much every meeting this year.
047Um and I don't want to sell David Eaton short. I just don't know him personally, but I think that he has also been a previous member on the U Bose board. I thank you. Thanks. I wonder whether I missed the meeting. Maybe. No, I I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. Yeah, quite possible. I have no recollection whatsoever. Thank you very much. Uh all in favor on item number eight? I I Any opposed? Any abstensions? All right. Thank you. Uh on to item number 10, village of Cornwall and Hudson water exemption. Um Tiffany, uh given that I am now a village trustee, I just pulled it so I could abstain from the vote. Thank you very much. Uh all in favor on item 10? I I. Any opposed? Abstension. Tiffany. Uh Christian
048and Christian. Okay. Uh great. Uh that is the end of our consent agenda. It moves us to new business. We have two items tonight. Uh both linked. Uh item number one in the new business is a budget update from uh Mr. Frink. And item number two is the resolution to approve the contents of said budget which we have been debating uh for several months now. Take it away, John. Thank you. They said they've never seen me speak before. I said I've given them so many opportunities this evening to run and they have yet to run. Uh I don't know where all the everybody else went. I thought I was I was excited to present in front of so many people. Well, yeah. I thought this was the pomp and circumstance we talked about in the
049first meeting, Mr. Hines, but clearly clearly not. Okay. So, thank you. Uh it's been a a long strange trip here on on the the budget. So April 24th today is as uh President Kan said uh our budget adoption um meeting. So as I've started every single one of our presentations with our vision um we envision a school district in every in which every staff member is a source of knowledge and inspiration, every building is a place of safety and support, every leader is a pillar of integrity, and every student is a source of pride. Um, and I've focused on those sources of pride. We've talked about those sources of pride. Um, you can see the source of pride in the water balloon toss, uh, in the indoor track events, and with those, uh, therapy dogs.
050Um, maybe we should have a few of them, uh, join us here. It would be fantastic just to kind of cruise around. So agenda, I won't read the agenda verbatim, but we're going to kind of go through where we've been and where we are now and where we are going on next steps. So um again, we'll take a look at the recap of our proposed budget, our adjusted budget. Um we'll look at uh our aid projections and our contingency budget. So the recommended budget just kind of level setting and walking us back where we've been. We're looking at a budget of 92 million 721136 um and a recommended revenue of 90 million 364425. That left us with a deficit of $2.3 million approximately. We were looking at a 2.5% property tax levy uh increase which
051would uh gather us $1.3 million. We had uh an increase of state aid um by about a million dollars and an increase in our miscellaneous re revenue lines by about $232,000 uh dollars. So we still had some outstanding items, but this is kind of where we were. Then we jumped into two discussions at the March 24th and the April 7th uh board meetings where we were looking at the needs assessment that the district presented in the previous meetings to those um and the board discussed a number of different things and it came down to really these four items that you see up here. A 1.0 safety u monitor at Willow Avenue, a 1.0 0 early intervention support teacher at Cornwall and Hudson and uh Willow Avenue. That's a split position. Uh UPK 20 additional seats
052and then we looked at increases to uncertified substitute teacher compensation. So you're looking at a total package of about $271,000. So we take that and we add it into our budget. All right. So that gave us the 2526 adjusted budget expenditure. Uh that's 92 million 986803. I broke it out in all of our different categories. We took a look at this on the recommended budget. So you're seeing the exact same slide just adjusted with the four additions that we discussed in this previous slide on slide five. So salaries, pensions, health care, contractual out of district tuition. So, some of these items don't change, but some did. Obviously, with the salary lines, pension, um, health care, those will change with staffing changes. In the end, your bottom line 92986 803 and we compared to last year,
053we're about $2.7 million budget to budget. During that April 7th board of education meeting, discussions were held. There were some options presented. We labeled them affectionately as options A, B, and C. Option A, what do we want to do? We can maintain the recommended 2.5 tax levy increase and increase that amount of assigned fund balance. We could go with option B um and increase the tax levy and maintain the assigned fund balance that we had recommended or option C split between the two of them. During that board meeting on April 7th, the board elected option C. split it right down the middle. Part of it on the tax levy, part of it adding to that assigned fund balance. The result here, you'll see the bottom line, um, specifically 2.75% tax levy increase and an assigned
054fund balance of 2.489, which brings us to our adjusted budget recap. Looks just like our recommended budget recap slide with our adjustments on it. Obviously two uh 92986 803 is our budget. Our uh adjusted revenues is 90,497199 and you see that 2.489 604 for assigned fund balance. Again our max levy was 3.08. The board has elected or will adopt or hopefully will adopt here a 2.75% tax levy increase which gets us 1.4 4 million. Our state aid is staying the same. Uh Mr. Kan bet me unofficially, but didn't bet me unofficially. Uh and we're still waiting for state aid. Um I'll probably look like Duck Dynasty or something like that by the time they they pass their budget. Um anyway, and we still have several open items. We have heard today contract negotiations. We are
055um looking at settlements in all three of those contract settlements uh which is fantastic and within the budget and um where we are headed in the right direction. What does this look like? Your estimated tax levy um again fair market value uh of of residents or property for 250,000 350,000 or 450,000 just giving us some ballparks here for um our our residents. You're looking at a change of about $227,000 per year or 318 or 408. Several assumptions. I will call them out loud and clear. 2.75% tax levy increase. We're looking at that assigned uh appropriated fund balance. You're including your star exemptions. Um we're careful and always make sure we note there's no change in the town assessed value and no change in equalization rates. We don't have any control of them and they can
056change. So the again these are approximations for us contingent budget. We've read these slides the past several meetings. Okay. So I won't reread these slides again. I will point out on this second one what happens. Right? So we need a 0% tax levy. So the tax levy for the 2425 school year would then become the tax levy for the 2526 school year resulting in $1.4 $4 million in cuts that we we need to make to our current budget and all these rules and parameters apply. Um it's the no fund zone. So let's just put it that way. Uh on that um May 20th ballot, you will see a second proposition. That second proposition will be to establish the capital reserve. The district has established u two capital reserves prior. Capital reserve one, capital reserve two.
057Capital one reserve one has been expensed. Capital reserve two we are looking to apply that money. Uh and we have maxed out that reserve. So hence we are opening up that capital reserve number three here. We've made it quite the distance here. Uh kind of like a marathon. We're kind of at mile marker 20. Right. You're just right there towards the end and we're just going to go across that finish line. Uh May 6th is our budget hearing and then that budget vote is that final finish line. Thank you, John. I'm going to take the first question. I don't know if anybody else will have questions. Um in light of the fact that New York State has not passed their budget. Um, I know that the state aid figures have not changed from the governor's
058proposal. That state aid is not for uh K through 12 has not been a contentious point in terms of the dollars this year. Um, so we're not expecting any major changes, but two scenarios. What happens if we get more money? What can we do with that? Or how is that um where will that go to in the budget line? because I know it will be too late to add, you know, new expenses or anything, right? Uh and two, if there's uh less than expected, then where do we pull that money from? So, perfect questions. Um we addressed them um in in our last two meetings. I didn't put the slide up here. So, what happens if um we get more money? So, if we get more money, that money is going to fall to our
059fund balance, right? that fund balance when I talked about the Cornwall farm with our silos and that's additional revenue that would come in at the end of the year that will go to the fund balance answer and the fund balance can then fall into our reserves right so it will either pay for uh budget items that were overexpended or fall into those reserves and fund balance same question the other side of it what happens if we receive less we have that fund balance to rely upon in order to make up for that difference and that's how we would um solve that problem. So we'd solve the problem we have the 4% that we we we that would become 3.98% or something. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Uh any other questions for John? All right. Thank you
060very much uh for that. [Music] Um so on to the resolution. Um resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools that the board of education of the Cornwall Central School District does hereby approve the following for the 2526 school year. the Cornwall Central School District proposed budget in the sum of 92,986,83 which represents a 3.02% increase over the 202425 school year budget and will be placed on the ballot at the annual budget vote to be held on Tuesday, May 20th, 2025. And number two, that the Cornwall Central School District property tax report card, which represents a 1,444,371 proposed tax levy, which is 2.75% greater than the prior year's levy. Uh, I'm going to ask for a motion in a second, and I will leave this open for comments if anybody would like to make
061a comment before we take a vote. Uh, can I have a motion? Brendan, a second. Tiffany, uh, and would anybody like to make a comment? Tiffany. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I think something very important that that our superintendent uh stated in his opening comments was how we disagree that matters. Um, and it's important to me that you understand and those of you on uh virtually and and as well of as well as those of you in the room, I oppose this budget and I will be voting no. But let me tell you my why and the reason why that I disagree. Um, I am I have been a vocal advocate and supporter for this teacher contract. And anybody at this table, I doubt they would be able to disagree and and and be an
062honest broker. Um, in fact, when I considered my resignation date, one of the factors in that resignation date was to make sure that the teacher contract was was passed. Um, I ran on that and and three of our children are teachers. Um, it's very important to me nonetheless. Um I I have voted my voting record is I have voted for increases when they have been proposed to us in for various um staff and um educators. Also want to make sure that everyone understands that I am a UPK supporter. I have a grandson that will be eligible next year in this district. Both of his parents are teachers. Um, I think the only thing that I ever said was, "I don't want to pay for seats that we don't use." And I think that that's the
063only fiscally responsible thing to say when you're a fiduciary for this district. Um, so please don't think for a second that I don't support either of those things. Um, however, the totality of the budget, though I appreciate all of the hard work that our administration, who I value and respect, has put into this, I just can't support this tax levy at this time under these economic conditions for um our the members of our community. Thank you. Thank you for that comment, Tiffany. Would anybody any other board members like to make a comment? Bass. Um, thanks Jim and u bluff as we say in the army. Uh, I'm going to vote no on the budget tonight. But again, as Stephanie uh went uh with uh I want to explain uh for everybody here in this room,
064everybody's watching us tonight on YouTube or everybody's going to watch us on YouTube sometime down the road. uh I support teachers and I'm going to come back to this in my second point and by supporting the teachers uh we were briefed uh all along during the negotiation that went between the administration and the teachers union and I was very pleased as pretty much everybody mentioned tonight uh with how the negotiation went and I was very pleased with the results and therefore I'm officially saying that I'm supporting the teachers contract and that stems from the fact that I do support teachers uh as a member of the board. I do support universal prek as well. I do remember when my kids were in that age, you know, three, four years old. I used to pay $1,000
065a month and it was very tough on us. Uh we didn't have universal prek and I know exactly where the parents are coming from. Uh I do support funding uh you know I mean schools uh making the universal prek work but again meeting after meeting we had uh our superintendent explaining why it is on everybody's wish list but there are realities that Mr. Dade went through meeting after meeting after meeting [Music] uh and I believe in everything that Mr. Dade uh mentioned. Add to that the fact that uh you know the economic situation of the United States of America is not uh doing well right now. We came out of a recession that uh started uh right when CO started and uh government was printing checks and throwing them at everybody who can catch them.
066Uh the deficit of United States right now is around $35 trillion. the United States will never be able to uh pay back that debt. Uh we're thinking about our children. Let's think about them when they're going to be 30, 40 years old. Uh we might go bankrupt. Okay. So, so and and this is why uh kind of we're not kind of seeing kind of checks coming from the government to help us like they used to help us before uh the new administration came in. Uh, I don't want to go in kind of political speech right now, but uh, everybody knows if you go like me to the supermarket, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The last thing I want to ask our constituents to do is to uh, ask them to pay more taxes.
067Uh, and that's why bottom line, I'm going to vote no on the budget. Now, I want to I like to go back to I'm going to close this. Uh I think I heard tonight in the public comments uh a note that we have to think about uh who's our priority when we uh kind of vote our budget. I can tell you right now I don't need to wait. Uh right now my priority uh is every single one of the five following categories I'm going to go through. My priority is the students. So check mark on that. I mean that was the question. But again my priority is the parents. My priority is the teachers. My priority is the non-eing staff. My priority category number five is the taxpayers. We have taxpayers who have their children
068already graduated for the system. They're paying taxes. They're not you can say they're not getting anything back in return. So, uh, that's my answer to the priority question. My priority question is every single one of our stakeholders, and I explained who those are. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bass. Christian, I wasn't planning on speaking on this, but I think that um those comments at least lead a counterveailing perspective, and it's not really to push back on that. Um you know there's a biblical parable about a father who asked her two sons to do something. The first one says yes I'll do it and then doesn't go out and do what the task was. The second one says to the father go take a hike but then thinks better about it and then goes and
069does it. And the question that was at the end of that is that which one did the father's will and clearly the answer always was the second one. So part of supporting something is also supporting the expenditures that support that item. And I'm not sure that at least for me I don't think I could do either way. No one's going to support everything that's in any budget whether it's a federal budget, a state budget, a school budget, local budget. Um but we agreed to it as a group and that is why I'm supporting the budget not because I got my way but because we had a discussion and I think we came to conclusion. But looking at this budget, just what is the what created the tax levy? Well, the first item is the safety
070monitor. Uh we all know we can go back and look at the tape about who asked and supported that. Uh the universal prek that's we we have that discussion. We had a lot of different opinions on it. Substitute teacher pay. That's $15,000. And then the contracts that supposedly we support. And so if I support those items, I need to support the expenditures for that. And as Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr. said a long time ago, former Supreme Court Justice, also an officer in the Civil War, he says taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. And I could talk about the economics about tax and debt and disagree, and I respect that perspective, but I think you either have to say if you support these things, you have to also support what
071it costs to do that. And that's why I'm going to support this budget and I'm not going to advocate. I think everyone here is a smart, capable, thoughtful person and I respect everyone's decision. But I think that is why we are paying for it because the alternative is to have what we want and then put it on the metaphorical credit card for someone else to pay. And really, if you want to have control over our education, um, we have to be willing to spend it. 25 years ago, 80% of the Cornwall school budget was supported by local revenues. Today, it's below 60%. And that's because state federal money has made up for what we're not raising locally. And over the past few years, the increase in foundation aid has been a greater percent increase than
072the increase in the local tax levy. And if we do that, what eventually is going to happen is we're going to lose control over our schools because the people who are going to pay the bills are going to insist on having a school according to whatever their perspective is. And whether that is you are concerned about a woke liberal Albany state government or you're concerned about a conservative uh Trump education policy, it means it takes it out of our hands and the more that we spend, the more control we have. And I think that is worth spending for. And I'll I'll leave it at that with no judgment to anyone, but to say look, I think that it's worth spending. We've had the discussion and I'm happy to vote for it. Thank you, Christian. Any
073other comments? Um, I'll make a brief comment um along the same line as Christian. I too uh will support the budget. Um, and I I think he raised a few important points which I'll um rehighlight in in sort of my own way and and one is and you know I've said this in in past budgets and probably said it in this budget but you know not everybody gets what they want and you said not everybody gets what they want in a federal, state, local budget. Uh if you're married you don't get everything you want in your household budget either. Um, so you know, it's important to know that they're trade-offs and that's why we went through how many meetings bringing us up to tonight? 1 2 3 4, you know, six meetings bringing us up
074to tonight to have vigorous uh debate and discussion on what those priorities were. Um, and that's how we came to where we're at tonight and prepared to vote on it. So, um, Jim, can I have just one additional perspective? Um, please. Because I think the it's a a little bit of a a weird year where the tax levy does seem to be going up more than in just the most recent years, but we're actually not adding that much to our budget. The bulk of that is really in our our rollover budget and it's from the the bakedin costs that everybody's paying and and um you know last month the inflation rate was 2.7% in the US and this is a 2.75%. it might end up being 2.7 once the final state aid figures come in.
075So, I I think that we're all dealing with the same inflationary and um economic headwinds that I say we as the district are dealing with the same ones that u individuals are. Certainly not immune to it. And I think in the context of that, this budget uh is very responsible. And although the tax levy number is going to be the thing that most people focus on, um the underlying budget is is really not much greater in terms of um staffing, etc. uh than it was last year and certainly not uh the same kind of year-over-year increases we've seen before. Yeah. Can Yeah, go ahead. I just I'll finish my and then I'll kick to you. I thought you were done. Sorry. I'm never done. No. Um No, I just um I wanted to echo um
076Christian's point as well of if you support the budget, you have to support the money to pay for it. Um it's kind of it it doesn't make sense to me to say I support all of these items and then not to appropriate the funds to do so. Um, but that's neither here nor there. I just wanted to point out, um, if you go to the contingency budget, which is a tax levy at 0%. So, if this budget is voted down, um, and yes, you can reconfigure it and go back out for a second vote. But if we have to adopt a contingency budget, required reductions are 1,444,000. And what that's going to look like when the rubber meets the road is going to be 13 to 15 teachers losing their jobs and teach and students
077new teachers, staff, and students not getting um education. So that's what it's going to look like if we go to a contingency budget. But that's worst case scenario, Jim. In fairness, as you said, there could be a second vote on a on a modified budget. And just because you support certain things in the the budget, it doesn't mean that you support the totality of the expenditures. So yes, you can pick and choose and you can say, "Yes, I support the teacher contract and yes, I support UPK, but I don't support all of these other line items." Um, so I don't think it's fair to to lump uh a decision to vote no into a category that says, well, if you're supporting these things, then you have to vote for the whole thing. And yes, I
078agree with Christian. There are some things that you're not always going to like in a budget, and that's a fair assessment. However, you can support certain things in a budget and not support the totality of the other expenditures. Just in fairness and for um clarification to the audience, um that is true. However, if you're proposing adding things and you don't want to increase the tax levy to fund those things, you need to make cuts. Would you need to make other things? Would you need to make 1,440,000 cuts, but you would need to cut So, I can teach contract and I can support UPK and say that I don't support other things. And in fairness, um that doesn't mean it's an addition. We need to have a teacher contract. UPK is the way of the future.
079but doesn't mean that I support all of the other items within the budget. So that's all I'm trying to say in fairness that it's not a generalization as some of you are making it seem. Okay. So, uh I'll just finish my comment by saying um with the robust process and discussion that we've had here, uh I support the budget that we have all discussed and come to a consensus on um and I hope that a majority of us do. I will Elanora. Um, so I had not planned to speak on this, but as Christian said, with the conversation going, I feel I needed to add. Yes, we've been discussing this for weeks, and there aren't there is no perfect budget for everyone. Not everyone is going to agree with everything that's on the budget. But
080I'm hearing a lot of conversation about inflation and prices going up. And yes, you go to the store now and a dozen eggs are $7. You know, I remember paying $2 for a gallon of milk and now you're paying five. Well, wouldn't it just go with the expenditures that that's also going to happen in our schools and we're investing this money into our students? And so, in order to have these programs, to have the extra seats um for the UPK, to have the extra security prices will go up. And we seem to be forgetting that, you know, we go to the store and we just say, "Oh, well, these are the prices we have to pay now." But yet, we're arguing over increasing a small percentage to invest in our students, to invest in our
081school district. So, I will be voting yes. I do support our budget and I may not agree with everything that's in it, but it's important that we have to pay for an education and this is part of it. Thank you, Elanora. Bas uh thanks Jim. Yeah, I I'm speaking for the second time tonight as a rebuttal to what uh you basically uh provide us with. I mean, I noticed your hand gesture towards me when you said you can't support uh uh the teachers, you can't support PK and not support funding it. I I I I saw you doing it maybe unconscious subconsciously, but that's fine. That's why I'm I'm rebutting what your point. Uh yes, I do support the teachers. Yes, I do support preK, right? Uh but I do not support the tax levy
082increases because since like the first time we started debating I said you know uh uh psychologically uh let's keep it at 1.9 which is very close to 2.0 0 but I would rather put it at 1.9 and that is to ex to explain further that I I already mentioned like the first time I spoke that I don't want to increase uh uh the tax leav by by by even nothing but again if you look there was a table we saw during the first meeting of the budget like in the last six years or maybe 10 years how kind of we went up and down and I did kind of like an average kind of you know mentally and kind of it looked like you know true wouldn't be too much and psychologically so we don't
083hit everybody with 2.0 So I said I'm willing to approve 1.9. So the results of what the whole discussion now after all those six uh uh debates we had was to go 2.75. That's why I mean just looking at 2.75 I cannot approve that. Now you mentioned and and and and Tiffany pointed to that as well. uh uh uh saying that I approve the idea of supporting the teacher and increasing their salaries by 1.39 uh uh six uh you know uh K uh uh but not approving uh funding it. Uh I can tell you no that's that's that's a wrong way to put it all together. Uh yes, I do support that increase for for the teachers. Uh I'm I'm again I'm willing kind of my originally my idea of like not supporting uh prek
084at all increasing the number of se of of seats and you know we increase them from 10 to 20 many were pleased with that uh I don't approve that I did not approve that like for this year hoping that the economic situation would improve later but again tonight I took the opportunity of speaking to say don't get the wrong idea about me and prek. I did I do support prek universal prek as an idea because I suffered from it personally. I know exactly how it feels like. Right. So, so what does that mean? It means that I will uh send Mr. Frink and everybody back to the drawing board to reshuffle everything. Right? Nobody was willing to do that. And that's why I said like I'm going to vote no tonight. Uh I don't know
085what's going to happen. Uh I think we heard what two or three people supporting. Uh but again I mean uh I would ask like to your point uh supporting that those ideas and supporting the budget means like I'm rejecting everything. No, I'm not rejecting everything. Are you willing to go back to the drawing board? Maybe you are. Thank Thank you. Bass Christian. Um, this is uh sort of piggybacking on what you're saying before. What would change if the budget fails is not just the positions and what we spend on our teachers. It also changes, and Mr. Frink, if you could just correct me because I didn't plan to think about this, so I didn't check this. Is that it also changes how what we charge for the very different entities that use our facilities, which
086means the all the PTO drama productions that use our auditoriums and our spaces, the youth sports leagues that use our fields. we would have to charge them the full cost of that, not the cost that we actually charge them right now. So that would not only means a lot of other costs would go up in our community because of all the different uses of our facilities uh that are used by non-school entities. So I'm not saying that's the worst thing, but I I mean that's kind of also in the background because that's what's built into a contingency budget. And Mr. Frank, is that an roughly accurate of what would happen? That's correct. and uh all district you know another big one is all district field trips uh be would be eliminated. Um so uh parents
087would pay the full brunt of all trips whatsoever. So that includes transportation costs and and nonre and the things that are not mandated which would include kindergarten still would be that's not a contingent budget cut but that can be considered as a reduction of your budget if you want. Thank you. And the second thing that you know, look, once again, this is not something I was planning on mentioning, but since we're talking about the small little things that we're increasing in our budget in terms of our new programs, one of the biggest budget-to-budget increases is the roughly $110,000 more we're going to pay for water in next year's budget because the prices were increased on us. And so the point is we're not because we're using more water. It's because you basically we're we had
088a price increase that no other entity is paying for more or less. Do you want to get into that Christian? Because we can have that debate because that's you were offered a deal and you declined it and that's part of the reason why. So I think that that's another discussion. Um I think I still had the time. Go ahead Christian. So $110,000 increase as you can see by looking at the budget is approximately equivalent to a teaching position and whether there was a deal or not a deal if you were a county if you were a public utility and you increase that on one user and not others. Okay, that would be the basis of there would be major litigation about that. No one the reason why is the village law doesn't cover that. So
089it lets them do whatever they want because no one would think that a a village would do that to its own citizens. But the point is it's not just other people. It's also because on school taxes, if you live in the village, if you live in a higher assessed house, you're paying more of that through the school tax. But the point is that's one of the expenditures that's in this budget. Even though it's not one of the items, it's one of the increases in the rollover budget. So the point is these are things that increase. where our expenses increased. We have to pay for them and that's why we're going to have to levy people more and I'm not necessarily unhappy that money is going to our water infrastructure. I think a lot of people
090will benefit from that. But the point is it looks like an increase in terms of what the school is paying or school is spending as opposed to a different entity. So the point is there's a lot of things in the budget and we could go through line by line all the details. Okay. And there's a lot of other things. For example, the district meeting went up by and I realize part of this is because we're having a cap um the uh the bond the capital project vote in the fall. So, we're doubling that. There's a lot of little items there and you know, we could go line by line and some of this would probably make our meetings four or five times as long. And yes, I'm sure in any budget of millions of dollars,
091there are things that are inefficiencies or things that could be done better. But the reason why we do these budgets this way is because we're respecting the decisions of past things about what we want for our education. And that's why once again I support the tax levy that goes with that comes out of the discussion that we all had over the past few months. Thank you Christine. I I want to respond to something. I I don't know who said it, forgive me, but around um go back and and um rework it. You know, I think that this board has been extremely responsible and doesn't take lightly increasing the tax levy at all. I don't think that any one of us wants to have our taxes increased, but it is sort of, you know, the uh
092reality right now. And we are not just we're not we're not I'm not supporting this budget without any compassion or or recognition that this creates, you know, an increase for homeowners or for, you know, folks in in the um school district, but it's just not a place where I'm willing to to pinch my pennies. You know, I think it's too important um that we are investing the money in these in the things that we need to that we are keeping our staff, that we are keeping our programs, and I'm not suggesting that anyone else is saying we shouldn't keep them, but you just you can't have both sometimes. So, um I support the budget. I hope the public recognizes that this board took this very seriously. We spent I think Dr. Meyer had us timed
093at an hour for some things and you know we we spent a good amount of time debating little bits of money. You know I don't think we take it lightly. So um I'm I'm proud of the way this board you know went through this and really looked under you know every nook and cranny um that we could and I will be supporting the budget. Uh thank you Christine. All right. Uh I think it is time to take a vote. We have uh read the resolution and we have moved and seconded it. So all in favor I and somebody raised their hands just so we're I'm counting 1 2 3 4 5 six seven I's nay. Tiffany and Bass. Uh there will be no abstensions because that is nine total. Uh so that motion or that
094resolution passes and that will be what we see uh on the ballots on May 20th. So thank you. um to our board for that vote. Thank you uh to John for all of your hard work uh and your presentations and working us through um this process. That brings us to public comment round number two. If anybody would like to make a comment, please uh come and take the microphone. As predicted, I'm a doctor. I like to talk. Um so Dr. Kate Mazzar speaking for the second time. I made a couple of notes. Uh just wanted to respond a couple of things. Um idea here perhaps uh providers can provide transparency on the previous year's rates to help parents make decisions when ranking. Also they could probably provide a rough percentage. It could be a range
095just on roughly what that in, you know, increase might look like just to give us a chance. Um, it was mentioned earlier that preschool was about $1,000 back when it was paid per month. Just a news flash, um, we have providers here that are charging $26,865 a month or a year. Um, the range in costs for average prek are 13,000 a year to 26,865. If we look at the same hours for preschool, what we're looking at before and after care, um, for those same hours annually with summer care, we're looking at an additional $9,000 to $12,000 that parents are paying. So roughly $1,000 a month in before and after care plus summer care on top of what the school district is paying for those seats, just to give an idea in terms of increases. Uh
096second thing, um as we increase in our schools, we also see increases in our home values and especially since our schools are now falling in rankings by about 30 spots in the last two years in state rankings. And in our uh national rankings, we've fallen about 2,000 spots. We're now at 2,00 I believe 600 and change in rankings. When we bought the house, it was 1,200. So just something to think about um because I know that we need to think about the quality of the education and making sure that that's also reflected because that's also in our home values. Um the other thing that I want to put on your radar regarding the RFP is that there are NICED regulations when it comes to making decisions and how those are made. We're eager, we know
097that several providers who have been told no in the past are eager to find out why. Um, and then also with the state budget coming up, um, I would love to find out if with, uh, the grant for full day prek comes available again since it is not need-based. Um, if we could apply for those extra funds, that would provide up to $10,000 per certified teacher, 7,000 for uncertified. That's per, sorry, per kid with those kinds of teachers. Um and then also whether or not the school district would be open to um doing what other school districts around the entire state have done, which is adding um quality stars standards for increasing the quality of our prek. And then the last and final thing is while I love swimming and would love swimming to be
098a part of UPK, the core of this is academics. Thank you. Please. Thank you. I'm sorry I said Dr. Meyer before. Dr. Miser, is that correct? Mizar. Okay, thank you. Mizar, would anybody else like to regail us with your thoughts? All right. Thank you everybody. The uh last item here is closing comments from the board. Um I'm going to mix it up. I'm going to go inside out and I'm going to ping pong. So, we'll start with Bass and then Brendan go back and forth. Bass. Bass, you pass. Let Brendon take it first. He ped it to me. Uh very unexpected honor. Thank you both Bass and Jim for that. Uh yeah, I mean just to underscore a lot of what was said u first to uh the CCTA and John, thank you for the
099leadership, but then then also uh articulating just the journey. Uh I think that it's really valuable to know um to remind everybody when things do improve and so we can double down and keep doing that. So thank you for that and of course thank you to uh on both sides all the work that went into uh that successful well successful negotiation and then we'll we'll hold off the uh confetti until things are finalized. But uh certainly uh it was a lot of hard work on both sides. So appreciate all of that. Uh and then similarly for this budget process uh John our our John. I think we're all It's all our John. I think we all know our John's. Uh Mr. Mr. Frink. Uh John F. Like like we're in kindergarten to John F. Dear
100John F. Uh fantastic fantastic work. Uh kept us uh kept us on track and uh it was uh with with humor and clarity. So appreciate it. I think we we've uh ended up at uh at a solid spot and now the march to May 20th. May 20th. May 20th begins May 20th. Yeah. Uh and uh finally uh to Tiffany, I think there will catch us off guard with this announcement today. There will be nice things to say in the future, but for now, I will just say congratulations. Um you have been an asset to this board. Uh sorry to lose you. Uh but our loss is CO Town Board's gain. So Bass, uh thanks Jim. Uh first thing is uh as I mentioned earlier uh we were always uh board uh members uh briefed uh
101they kept us in the light on how the negotiations were going and I can tell you tell everybody now in public here public meeting that uh I was very pleased with what I heard about uh how uh the negotiations uh were led by the CCTA president John. Uh that was very pleasing uh uh to hear and I'm glad that uh we reached uh uh kind of you know uh the good results in a uh record time. I mean uh Mr. Date told us that you know uh meeting zero was in February and in April. Uh so so that that was great news indeed and kudos to to you John and to everybody you represent uh because we know the president goes back and has all the negotiations and right okay but during during the negotiation
102period right I mean you weren't speaking for yourself you're speaking for every single uh you know member of your uh association so kudos to everybody there uh and of course to our uh administration. Uh we're proud of having an an administration like uh what you represent. Uh that was great to to have. Second, uh is uh Tiffany. I told Tiffany in person, I mean, we're going to lose her on the board. I I I emphasize the word lose. I mean, that's going to be a loss for us. Uh but at the same time, I wish her the best in everything she decides to do. Uh and congratulations on being appointed on uh the village board. Uh I I'd rather wrap I mean finish stop here. I mean not uh talk more. I mean I I
103because like remember I mean I talked twice about the budget so I think there's no need to add to that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bass Elanor. Uh, I'd like to start by congratulating all of the students that we talked about this evening from our Are they still here? Thank you. Both academic, musically, our drama club, and our wonderful high school girls there who did a great job telling us all about the good news that's going on in our school. I want to also wish them all well with finals coming up and state testing coming up. So, um I wish all of the teachers good luck in keeping the students uh from falling asleep on those papers and to the students I wish them well and doing well on the exams. Congratulations to our
104negotiating teams, both sides. Great job in getting it done and we are all extremely pleased. Um and I'm very happy that our budget passed. And John, next time you want an audience, you could have just let me know. I would have asked them all to stay for you. I mean, I have a little clout with the teachers. I I could have gotten them to stay if you really wanted that audience. Might be surprised. Maybe they just left anyway. I know. Seriously. And [Laughter] congratulations also to Tiffany. We wish you well in your new venture. Thank you, Elanor. Tiffany. So, I want to start out by um showing appreciation for Mr. P uh Mr. I think in his references to both the Grateful Dead and Duck Dynasty this evening, it was very impressive. Um, again, I'll
105reiterate what our superintendent said and how we disagree that matters. It's okay to disagree and do it in a professional um, intelligent and articulate way. And I find that my time on this board and I know I still have a few more months and I and I value it. Um, we've been majority of the time been able to do that. Um, and I've come to appreciate and know some of the members of this board. Um, which I some of them surprise me. I didn't think that I would I would have such great respect and I do and I really value them and and you're you're you're lucky to have them. Um, also going to mention that the we have the budget and and board elections coming up on May 20th, which which I now know
106well because I asked Megan earlier and then it was presented to us five times. So if I just read ahead um but I I will throw it out there that I will be wholeheartedly publicly supporting uh Mr. Cardi. Uh he has such a value added to this board um and I I respect him immensely and and what and his opinions and what he has to say and as well as Mr. Shakra I will be supporting uh wholeheartedly as well. Thank you. Thank you Tiffany Richard. All right. Thank you. So, first I just want to again congratulate the negotiation teams. You know, I want to thank Terry, Megan, John, all the administrators and the teachers union team led by John. It just seemed like you were very collaborative. You know, you guys were able to sit
107down, disagree at times, but in the end, you came to a a conclusion and you got it done in a in a great way. So, congratulations and thank you. Um, I also just want to commend everyone who was involved with the budget process. Um, you know, from the public's view, it seems like a very short amount of time that we're actually, you know, talking about it, you know, three months, but really it starts what in, like July. It's a year-long process for our admin team. So, I just want to commend you and I'm proud of the process that we had and the discussions we had and thank you with that. Have a great night. Thank you, Richard. Carl, congratulations, Tiffany. You know, I really don't want to see you go, but good luck. Okay. Um,
108John, I want to thank you for all the work you did with the budget. That was a great job and I'm proud of I'm proud of this whole unit today. Terry and John, they're the ones I really got to reach out to. Um, you guys did an awesome job working together. You sat at the table. I was a I was able to sit there while you were doing your negotiations and the rumors that you had heard in the past just weren't happening. So John, I want to thank you and your crew and Terry. I don't have to thank all of you as I did that earlier today. So I just wanted to say thank you for everything you did and um that's it. [Music] Thank you Carl Christian. Uh so three things. The first thing
109um to Miss Galliano, I will just say that I will remember that you were the critical vote that voted for the increase in substitute pay back in December and not everyone did. And I think that reflects, you know, what your values are and what's important to you and I will take that and uh I I will leave it at that because we will have our differences um here and there. The second thing um is what does a good policy look like? And one of my former teachers, Paul Pearson, said, "A good policy is one not designed from the top down where you try to get the perfect policy and then you pass it." It's a policy you pass and then people learn they like it and then they get snoody and they ask for more
110and they want it to improve. And the reason why good policies become good policies is not because bureaucrats or politicians or whatever are geniuses and come up with the right idea. It's because the public kind of pushes them to do the right thing. And I would say that's kind of what we're seeing now with UPK. At first we're just happy to have it because hey, you know, I have a seat is better than no seat and people are just thankful to get the seat. And then now you have the seat and now they're like, well, I want this seat, but also I want you to improve the quality of the program and I want you to maybe add these extra services. And it's important to remember that that's how high school and kindergarten got started
111in education. That that wasn't part of education uh 50, 60, 70 years ago. people learned that kindergarten actually was really valuable and instead of going from no kindergarten, they went to half a day kindergarten to full day kindergarten because they started to see the value and they were willing to pay for it. And it's important to remember that American education used to be really K through 8 and high school was kind of like say the way that we look at college today. And then people realize that, you know, high school is pretty important for having those skill sets and those four extra years and budgets increased and paid for it. And you know my hope is what we see right now is that process by even when people are being perhaps you know asking for
112too much or being unreasonable that is the process by which policies get better and which good policies stay and h stay and I encourage that process. And lastly, just about budgeting. Um, I was reading a book that just came out this month called The Last Bake Sale, which is about school funding. And a quote from it is, "School funding is a story of how we treat our children, but it's also the story of how we treat our democracy." And it reminded me of a book I read a long time ago by political scientist named Aaron Vidowski about the politics of the budgetary process, which came out in 1964 when everyone was studying exciting things like the civil rights movement and the war in Vietnam. Aaron Vidowski spent his time watching how budgets were made. Um
113you not you would think that's not what you would be doing during that period of time, but he basically said well he looked at all these budgets and said there's two types of budgets. There's a democratic budget and then he goes like there's an administrative budget. The Democratic budget is a lot of horse trading and compromise and deal making. Um and everyone doesn't like it because it seems unseammly and how the sausage is being made. and the administrative budget has all these charts and data and you know projections and things of that sort but he made several observ empirical observations. The democratic budgets were always on time. Um they always match revenues to expenditures pretty much that they actually grew slower which means that the increase in budgets over time was at a slower rate.
114And the last thing what came out of it is they had more legitimacy because people trusted them because they saw the process and they understood the tradeoffs and the deals and whatever was a compromise and everyone was behind it because everyone gave something in those deals which means you didn't get what you wanted but you got what you wanted most in the discussion and the administrative budgets were always late. They're increasingly became unbalanced. They grew faster and no one was happy with them. And it's important to kind of remember that, you know, budgets that kind of look ugly in their process of making them are actually the proc the budgets that we supposedly want when we talk about the ideal budget. And I think that's what we did over the last few months. And I
115think that the community will support it. Thank you, Christian. Going last is hard because I feel like I'm repeating everything that's been said, but if I don't say it, then people think I don't think it, so I have to say it. Um, so congratulations to the administration, to the CCTA. You really set an example for, you know, how people should work together through difficult processes where there might not always be agreement, but there can be respect and um, camaraderie. So, I really appreciate that. Thank you. And I look forward to celebrating the final uh, stamp, so to speak. Uh, Mr. Frink, thank you. I am not a numbers person, so I always go into this like, oh, I'm going to ask a question that I should know, but you did such a fantastic job, and
116you know, you're filling big shoes, and we you really just did it seamlessly. So, thank you so much. Really appreciate that. Tiffany, I can see why the mayor scooped you up. Um, we're going to have to have a talk with him later, but uh we'll we'll miss you and I'm sure we'll have our our saliloquiz later before you leave. But congratulations to everyone involved in Once Upon a Mattress. Another terrific performance. I'm always amazed that we have a live pit band playing instruments like the fullon music. It It's mind-blowing to me every time. Um I I start to tear up in the audience. I don't even have a kid in it and I'm like crying for the pit band. Um and then Meline and Ava, I think I saw your announcements about your decision day
117on the CCH decision Florida and Villanova. Am I remembering correctly? So congratulations. Um, and it's not Florida. What What is it specifically? It's not Florida. Jacksonville. Okay. Um, really enjoy these last couple months. You know, these are like the really special moments that um they only happen once, you know, so enjoy them and have a great time. Thank you, Christine. Um, what did you say? If I don't say it, no one thinks I think it. No one thinks I think it. I think most of the people out here think that I don't think. So, I will yield my time. Uh, and I will ask for a motion to adjurnn. It's a move. We have a motion. We have a second. Uh, all in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you all very much. We
118will see you on Tuesday, May 6th, so you can enjoy a taco on Cinco de Mayo May 5th.