001e all right uh evening everyone uh sorry for the the slight late start um I ask that everybody uh stand for the pledge please I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay well thank you for that uh we have a a fairly comprehensive uh meeting uh with lots to get through but first we we have the pleasure of uh a musical Ensemble with arranged music highlighting our great not only instrumentalists but also our great music department here in Cornwall Central uh School District so what I'd like to do is ask Megan if you have any introductory remarks to make before I I turn it over over to our instrumentalists here okay well good
002evening everyone um tonight we have a couple presentations by our students um and the first will be our young gentleman over here who is going to lead us in a beautiful opening song um with some patriotism [Music] you [Laughter] [Music] d [Music] [Applause] thank you Christian and thank you to his family who I can see are very proud this evening and Christian you've made us very proud it's hard to believe he's only in the fourth grade we can't wait to see what's left to come of you that was just tremendous thank you Christian for that performance I hope he's a wrestler too because it just took me back to Tyler Reed the last time I heard a chist play the national anthem was when Tyler Reid was a fourth grader and it was remarkable fantastic
003okay so um with that let us move on to uh recognition of visitors if anyone has any comments I ask that they come up grab a microphone State the your name and if you can please limit your comments so that others might have an opportunity to comment as well anyone wishing to come up please come forward now no one okay great well um um what I'd ask the board now as we're into um our agenda I'd like to make a a quick change if if if so be the will of the board um due to uh some pressing issues this evening in recognition of the upcoming graduation for our star senior here this evening um I would like to move the uh student representative reports um up and have it uh commence now uh and
004then we'll follow with the rest of the agenda uh with presentations to follow can I have a motion for that quick change thank you Richard the second second all in favor I all right motion passed thank you so that brings us then to to Kate Patterson could you kindly uh give us the good news from Cornwall Central School District my pleasure all right good news from Cornell Elementary School for March our our students have been enjoying the sunshine during the month of March our lessons have been focused on the character trait of patience while we wait for warmer weather members of our fourth grade student council got to interview some very important people this month first they interviewed John P during our an author visit to our school it was fun getting to know him
005and asking questions about his profession they also got exclusive sitdown interviews with Mr German and Mr Tron to learn a little more about them and what they do for our school all interviews were featured in our school newspaper Dragon news Mrs gle's third graders have been learning about what happens to animals when their habits change they studied Wildlife corridors and became Engineers designing and building a prototype of a tunnel that salamanders could use to cross the road instead of salamanders though they used roly poliy the students had a blast studying learning designing and building our students can't wait for the month of April when we have our partners in reading program Mother Sun kickball game and a family mov movie night good news from Willow we kicked off march with our readathon with Dr Seuss
006Week students dressed in themes based on the Dr Seuss book of the day including the cat and the hat Fox and socks and all the Places You'll Go We are continuing our love of reading with our March Madness of books each day students will listen to a picture book being read by a staff member and at the end of our our week they or at the end of each week they will vote on their favorite book the last week of March we will vote on our top three books in the bracket to Crown the winning book the third and fourth grade classes have been learning about immigration and are taking a trip to Ellis Island as their culminating activity for the unit this week they will participate in an immersive experience the journey in PE
007we are competing in Mission Impossible students are practicing teamwork cooperation patience and perseverance lastly we welcomed our newest Dragon families for kindergarten registration we're excited to meet them all in September good news for Co during the afternoon of March 4th the student council walked to the district office and walked with and visited with the superintendent each student prepared a question for Mr Dade the students learned many interesting things about the leader of our district for example how he became inspired to become a superintendent his favorite sports team his favorite color and what he wants to do in his retirement and the many hard decisions he has to make being the superintendent the students thoroughly enjoyed his company pick up a reading partner is in full swing at Co it started on February 26th and will
008conclude on March 17th this year's theme is books are a treasure the number of minutes that students will read are being recorded and will be converted to points the class with the most points will be rewarded so far kindergarten has read 4,125 minutes first grade has read 4,950 minutes second grade has read 4,753 minutes and third grade has read 2 820 minutes with fourth grade also reading 2910 minutes keep up the good work on March 21st Co will be recognizing World Down syndrome Awareness Day by wearing mismatched socks March 21st was selected to signify the uniqueness of the triplication trison of the 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome in 2013 the theme of wearing mismatch socks was initiated to raise awareness about Down syndrome the idea was was created because chromosomes are shaped like socks
009and people with Down Syndrome have an extra chromosome on March 21st the student council was planning on participating in the standup program students from the safe School ambassador program at the high school lead elementary and middle school students in a series of workshops about bullying prevention fourth graders are involved in bringing back the information they learned to the students at Co a second session will be held on April 4th please come and support the cohp drama production of Wonka Jr being held on Friday April 5th at 5:00 p.m. and Saturday April 6th at at 5: p.m. in Co Auditorium good news from the Middle School the CCMS drama club presented the wizer v as the musical performing to sold out shows our students brought to life the story of Dorothy and her adventures returning home
010from Emerald City thank you to Mrs Molton Mrs horn Mrs Mr Baxter Mrs Firestone Miss mailings and all of our amazing parent volunteers who helped our students have truly magical performance CCMS sth graders in Mr DA's class had a special guest speaker Miss Ables who joined the class to focus on mindfulness and finding tools to help lower their stress levels through breathing exercises and guided meditation congratulations Isaiah okany who finished in the top three of in Regional round of the national Civics B hosted by the Warwick Chamber of Commerce Isaiah will move on to the state competition good luck and good news for for um cchs C Tech students earned medals at the area's skill USA Regional competition in February Sean Hansen placed first in the automotive services and Technology competition Ruth Knight placed first
011in job skills year one competition and Kira Walker placed third in digital cinema production Dylan F in 10th Grade won first runner up at the Poetry out loud Regional competition he Advanced to the Poetry out loud state competition in March where he represented C CHS the dragon breakfast awards for quarter 1 and two were held on February 26th teachers nominate one student per content area per quarter to celebrate with a breakfast and certificates quiz b brought the championship trophy back to cchs for the first time in 10 years congrats student grades 9 to 11 participated in the love shouldn't hurt Summit by Fearless students along with a social worker and a Student Assistance counselor participated in various workshops designed to educate on teen Dating Violence cchs math team won first place in the section A
012of the duo Math League and participated in the regional meet at basser College in the beginning of March Elijah fingerman was recognized for being the top individual score in section in section A Claire nassu Andrew woo Oliver J and Elijah fingerman all move all move on to compete at the state level at the national math mathematics League competition in April orange Kelly H held its annual sjer truth Awards on Friday March 8th the following cchs students were nominated and received awards at this ceremony Amaya Elman zangl and Naomi Losi Kate thank you so much for that that good news um I know you are inflicted only because you have a big event this evening with your classmates and I just want to just let you know that I admire your your character and your duty
013concept making this your priority at that expense but I I I want you to know that we all appreciate you sharing the good news but we actually want you to enjoy the remaining time uh before you graduate so so please feel free to to to to leave us um but thank you so much for for for demonstrating and and representing so well um what it is to be a Cornwall uh student by your presence all right thank you okay so with that I'll go back to the original uh agenda we'll just pick up with h presentations and the first one will be uh Mr rinsky and our uh music department um presentation take it away T thank you I think I made it when the board ofed president calls me Trav okay uh thank you
014guys so much uh I am here just as music in our schools month is the month of March um I am fortunate enough to be able to talk about our amazing students and I think that is one of the the better parts of more exciting parts of my job so I appreciate you having me here um and I do want to start off first off I will stick to the script because we're all very busy and I'm going back to a rehearsal that's currently going so I am going to uh leave when I am done but I thank you for letting me be here um and I do appreciate all the administrators putting in to all of their good news all the awesome stuff that is happening in the music department we as a department
015we talking back in January and we just had a list going and we're like I think we really should present all this together as a collaborative K12 so welcome to music in our schools month uh and I uh have a little PowerPoint with photos to share as I read through these things um I'm like I said I'm going to read in my best radio announcer voice so enjoy here we go so all of our musicians performed great at their winter concerts over the past few months thanks to all who came to watch and especially to those parents for continuing to support and encourage our student musicians to strive for Excellence our second grade at Willow AV and Co have worked hard at this past fall to compose their own music digitally the students familiarize themselves
016with digital audio workstations as dos and musical samples to create an original piece with titles a record number of fourth grade band and Orchestra students participated in our instrumental recyle on March 5th 118 students performed as soloists or in small groups uh the CCMS band was very busy during the holiday season and continued its annual tree lighting performance along with this very uh sorry along with this they played the annual wreath Across America at St Thomas of Canterbury in the sorry to uh to pay tribute to the Fallen service people who have given the ultimate sacrifice for freedoms we enjoy As Americans last month the eighth grade Orchestra and band students visited the high school to learn about the high school program and help with the transition for high school next year the love notes
017in treble and Paradise were asked to open for naturally seven a professional Acappella group at the Paramount Theater in Peak Skill on Friday February 16th which is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm proud of those groups Turn the Page here we go uh the cchs just had their annual Acappella night which featured our concert choir our treble choir and our Acappella groups all of these groups started the evening with working with a clinician to polish up their performances for the concert our high school just presented in the fall radium girls uh which is a um a true story um about radium how it affected everyone's world in the 1920s the CC the ler Road PTO produced an amazing performance of Finding Nemo in January and our middle school students just closed a
018great production of The Wizard of Oz last weekend we have three more Productions uh which will be happening in the first three weekends of April cooh will produce Wily Wonka cchs will produce something rotten and Willow AV will produce Mo Moana the cchs drama club was honored to be the first High School in New York state to produce Harry Potter in the cursed child this coming fall I'm proud of this one I'm proud of all these kids but this is still mind-blowing to me I'm scared and excited all the same time so this is a big one coming up for the fall our we have had very successful auditions this year and many of our students have been accepted into honor ensembles around New York State these students prepared a challenging audition Piece and Rose
019to the top of their sections to be honored to be participants of these prestigious ensembles we have 115 honors Ensemble students this year which is really exciting and the list I'm just going to go through we have one Allstate musician with three alternates I have three all state state band director Association musicians 12 area all state zone 9 musicians 30 ocmea High School all count musicians 9 through 12 8 ocmea Jazz All County mus musicians 7- 12 30 ocmea Junior High all count musicians 30 ocmea Elementary allc County musicians when I was looking through those numbers I went back preco and compared the numbers and we're about the same numbers we were preo so the pandemic still happening our has effects but our kids are working really hard and I'm very happy to see all
020of those students uh succeeding in all of those uh auditions and then what I got perfect our upcoming performances over the next few weeks still consist of the Leer Road third grade recorder concert the CCMS chamber concert and then as I was just talking about our junior high school and Elementary all count festivals so in conclusion as always thanks for you continu to support of the Arts here at CCSD and noticing the importance that it has for these young adults as they grow up to make the world a better place period that was a pretty good time uh so I wish I could stay and talk about more please if you have questions let me know about these amazing kids they're out there they're performing they're working hard and I'm thrilled to have them in
021our district and uh performing for us in the community so um like I said I am running to a back to a rehearsal over at the high school for something rotten so thank you so much T rev thank you and please uh uh relay to your music department colleagues our our gratitude for what you do uh for the district and helping our kids develop to be the best they can in this important area thank have a good night okay so let us then move to um next item which um so just got word it appears that Mr Simo had an unforeseen scheduling conflict so we will have to reschedule that presentation so we will then move to the next item um which is another Spotlight presentation from the Palumbo group and um I don't know
022what type of technological changes we need to make on the the big screen here if you could just go to uh a mic so we could hear you but yeah please move the oh you move the podium too please yeah please [Music] all right thank you everybody for allowing me to come in tonight and give a presentation update on the current progress of the project uh for those of you don't that do not know me my name is William dine I'm a project manager for the Palumbo group uh you're going to see a lot more of me in phase two I'll be here helping out um kind of getting uh Scott who you're used to seeing up here at the mic's going to be phasing out a little bit so um to start off here
023everybody's got a we handed out a a pamphlet here um I'll try and make sure everybody follows along uh if you turn the first page uh some of the agenda items we're going to talk about is the phase one uh status to update and the phase two if we turn the page uh here are some of the acronyms that we use um within the language here uh turn in the page again so some of the current project update uh that that we had at the facilities committee meeting on February 12th uh was a very very good meeting uh we talked about uh project scope review uh per phase we talked about phase one current completion schedule ual we talked about phase one history we talked about the monthly communication tools uh reports owner architect construction
024manager meetings we talked about phase one bid details uh future Phase 2 and phase 2A and we also talked about changes to Future bids contract and construction activities uh turning the page uh here's our current uh phase fin financials in the very first column where it says contract um AA stands for abatement GC for general contractor the AA is our second abatement contractor uh second GC mechanical contractor plumbing contractor and electrical contractor uh going moving from left to right from awarded contracted column these are the awarded contract amounts per bid the next column over which uh explains the awarded change orders these are uh what's been approved to date in phase one uh totaling at the bottom there $84,000 uh which is only 1.98% of our uh contingency current contract value is the bid amount
025plus the current awarded change orders uh the second to last column is some of the potential change orders these are we call them potentials because they've been provided to us uh from the contractor uh we are in the process of vetting them out to make sure that they are valid uh needed um and things like that so there's a potential additional change orders of about $40,000 coming down and then some of the contract status uh who's still working and who's closed out at the moment there any questions on the phase one um I did hand out also a schedule to everyone um it's a single page schedule it's the one with the red in it to kind of explained to you guys uh where we are with phase one um I know there's been a
026lot of questions on what the progress is happening uh we've gotten a lot of work completed over the winter break it was very successful um every contractor was in here we we got a lot of work done on that schedule the red is the completed work so you could see that half of the outstanding work that we had a month ago is been completed and we hope to complete the majority of the work over this coming spring break uh a few items that we did talk about that were going to happen um outside of spring break which is the upgraded electrical service uh we've decided with the district to uh not take any chances in interfering with the with the day-to-day school and do that trench work over the summer with the electrical upgrades uh
027the other thing that's going to be weather dependent is some of the uh parging and regrouting on the exterior brick uh we're hoping to get that done over the spring break but it's very weather weather dependent and lastly but not least that's going to extend past the spring break uh we're going to start the uh leer Road uh I'm sorry Willow Avenue um loading dock during spring break we're going to do all the demo all the loud noise work while kids are away uh we will most likely be putting things quietly back together uh the following week and possibly the week after um and that's that's so after spring break we're going to be looking extremely well there's only those three items left that we're anticipating um at this moment that will be uh uncompleted
028after spring break so hopefully our next board meeting we can we can close out phase one successfully any questions in regards to phase one good Brandon just so I understand the schedule and this is really helpful it seems pretty intuitive so uh things that are in red under the task name are complete but then there's some some uh of the scheduling items where it's like partially red and partially blue I just assume that the red is the progress part and the blue is the when it's intended to be complete correct okay so there there are some that are black in this column but seem to be fully red do that mean they're just so close that means they're 100% complete okay so so what we did is we we did an all inclusive schedule of
029everything that needed to be completed we didn't remove them once they were completed we just showed them as complete got it got it so you can have an understanding of the amount of work that we we did over this spring bre okay yep yep thanks sure anyone else Bill if you could sure I noticed on your your your contract status you have working there could you just sum up the the status in terms of are we on track based on the the the changes that we implemented to get us on track so are we on track with the the the revised plan or are we still a little bit behind based on um whatever issues that are outstanding Y no problem um think good news is actually we're ahead of the plan uh we got
030a lot more work done over the spring break than we anticipated weather was good to us we put in the extra hours the district was very good to us to allow us to get into these spaces um so the the majority of the work that's going to happen in spring break is going to be is going to really close out phase one besides those three items we talked about the the electrical upgrade again that was a district decision not we felt better that we would do it over the summer God forbid something happened it wouldn't interrupt the school day um the parging of some of the brick which is again weather dependent we need warm weather for that and uh we feel that the uh the pouring of the deck for the new uh loading
031dock will extend out about a week or two past spring break but those will be the three items left after next week and and so just to to restate what I heard you say that we're we're ahead of the revised uh plan yes we are that's that's really good news that's why I I love that that chart there and you could see that there's a lot of red and red means complete so it's the translation of complete and red is still kind of challenging my my my senses a bit but I um hopefully a quick study on that thanks you got it Brendon sorry one more um now that I'm absorbing this a little more so the interior railings at the at Willow so I noticed on the schedule it's partially red so you know
032we're getting there but uh the projected completion date is uh has passed but it's still not marked as complete so what is the revised completion date estimated completion date for that so this this this spring break okay so that falls under the everything else yeah so what we did was some of the things we talked about doing better right was not removing something unless we knew we could replace it so we did run into a problem with one of the stairs uh we recognized it right away that something was wrong coming out of uh the factory so be it right with with one of the railings that showed up and we we made sure every we Dy fit everything before we remove the old railing we recognized it we sent it back to the we
033weren't able to get it back into the spring into the previous break so that's why it's not completed on time but it's going to be completed in the spring break got it so yep leis yes please thank you Bill I apologize if you said this but again same as as Brandon I'm absorbing as you're talking trying to you know take it all in and and and make it hit the items in blue um that have not that are still blue as we've reached week 12 are those projection all of those are projected to be completed during spring break that is correct and I do apologize I missed one item now that I'm looking at it I missed one item um the work to be done at the lobby and the bathroom at Lee um is
034not been turned over to us yet to do that work from the district okay I know there was some work being done in another location in order to move the security guard down um so we could take over that bathroom and and and that Lobby I do apologize I did I I missed that one um but that one has not been turned over to us yet so I I don't have a a date on the completion for that until take it but again just just to be clear everything prior to week 12 in March that's blue will be red at the end of spring break come April 1 April 2 April 3 that is our plan okay y I appreciate that thank you yep no problem so so just to clarify would it would it
035be more appropriate then to to say we're not necessarily ahead of schedule but where we're behind this depicted line we will we will get back on track after spring break well you can we're definitely ahead I I do stand by that 100% um even though we're behind on some of the items we are ahead on some of the other items so where we could not do work over the winter break we did work for spring break work we just didn't say okay we can't do the railings today we're just going to send the guys home we looked on the list we said what could we do today to do other work and that's what we did we just moved over to other work so uh my opinion is we are ahead of schedule on the
036winter break and we're going to complete everything on Spring Break um let's be realistic you know Mother Nature is out there there are things that could change what I'm saying today but our plan is even with the contractors that we done after the spring break of okay B go yeah I I again uh I disagree with the term we're ahead of schedule I'm counting 12 activities where we're behind 12 what I did is very clearly I put April 1st draw a vertical line all the way down everything before that and I recognize today is the 18th but you can kind of eyeball it and what's still in blue is around the 12 activities tell me I'm wrong I I I can understand what you did um however I will never tell you you're wrong it's
037your opinion you can have it um what we have to understand here is the difficulty of some of this work so some of it is extremely easy some of it is is a little more difficult to to do um for example removing door bucks is much harder replacing door box is much harder than replacing doors so when I look at this I see okay that's an easy task that's going to be done extremely fast right I'm swapping out a door I look over here and I say okay I've got door box removed that's going to be more intense it's going to be dirty it's going to be a lot more work a lot more labor intensive that's going to take more time so some of these items if you understand what they are and you
038know what the what it takes to to do that work that's what I look at right so I see I look at that as a lot of the the hard work is is behind us and a lot of the easier work is in front of us so even though that the Blue Line might be longer it's faster to complete that work than some of the other work I'm not sure if that makes sense or not with all due respect what you just said is very subjective I mean when we look at these gut chart like this we have to be objective not subjective this gun shart doesn't have to be subject to different interpretations by different people by whoever drafted it and whoever is looking at it reading it again I'm saying this with all
039due respect I'm just talking technicalities here I've seen gunshots before I know how to read them and that's why my again as you said my opinion I understand and and please ask away I I can do my best to explain um these schedules were built for the contractors um you know I can do better time to try and get something to to you guys that is a little more receptive but yeah that that's these were built for the contract so so I kind of opened up this this kind of can and and so let me see if I can close it so and I and I appreciate all the comments that the the board is has shared and Bill I appreciate your your uh your your your feedback or your your your thoughts on on
040what you've been asked would it be fair instead of saying we are ahead of schedule that we have not encountered any items that that have put us at risk of not being uh completed by spring break be because I don't want to get into the semantical thing but if in a Gant chart if you say it'll be done by week 11 and we're at week 13 and it's not done it's hard for me to think we're ahead of schedule semantically speaking and I'm not a Linguistics guy but just from a common sense reasonable manory perspective if we're on track or Behind These these terms are somewhat subjective but what's the key thing of all of this is are we at risk of not getting this done by a certain point which is at this point
041as I understand it except for those three items that you've enumerated spring or four I'm sorry yeah they were three now four by spring break I I so we should have a good Fe the and the general mood should be things are progressing with all the challenges still in a way that does not put this overall phase that's been revised at risk I feel like it's I feel like I'm being asked the same question five different ways to change my mind I I will not change my mind I feel very comfortable today that uh again we are a little ahead of our schedule and we have no issues today telling you that uh we feel that we'll complete all those items by the end of spring break except for the four that we discussed okay
042I'm not gonna I'm not going to go on we could go on all night on this but uh uh any other questions regarding this we have some other pages to to to cover I think we're on page two of the presentation well just I mean I'm looking down here and some of the red items right if you look at if you go to and you can see that supposed to be done in April we did it in February so that those are kind of some of the things that I'm saying were were ahead so some of the things that we were behind we did more to get ahead in February than we did sure I I understand that in some cases it's hard to explain I'm trying to do a good job and trying to
043make you understand when you try to sum it all together you you believe that we're in a state of being ahead of the game okay I'm try I'm trying to be proactive I'm trying to be positive I I think we we've got a good again I don't want to get into the semantics of it the real issue is are we at risk of again having a repeat of having to revise this plan much like happened during the fall and the answer as I understand it is except for those four items which make a lot of sense on why they're being altered no that's not the case we have no reason to believe we're going to alter this pass Spring Break correct go ahead Christian um so I think that it's fair to say that this
044is in better shape than when we met we had the uh presentations back in the fall and I think that's a positive trend that it seems like this is closer to what we would have expected I I wouldn't expect as a teacher have been in schools I know there's a lot of things that happen and also the fact that the school's running keeps some things from happening because of the limitations on time that you have during the summer so while I understand exactly what bass is saying because you know Gan charts and you know we we've all seen them and had some experience with that it seems like we're in much better shape and I appreciate the effort but I think we also have to commit to making sure that this is we don't just
045rest on our La ruls that we keep uh going forward and I think that's what we all intend to do no I appreciate all I understand the past I I know where we've been and I'm I'm we're trying to make it much better and we're we're putting every effort into to get us past that finish line so Bill I think we we've covered that uh that page of your presentation pretty well um can we move forward absolutely on to the next slide as they say well hopefully phase two I I think this is all good news um we had a very very successful bid opening this past Friday um starting off with the you could see the field on the page phase two uh if we turn that page uh we have factors continuing to
046influence construction uh we just want to keep the reminder out there that uh again we had a very successful bid opening uh we were under budget we'll talk about that in a second uh but some of the things we want to discuss with the board um is that the summer of 2024 uh we are seven weeks shorter this summer than we were last summer so uh we are very conscious on the amount of work that we applied toward the summer this year um to make sure that we can get it done and turn it back over to the school district a couple of those things are uh for example at the high school the tennis and the uh the parking lot there uh will be turned over in 2024 at the end of the summer
047time uh Manpower uh we're still dealing with uh some labor shortages uh According to some of the labor um that uh that we're talking to uh materials continue to be a problem uh We've Ed out some of the contractors as early as this morning and talked about some of the lead times um mechanical equipment is still about 8 to nine months out um some aluminum type items are still out there um but things seem to be getting better as we go on um electrical is another one um a good thing we we're looking at the wire right now but we don't have too much that's going to affect us as far as the electrical we don't have any um sub panels or anything like that going in um and some of the camp locations that
048we discussed here uh there's no camp locations happening at cooh or CCMS um and then some uh Confluence of extraordinary events um again here in the bubbles um just some of the things that can affect us uh like I said you know some things we can't control especially one of them is Mother Nature uh when especially when doing a field and a lot of outdoor work uh we do plan this into our schedule we took do take note of some of the makeup days in case it does rain uh for a week but moving on to the next page uh the phase two schedule questions yep sure yeah this bubble diagram uh production delays labor shortages after math of pandemic can we elaborate a little bit more I mean what's your current understanding of Labor
049shortages so labor shortages is is something that we are getting feedback straight from the supplier and the manufacturer um for example we get notifications from the supply houses um most recently we got something about bat insulation right um either a factory had closed now the entire demand is on the other four factories um something happened um you know the demand for construction right now in the United States is is is really high especially with schools um one of the things we discussed is that to give an example of of all the schools in New York state that are doing work right now that we're competing with um there were 900 applications I believe in front of us when we submitted this project 900 applications and that schools throughout New York State kind of gives you
050a broad perspective of how much construction just in the school industry that's happening so um when you have that high demand uh the labor shortages again this is just something that we're being told by the manufact facturers that they're having issues with um and again the demand um is as high for a lot of the materials that we're using after the pandemic another example is mechanical equipment every school every building is upgrading their mechanical equipment right to mve three filters to better air filtration it's the grants are flowing out of New York State and they have been right all the grants that we were receiving for mechanical everybody's upgrading mechanical so again it puts a a major load on and a demand on the factories that are outputting this type of equipment so laborers I
051mean where did the laborers go they just disappeared everywhere I mean it's it's I don't think they ran off anywhere again if you if you have a factory three years ago that was producing say 20,000 Air Handlers a year but now the demand is up to 80 Air Handlers a year there's got to be more manpower that's demanded to work a second shift to work a third shift to kind of keep up with the demand that's happening out there and what we're being told is that Manpower is not being found to produce that and which again is a trickle effect of the supply not being able to supply us fast enough because the factories can't keep up fast enough so it's not the local labor force here doing the work it's procuring the products that
052you need it's it's a labor force elsewhere that's not making the products that we need that's correct we got all the labors you want to install all the trades you want to install it but this is a global issue yeah not not a local issue I mean even Global I I have hard time understanding this like it's kind of like now an excuse for everybody every time you squeeze somebody into an answer I mean please give me an answer they play him you know Co I'm not they they play Ukraine they play you know now we have new militia The Who right I mean shutting down the Red Sea navigation uh let's I mean why why do we try to blame the whole world rather than kind of getting to the bottom of what it
053is I mean the construction is kind of booming United States I I'm not seeing it where is it I I I don't know I'm not a politician I I'm sorry in all in all seriousness not to get on a side one way or the other I can tell you that you in Ukraine cast iron here in the United States ductal iron P pipe in the United States the pig iron that's used to make that pipe most of it's come out comes out of UK brain and you can't get it anymore I I personally have felt 8 8 to 10 to 12 to 14 week delays in things that I'm trying to plan for today that I have to buy for maybe I'll use it just trying to get ahead so I I I can that's
054what I know I I I know another project I was on had Air Handlers that were months and months and months and months and months out to the point where they delayed another project borrowed them to for this project Etc so I mean I I can't validate all of it but I can I can certainly say there's there's definitely delays out there thank you for that leis I think I think it's important to note that the world kind of is still in that catchup phase from whatever we went through with covid and we're we're far from back to where we we were and so I I understand the frustration bass I I I have it in my own work environment um and it's just a nature of of the world right now that we live
055in and it's better to actually put it on the table and be aware of it than to shun and and not deal with it right and say just avoid it be so so so I appreciate bill you you you putting these things on but the ones that you're showing here are the the items that are as you call them extraordinary events they're really the events that are beyond our control correct and that and that's what I think is important to to to recognize first Christine and then Christian and I think um you know I would just I would say I don't I don't see these as excuses these are facts right I think the challenge before you and all of us is that to your point we have seven weeks this summer so how do
056we ensure that we're placing those orders ahead of time for these things that we're planning for those labor shortage locally as well as you know out there because we know this now but in October I don't want to here this is the reason things didn't get done I I don't think any of us do right so I think that's really now we've identified all this so now how do we plan knowing this right because I don't debate this is the reality we got to get ahead of that no I I appreciate the question and again again these these are just for awareness there's we're not saying that these are excuses they're not we yeah we just want to make sure that you know in case something comes up however we did plan for this so
057what we did is again uh we we talk to the manufacturers we talk to the suppliers uh we get letters from them right that um if they get a letter from from a from a a manufacturer like the most recent one is bat instulation they send it out to everybody it's just a a mass email so we kind of get this stuff as spam I guess is what you want to call it so talking to the the industry you know we do a lot of projects right we're we're not a small company so we feed off of the other projects that are out there what's happening right I'm talking to other project managers I'm talking to the owners of the company what are you seeing out there and we we meet two weeks as a
058company and we kind of discuss what are these things right what do we got to look for what are we what are we watching who do we got to call so when we built this schedule um and one of the things we discussed in our uh facilities meeting was um I'll give you a good example is we're going to have some downtime in the um lock um locker room because we know we're going to be able to get in there fast we know we're going to some of the things that we don't need to procure materials for right abatement demo things like that ceiling tiles very easy to get lighting fixtures very easy to get uh block things like that we're going to be able to put all the stuff together but we have mechanical
059equipment in there so when we sit down with our contractors after bid and today we did two qualifications we one with an electrical contractor and one with a mechanical contractor and we discuss these things and we say hey what's the current lead time that's how I know today if we ordered mechanical equipment today this mechanical equipment is an 8 to nine we lead time I know that because that's what I'm told so we had we have if you look at our schedule for phase two you see a gap in there and you can actually see us installing the equipment in February because we we anticipated that happening bill that was a great segue to that next slide but let's go to Christian first I guess first a little bit of levity just and also to
060know that people are actually watching us my wife just texted me about castar um in response to Lewis is that even her mechanics materials course at West Point they're having trouble sourcing castar in small beams just for instructional purposes so this is even a smaller thing and just what uh Lewis was talking about but I just what I wanted to ask about was to clarify that when you talk about Labor shortages these are labor shortages in production not labor shortages in installation because what I've heard from some people and maybe you just confirm or clarify for me is that public projects require Union uh contractors for these things and there there's a retirement of a lot of that labor force as the Baby Bo generation is reaching that thing and so they're actually seeing fewer
061and fewer in that is that what you're seeing or is that I know when I worked at bosis they closed the plumbing program not because there wasn't a demand for plumbers but they couldn't even find students in 17 high schools to fill one Plumbing class at at theosis and I'm wondering if that's what you're seeing too in some of these areas and what areas in particular you're might seeing the greatest shortages in um in like uh carpentry Plumbing HVAC Etc um I I don't know if I can specifically nail it down to a trade but um and again I I don't want to get into the politics of things but you're absolutely right um one of the things that we're seeing and in school districts as well is uh a lot of things are being
062built with mechanical you know mechanics uh robots right we're now building 3D things with 3D machines we're now using CNC machines to to cut metal we're yeah returning our our again I don't want to get the political things but returning some of our young minds away from the hand type skilled things that that we basis and we're turning them into hey press a button and it'll build it for you and I think you're right I think that generation and we're not seeing skilled labor come in you know as a youth anymore and what we're kind of seeing is you know people are are just they're still working and they're hitting retirement and they're leaving and the the shortages in what we could tell in the unions because we can count them right we know how
063many union members there are it there's more people leaving than there are coming in and that's kind of a problem for for many reasons have you been running to any of those in any particular areas that are shorter than than most so so in particular yep we we had an issue with a contractor out in um in Goan uh who we we needed Carpenters right we had four Carpenters on a job was a very big job and uh we wrote letters we did everything else and happened to be a pla so we went to the contractor and said need more labor I need more Carpenters he say well you know there's guys on the bench and they don't know what they're doing and they're going to send them to me and I'm going to for
064guys that don't know what they're doing I said well they're the union they guarantee you labor so we called the union ourselves and sure enough there were four carpers sitting on the bench uh able to be picked up for work when someone picked them up there's nobody else left right so you can call them all you want but if they don't have the labor to give you you're not going to get it um the option out there that pla are starting again I don't want to get into politics of things is we're starting the right project labor agreements where if the labor if the if the unions cannot provide the proper labor the contractor has a right to hire non-union labor that's getting written into these pla agreements because because of the issue that they
065can't Supply labor and I'm not trying to again talk about the labor unions and things like that but those are some of the things that were changing in our agreements as we're seeing um we're seeing this happening and just to add a a comment to that and before anybody gets the idea of wait a second let's go non-union because it's cheaper regard it's not so much that you have to hire unions to work for public funds is you have to pay prevailing wage to work for public funds so when when you under a pla a project labor agreement if you if if you decide to go non-union which you have the right to you still have to pay the same wage as you know the carpenter the electrician the Tradesman in the other building so
066it's not like you're going to save there's there's a truck of truckload of money somewhere that we can you know peel off yeah pring wages close to to union wages right now yeah so Bill phase two schedule do you want to move to the next slide please so um I know there was a gentleman who asked me um last meeting or may have asked Scott if there was um working construction schedule and uh I ran out of trees today so I do AP apologize I I was able to make one copy I think that was uh you that asked for the somebody asked for a uh construction schedule at the last meeting is this a presentation of a gift yeah I mean everybody could share it I was only able to print out one but
067we're talking about construction schedule so I wanted toel yeah out um again I do apologize I ran out of trees um what I get okay so phase two schedule um we obviously you see the red check mark there on that page uh we did receive our s approval on February 15th uh we immediately went out the bid and released our our documents on the street on February 19th um bids were due uh March 15th which is this past Friday um we had very successful numbers I I do have a chart on the following page we we'll talk about those numbers in a second um but what we're going through right now is we're qualifying these biders and I'll give you a quick example what that means so all the low biders and if they're close
068enough um if the second low bidder is close enough to the first we bring them both in and what we do is we go through and we qualify them we make sure everything that's in the scope of work the summary of work on the plans and in the specifications they own that they didn't miss anything and they're not going to tell us five months down the road that whoops I didn't have that right and then it becomes an argument so we do a page Turner we literally put the plans inspects in front of them we spend about an hour and a half two hours a piece per contractor if not longer and we do a page Turner page after page after page and we go through every piece and part of their scope of work
069to make sure they didn't miss anything and that's what we refer to as qualifying the contractor um next up we will be preparing the recommendations uh after the qualif qualifications uh which is a recommendation package that will be put together and given to the district for your recommendation consideration for approval and then following that we we hope to award contracts uh we did ask for we did talk about a special board meeting um that may have to happen for this we do appreciate the board for for stepping up and doing that again time is sensitive right we know that so the faster we can get the awards out the faster we can put a shovel on the ground Bill thank you for highlighting that just to to manage everyone's expectations when do you believe you'll
070be done with the the the qualification and have a recommendation to provide I I'm hoping to have everything into the district's Hands by no later than uh Friday morning if not uh Thursday afternoon is our goal but uh it's very lengthy to go through this we've we've done two out of the 11 so far so and we're working on it diligently to get it to you so can we do that on Friday Friday so so just quickly just show of uh nods heads are people available on Friday if we get through this work to to have a special meeting sometime in the afternoon or early evening bass is not okay uh so that's two we just need five I guess it depends on the time I might be later would not work later in the
071afternoon what's later 4 after 4 yeah probably okay it's my birthday but I'll be there be there okay so so so I think we have enough coverage so in the event that uh we're able to to to have a recommendation to act on we can act that uh that day all right thank you no thank you I appreciate that okay uh next moving over to the next Arrow we talked about the athletic Stadium um the schedule for your athletic Stadium uh we're hoping to break ground in April uh this year obviously 2024 and then turn it over June of 2025 um I just want to throw out there one of the reasons uh of the date here at June 25 to turn over is the the track coding um just in case there was a
072question I want to put it out there I want to be very transparent the track coding has a temperature range that it could be installed uh we don't believe we're going to hit that temperature range uh not only is there a temperature rain there is a curing period that has to continue with that temperature range and I believe it's about 50 degrees and Rising so uh we looked ahead we put the prepared the schedule we talked to our consultants and we do not believe we're going to we're going to uh be able to do that this fall I think it's just way too short so one of the reasons why the stadium is going into the into the following here all right um cooh uh our work there planned uh starts in July uh and
073ends in August of 2024 at the middle school we plan on uh starting July 2024 and turning the space back over in April of 2025 25 excuse me and High School uh we plan on starting the work uh if accepted this is actually the uh alternate work inside the lobby uh if you do choose to accept uh it will start in July 2024 and be turned back over April 2025 uh project close out uh we will uh we plan on starting project close out in Spring of 2025 and final reports uh cost reports we're hoping to um have back to you and ready uh summer of 2025 right if you turn to the next page uh phase two bid status so uh very overwhelming bids um because I believe we hit the right time of
074the year to to do this uh we talked about that too timing is everything uh we had a total of 26 biders um 10 10 General Contractors four electricians four mechanical four plumbing four site work contractors we also have co-op purchase contracts which include track coding scoreboard press pox grandstand field lighting and the athletic uh again we plan on doing the qualifications which uh started today the 18th and completing tomorrow the 19th and then we have I believe on the next page is the budget versus the low biders and award us notice to proceed uh we're hoping for March 22nd to get those notices out if you turn the page to the uh current bid financials um the column one there contract that's General mechanical Plumbing site uh to the to the right of that
075First Column the low bid so that's the actual uh low bids that we received um for each uh contract that we're hoping to award uh the next column over where it says High School alternate Lobby uh these are the alternate numbers that the board um has to choose um if if you if you choose to do so the next one over at the high school is the alternate is another alternate at the high school that's the parking lot that's outside for $47,000 um next column over are the co-op purchases we just discussed it's the tra surfacing uh we have a number at 431,000 field lighting at 516 athletic turf at 778 the scoreboard um we're under our budget right now um for this not by much um but about $100,000 the Press Box and grand
076stand totaling just a little over a million dollar uh which we're happy to say we are under budget so uh on the very bottom I tried to uh simplify it the best I could um the first row there where it says grand total base bid plus Co-op that's your minimal scope of work um that we need to accept on the base bid portion of things which totals 11, $121,000 the next row down would be your minimum plus your alternates if you choose to accept them at 11 million 483,000 third row down would be uh where we are under budget if you are just the choose the base bid items which were roughly around $622,000 under budget if you choose to accept the alternates with your base bid we leave us with $260,000 under budget any
077questions on that go ahead bass yeah um you know here just looking at those numbers and they are again characterized by being the low bid how how are you making sure that low bid translates to competence and performance and and and so that's part of the the qualifications we discussed right so we take the low better sometimes the second low B those numbers are really close and we sit them down that's the qualifications that we we're doing today and tomorrow and we we literally spend as as little as two hours if not more with each contractor and we do a physical page turn and we make sure that they have every piece every scope of work every piece of equipment that's in those drawings they have covered in their base bit but by going as
078like first shot is let's take the low beds you excluded the high beds how do you make sure that you didn't exclude the good people okay so so Wick's law unfortunately you have to accept the lowest bidder lowest responsible bidder I rephrase that uh that's the law um so what we do is we make sure the the lowest bidder is responsible if we find he's not responsible right we do background checks on them we do entity searches on them to make sure they've been in business for 5 years that's the minimum requirement here by the state but Wick's Law requires us as a uh School District to accept the lowest responsible bidder we cannot choose who to hire how do you make sure that the low bidder doesn't have a strategy of I'm going to
079low bid I'm going to get the award then I'm going to make my money later down the road with change order after change order because we spend more than two hours if we have to makeing sure he's got every piece of scope and he admits to it we record it not only do we record it I I take notes during this meeting and I make that person sign them so so we go through and we make sure he's got everything that those drawings and specs are telling us to build your project and we're making sure he agrees that he has everything in those bids and specs that he's not missing anything now we're not saying unforeseen happen right that's the majority of where your change wordss come from it happened to us in phase one
080we opened up a wall in a bathroom and discovered many many things that we didn't want to find right that that set us back but we do our due diligence to make sure that the The Architects drawings and specs and our summary of work is covered and they agree that they have it included in their base bit thank you yep hey Bill just bass hits a interesting point how far off were the covers to the low bids and were those numbers anything that would represent a possible risk to this condition that you that we'd be within budget and pursuing phase two right now based on what you seen good that's a very very good question um I actually have another document and again I we just opened up bids on Friday so we're trying to
081do our best to prepare you guys for tonight um I'm going to put together a much simpler um column right a chart that shows you where our budget number was for that trade where we hit and what the difference was believe it or not some of these contractors came over budget in their bids and you know per our lines some of them came under budget which gave us the ultimate uh savings but um yeah we do have one contractor one plumbing contractor that is half of the other four literally and we haven't vetted him out yet but that's one contractor that we are looking at very closely thank you you're welcome anyone else so please continue Bill thank you well thank you guys for your time um I'm going to turn the mic over to
082Jim from tetra Tech I'll finish out the rest of the presentation good evening uh Jim buard project manager with tetr good to see you uh so continuing on the phase two project scope so really we have four major pieces of scope in phase two at three different building sites so at this building Lee Road Cornwall Elementary um really doing a lot of uh replacement of ceilings and lights in classrooms primarily at the high school as Bill mentioned that's really um the building work is related to the uh the lobby the vestibule area so that's uh adding cooling to to those spaces as well as part of that doing some renovation with lights and ceiling reconfiguration as well in those spaces um again that was all by alternate for that piece of work and then at
083the Cornwall Central Middle School um they're really looking at uh renovating the existing locker rooms and as part of that there was some uh existing underutilized space Maybe is the best way of putting it uh that we were able to capture to create a a new classroom space and then uh really the last major scope item there is uh reconfiguring reconstructing uh the gymnasium mechanical uh units that are in there and as part of all of those pieces of work there's also some hazardous materials abatement that that's part of that if you flip the the page to the next uh piece here we have the the fourth piece of scope that I was referring to which is uh the High School athletic Stadium um I'll just go through it really quickly here but then we
084have another page where you can at least get a visual on it so looking at reconstruction of the existing tennis courts uh upgrading the the field so reconstructing it in totality so that it it contains new artificial turf and all the other pieces and parts that that need to go with that including all the stuff you don't see underneath with drainage and and whatnot uh the new stadium lighting uh as Bill mentioned before the resilient track surface say uh which also goes over the the tennis courts for coloring and and things of that nature uh the new bleachers and Press Box uh and also adding a new larger scoreboard and as part of that um there's another piece in conjunction with the the alternate for some additional parking um to also tie back this part's
085base bid uh to sort of add some stripes Ing and connection from a pedestrian safety standpoint back to the adjacent uh main parking lot so that there's a a safe pedestrian access over to the New Stadium from those parking areas so if you flip the page um there's a visual on there which uh gives you a rough idea of of what that that looks like uh for work you're going to see a number of notes on here which I'm happy to get into if you want but uh the main Takeaway on the notes is just handicap accessibility to both the stadium bleacher areas uh tennis courts things of that nature so that there's an accessible pathway for everything um related to this also uh talking with some of the district ad Administration about maybe coming
086up with a different graphic to to show that uh to help the district you know publicize that new work to the future I guess any questions on the scope pieces for phase [Music] two anybody for for Jim on this no Jim let me ask a quick question on on this alternate issue um I remember the vestibules being discussed a long time ago um and I'm not sure this was an original phase two item or a phase three item as in to be done after this first capital project is initiated can you can you provide some insight my my memory is is challenging me right now remember the walkth through with Walter when he was specifying this issue of the the vestibule so at the high school is that the one you're referring to okay so
087um at the high school what it was and it was done as an alternate for Budget protection just in case the what if scenario with the how the bids came in um fortunately as Bill had had presented there is the option there's there's sufficient money to be able to to take that but basically the air handler that serves that space needs to be replaced and as part of it it was uh now I'm trying to remember adding uh cooling to it because as I recall it doesn't currently have cooling right so it was trying to make sure that it was a a more appropriate environment for those the use of those spaces so so when you say alternate in the bidding process was was was that because of the risk that the bids might exceed
088that which had been budgeted there was always the potential for that there always is right and and and the focus of the work at the high school obviously is is outdoors correct but but is that alternate was that an ad to the project list and I believe it was all original now you're yeah you're making me have to go back in the memory bank as well it it was yeah so so what what what you're doing here is just embarking on a little bit of strategy it it was a bit strategy absolutely and bid it this way and bid it that way correct and then you had a breakout price to distinguish between the two yeah and if I could just jump in here part of the reason also was to put in an alternate
089is because it gave us a little bit of insurance because the alternate work I forget let's just say it's a half a million dollars we could easily partial that out if the other pieces of the job came in over budget Say by 500,000 we didn't want to jeopardize the entire project by having to award everything by breaking it out as an alternate we can say we're not doing it because we need that money to do everything else understood yeah strategy it's all about strategy it was clearly strategy yep thank you for that I guess with that we're the last slide is questions we're already there any other additional questions I I think we've we've covered this and and received a lot of good information this this evening thanks to you both for for this information
090very helpful you thank you okay so then that takes us to um our reports and since we covered the student reports uh earlier we'll move to superintendent report Terry uh so I'll be brief in the interest of uh time uh I updated the board for uh the day after the upk lottery uh kind of the um weight lless status and um things that nature um one of the things that is uh a pleasant uh surprise for this goor round is I remember I've been reporting for the past two years about a 25% decline rate since we've added our fourth provider um I'm only at weight list number four and we're at full capacity so we're at a 95% acceptance rate which is is a great I think we finally got into figuring out which uh
091providers our families are seeking and that right balance of location and um preferences of our families but that's a significant change with that that still equals you know 50 plus families on the weight list so you'll see when Harvey presents we added that as a um as a need for the district along with the price um we do feel that we could confidently fill another classroom it's just for the board and Community to decide whether that's in the cards for this budget cycle so just quick upk update but it's a it's a great um spot for us to be in that that is Terry thank you for that 95% in anything is an exceptional um number and so thank you for for getting the word out such that uh these uh turnaways were not uh
092as bad as they've been in the past so I think people are getting it so fantastic good job okay um takes me to the next item which is uh president's report I will uh in the interest of time I think we've a little bit uh longer than then had anticipated on the evening I will um just uh reiterate what I've said before in regards to making progress on our our board goals um I think we're making good inroads on the on the survey that will be coming out probably will'll hit everyone's uh uh screens after the The Break um in April and uh we hope to have all the collated results to discuss as a board uh probably come May uh which is a little slippage there's some contractual things that have taken longer than
093anticipated I guess one of those exigent circumstances that uh we listen to Bill Divine talk about we could add a bubble for for contract uh negotiations on that which had nothing to do with the District just to be clear it had everything to do with the provider and what Bose required so I think that's being settled and we'll be able to move forward and get the surveys to everyone to get their responses and be better for it um with that I would then like to go to the next item which is the consent agenda and in the interest of uh time I'll just ask is there any item on the consent agenda that anyone would like to have pulled um separate Christian sir um number five and number eight and I'm sure that I have
094the right numbers this time so just to clarify placement of uh CSE cases which is number five and number eight is the first reading of two policies correct okay five and eight we will remove uh bass I wanted to remove eight as well oh okay okay so so we have two for for for eight very good and um anyone else no so so we have uh the consent agenda let's get a motion covering the items uh two three uh four six seven nine and 10 may I have a motion please well we need to get uh 11 and 12 in there too oh 11 12 thank you 11 11 and 12 up thank you Brendan for that so moved second all in favor I any opposed all right motion passed now um first number five
095which just bear with me as I go placement of CPS and csse cases um a motion please so second second anyone okay thank you um discussion I just have a conflict so I have to abstain okay thank you for that any other items on that no good um after discussion all in favor I any oppos all right number five passes let the record reflect Christian D a conflict has abstained thank you okay brings us to item number eight which is the first reading of board policy 0105 and 10 what I'd like to do is separate these two policies and could I have a motion for consideration of or New Port policy first reading of 0105 some moov a second thank you all right discussion bass uh yeah thanks John so for uh people watching the
096video right now and or down the road uh policy number 0105 is a new policy proposed uh to the full board after going through to uh discussions debates in the policy committee and uh it is the diversity Equity inclusion policy Dei for short now I I'd like uh Again full transparency I'd like to tell the public that uh the proposed policy you're reading is the third third draft third draft um and uh you know first draft discussion then when another draft more comments discussion third draft is coming to the floor right now uh but uh I'd like everybody to know that there are four members on the policy committee we voted on this third draft and the result was 3 to one one against I was against it and let me tell you why um
097first draft lot of comments they were implemented Ed second draft was much better than the first draft first draft didn't look it was a good uh lot of effort put into it but didn't didn't everybody there was unanimous agreement that it did not sound like a policy um sounded more like a report you know so second draft was was huge Improvement third draft again huge Improvement but I had two comments that I shared with everybody with the with the committee and I made it very clear I thought those two comments are very important to me if you know if I were to approve the policy and those are my comments like in the policy uh there's a part that that's called I mean titled accountability transparency and review and ended with this following statement that's
098what we're proposing tonight right I mean the what's proposed tonight the statement says the superintendent will regularly report progress on the equity inclus inclusivity it says should say uh inclusion uh and diversity dii plan and outcome so I what what kind of struck me is the term saying gular report regularly report progress the Supermen will regularly report progress um my comment was this may well turn out to be not the best use of time for the superintendent and the board alike I'd like to see a more more precise language as to what is meant by regularly uh for instance what is the frequency of such an effort how many total hours from the superintendent time would be spent in an in an academic year etc etc etc I made that comment and I there was
099an email now you can foil emails you can see check every single word I'm saying right now I was very clear I said you know uh without having this kind of clarity I can't approve right I can't approve so the other comment was in another paragraph in the proposed policy and that is the Dei committee John the title is the committee I'm almost done respect we're not having a committee meeting here almost done almost done almost done so leis I I understand it's not a policy committee they've already met it sounds like they've gotten to we're arguing the case of one person we're not argu we're not aru I just want the public to know exactly what happened we're giving voice not arguing to a dissenter which I as a board member I think we
100owe each other the the opportunity for if we desent to to be heard and so that I think that's part of the the whole Dei initiative right give people voice and let them be heard so so bass I understand we have a lot of other things to get to tonight and this is only the first reading but the challenge of this road is now someone feels obligated to defend their position M and we get stuck in this spiral policy meeting and and part of I guess my role as the overseer of this this meeting is to kind of manage that process so so I appreciate the the heads up that don't let it spiral out of control my objective is not to but I do want to give voice to Bass to understand the reasons
101why he's objected to this current draft so please B continue thank you JN appreciate it and thank you Lois thank you um so I I was almost done as I said there's a paragraph last paragraph in the proposed policy that that's titled Dei committee and says as needed the Dei committee will also provide the superintendent with recommendations for how the district can better promote diversity equity and inclusion and I said okay fine but please add something to to to to to make it clear that such a committee can do recommendation but this recommendation would have no guarantee of a concurrence by the superintendent and or the CCSD Board of Education because every time that you say there are recommendation what can be implied is that okay we're going to going to take those recommendations we're
102going to implement those recommendations I wanted to make it clear that that shouldn't be the case no nothing is implied the DI committee comes with the recommendations the recommendations would be debated they might be turned down they might be accepted I said please add that language that language was not added therefore I cannot support this policy okay bass thank you for that I I I understand what your reasons are I'm not sure without going through all our policies where we have that normal procedure identified and and and described I do believe that we do have in our operations recommendations are vetted they're vetted by the administration those recommendations that they find to be of value find their way to the board and then the board vets it discusses it and takes action appropriately whether it
103be as you see probably more times than not concurrence or in other cases where we've all sat together where there was a rejection of what was proposed and a request to go back to the drawing board and come back to the board with a better solution so so I appreciate your concern but I understand that we don't or have not inserted such language in every other policy that has such uh uh verbiage in terms of roles and responsibilities because overarching it is the board's responsibility to approve it is Terry and his staff's responsibility to uh recommend and I don't see that changing with the the the policy that's been drafted for any avoidance of Doubt but I want to hear others because I think Christian you also may have asked for this policy to be
104I asked for 4810 4810 okay okay good all right all right so any other comments as it pertains to Christine I just think it's worth mentioning that this policy also was was reviewed um in earlier forms by members of the community and the public and they also had an open form to give feedback to share ideas to share concerns and this third draft came to the committee with all of that input as well and with taking into consideration what the policy committee had also brought back to to Terry so it has had a lot of input eyes and um recommendations made that have been you know Incorporated to to some extent and so thank you for that Christine because I think that's a valuable part of the process that maybe we didn't cover when we
105first introduced this this item today um that this has been a a work in progress rogress and Terry I don't know if you want to describe how many times you've met with that uh that that committee uh and gotten what it's taken to get to where we are today I know there's been a lot of give and take I know there's been a lot of cutting and I do understand just for the avoidance of doubt that what we have before us is a is a product that's that's been tailored for Cornwall and if you compare Cornwall to maybe other districts or even to the quote unquote state provided guidance this is markedly different and I understand that everyone and we talked about this earlier tonight about terms and and triggers and people hear certain terms
106and they think one thing or they think the worst maybe on both extremes but the verbiage that's in this policy I I I ask everyone to look at it very closely because we're not to use the term that I heard Bill Divine use I don't want to get political here this has nothing to do with identity politics this has everything to do with individual Merit and making sure that our kids who are being developed and educated and sent out into the world through this school district are armed to contribute to society Christian I just want to Echo Christine's point and I just want to to highlight um the work that this is uh the product of listening um this CH draft change and I want to applaud uh particularly superintendent Dade because I think he
107listened to comments that were made uh by myself and by others and he went back and did you know um thankless work to revise the draft several times and several other people who are around this stas and as well as I can see members of the DI Community uh Committee in the audience I'm not going to name drop everyone but it was a lot of work by a lot of different people who I think were working um who working you know to make a good product and they don't think it's a finished product they don't mean like they expect that this will be developed over time and I think I it needs to be said that many people were open and listened throughout that process and I think that um I just want to say
108that I appreciate that and I think that means that it is a proposal worth supporting Christian thank you for that I I think it's important to note that that the objective of all our policy framework is to put us all in the same sheet to unify us not to divide us and so I I applaud Terry and the staff for including the community and the engagement that's occurred I the process that we followed I think is is the is basically the blueprint for success in other endeavors that we may encounter going forward which is you take Community engagement you think about it you you go back to them provide them feedback to the input they provided and then you as a you know a leadership group committee what have you work together to refine it
109to get to a place where it's not perfect but you know what it's passable and productive for our purpose knowing that as we strive for excellence every day it will only get better with time I just want to be on the record of saying I think it's pretty darn good actually it might not be perfect but I don't want to insinuate that it's going to always get better I think it's a really solid place for us to start as a community and I know that's not what you intended I just you know me words matter so I want to be really clear I think it's a really solid um policy that um has taken out all that extra stuff political and everything else and creates a really great foundation for us as a community to
110be able to have um open dialogue teachable moments and and continue to move us forward as a as a community that is inclusive of all um people that that are here in our district exactly Christine I didn't want to insinuate any any else on that it's just something new is never perfect out of the gate and and uh I I do recognize the hard work and and and the and the teamwork actually that that went into developing this I think it like I said it's a blueprint for the future uh and we should feel Comfort comfortable and confident in that as a result Richard go ahead yeah thank you real quick um from The Outsiders point of view because I'm not on the policy committee or the Dei committee but I know the last meeting
111was live streamed uh the Dei committee and I just have to say I was so impressed with the dialogue and who was there right we had Parents community members staff students who who brought forth some really great ideas and uh observations so I think this should be the blueprint moving forward on how we get things done you know working together collaborating I think I I was very impressed by what I saw at that meeting and I applaud our Administration involved for making that happen and hope to see that happen more moving forward thank you for that Richard okay so um I think in the interest of time I I'd like to wrap up the discussion on this item and uh put it for a vote this is the first reading of policy 0105 um all
112in favor I I any opposed let the record reflect one oppose and uh any abstentions none okay so we'll accept that as the first reading and now I'd like to to move to policy 4810 um also a first reading of but this is an existing policy um I have a motion for consideration second thank you uh discussion Christian um so my concern is with the addition to this policy which I guess is uh number three uh where it says the AFF forementioned guidelines pertaining to all CCS staff members and extend beyond the classroom and so forth um if you look at the controversial isal language in most districts It generally only applies to outside speakers not even to staff because the idea is that your staff is people you hired whose professionalism you trust and
113basically outside speakers who speak to students there are some guidelines for what they might say in front of them and the logic there generally is is that in a classroom because students are compelled to be in the classroom and they could face discipline or sanction for not being in the classroom listening there are limitations on what teachers not just as professionals but just in a sense out of respect for the rights of their students are limit are are are limited um this is where and look I would say that I would prefer a policy that trusted our teachers and trusted their professionalism to to do that and so even the existing policy I would even back but what I'm concerned about is the extension of this policy to school event and sponsored activities because that
114includes clubs that includes things like the cornal Community Coalition distracted dragons and a lot of could involve SAR City Sports and particularly because this is not just like a hypothetical concern because last year a parent invoked this particular policy in regards to no place for hate and I just think that extending that a classroom standard to non-classroom activities because these non-classroom activities are voluntary you do not have to join a club you don't have to attend a club and as a result you allowed to have clubs to have clubs activities Etc to serve a particular community of interest of students so if you're running let's say and I might not have the language it but this is what it's called in my school like an LGBT Alliance we do not necessarily have to have the
115advisor give range to all major views that might exist for any student who might walk into that club because that undermines it or for example one last year with a Cornwall Community Coalition about uh drug abuse um I don't think that was I can at least say there's another view out there that is substantial and wasn't covered and I don't think that it should be because there's a point to that where they're trying to communicate a message so I think it's dangerous to extending these beyond the class the classroom standard to non-classroom activities and I would urge to send this back to the policy committee and maybe reconsider the the amendment that they've made um on this policy Lewis I just have one note Christine says it words matter um with the ad um blah
116blah blah blah blah neither s nor avoided in the educational setting no problem number two down there says notify the the department chair head in advance avoid nor avoid it as like a you didn't plan for it but happened but now I have to notify the chair one in advance it's not it's it's it's a it's a bit of smithing I wouldn't say no to it I wouldn't vote it down but maybe between now and second reading they can think about it the committee can toss it back and forth and and take it where it will go so those two items Jim is not here this evening um but before we kick it back to a committee I I just want to hear everybody um on that any anyone else have a position on what
117they've read in this policy on the new ad I'm going to come to you in a second um any other items on it all right so we so so so we have two one's a what I'd call A A word smithing that that that that that that terminology is actually in the document multiple times um I believe but uh um but Christian you're you're you could you just re summarize your your position so I get it right my position is that I would take out I mean if I had my magic wand I would even more limit it than the existing policy but particularly I would take out the entirety of number three uh would be my preference because I think it opens up a can of worms I think it would undermine some of
118our activities and I also think that you know this neither sought nor avoided you can't prove that someone has you can prove that someone sought something you can't prove that they avoided it and I think the reaction to most with most teachers Club advisers Etc is just to avoid it and that would not serve our students well because it's very easy just not to bring it up and just basically say you know silence and I think that is not particularly good for a variety of different groups and activities that exist in this District in other districts of the area so I think that as written I don't think I could support it but I think that it is not because of the policy as a whole understood thank you for for that Brendan go yeah
119just to clarify just one point that Christian brought up um maybe this changes your position maybe it doesn't the the neither sought nor avoided means you wouldn't be the one to bring it up but if a student brought it up it was brought up organically you would not avoid it so to use your example of you know if there's a club and and some story of the day is brought up you wouldn't you wouldn't say no no no we we can't address that you would facilitate a conversation about it but you wouldn't take a firm position you wouldn't inject your own opinion about it uh you would just kind of manage the the uh the back and forth among the students you know I don't know if that's the only issue you had with it
120but that was the intent of the language um but to the larger point I think where we're probably going for to this with this is for the policy committee to take another look at it so we can certainly incorporate those thoughts in that reading that revision well we we'll we'll get there in a second Brendan thanks for that um Richard no you're good so I Terry's been wanting to talk and I said let let the board talk first let's hear everything and then all right Terry please uh share your thoughts I was I would just want to jump in just with further context because um I sat through the policy committee um discussions um the policy as it states I mean we trust all of our employees but there's policies in in place to protect
121against what what ifs so the policy as it stands is limited to teachers and is limited to the classroom that is not the educational setting uh that we live in I can't hold court with eight students over there as a TA in a spouse my views on X Y or Z so it was really an attempt to capture the entire educational setting is the Cornwall Central School District the the adults that we trust are teachers and administrators uh support staff things that nature so it was really an attempt to um further expand what we really mean by um you shall not delve into controversial issues and um espouse your views the the example that we gave um in and the policy committee is you know the best teachers the best um adult Role Models can
122lead a discussion and you can't tell where they stand on a controversial issue because they're truly a facilitator of of that discussion so it was really meant to capture Beyond teachers there's lots of adults who our kids look up to and this type of discussion happens outside of the classroom so that's really the intent of of number three thank you for that Terry um and obviously the policy committee has gone through this with somewhat of a uh um a fine tooth comb right and and so as as I look at it I'm I'm looking around um is the is the sense that and I don't want to put it to a vote if it's not going to pass but I'll be happy to just get the sense of the committee do we want to put
123this back to the to the policy committee or are people comforable able with what's written here I myself I'm comfortable what I've I've seen here I understand the the pros and the cons of it but I think Terry makes a very accurate and and important um note that the educational setting here extends beyond the classroom and so the policies that Define what we consider to be appropriate behavior should also extend beyond the classroom to cover all those activities where our kids are actually involved and come in contact with staff and the like so I think that's an important ad not something that I would look to to ask the committee to to rethink and and remove but I'm just one voice of tonight we have seven so um go ahead bass thanks John I want
124to add more context again to what uh Terry just said thanks Ste I mean again lot lot should go to to Terry because I mean he's he was you know like you know he sits in the policy committee and we come with these all ideas and debates and everything he absorbs everything and revises and and I can say I'm so in support of that uh that policy little bit of context I did have a proposed policy that was absorbed in this modification of an existing policy I don't if that's clear right so this this is we're modifying 4810 4810 is not kind of uh right now proposed from scratch no it's a tiny little modification to an existing policy that's teaching about okay controversal issues and my comment was I have an idea about what
125about everything that goes outside the classroom going to your point Christian uh that is that is not teaching and even I proposed kind of going Beyond beond the word teaching right I mean like but again now Terry put it right because you can be outside the classroom and you're still educating in a way uh so again I mean I was talking about uh how do you deal with controversial issues outside the class room and that's why now we're looking at an amendment if you want of an existing policy okay that's one two uh going back to a term you use like trust like you said if you have magic one you would go and strike down even parts of an exist you know uh existing policy itself why because you trust the teachers just kind
126of I'm not trying to put words in your mouth but that's what I understood because you have so much trust in the teacher teachers you don't want to do this you don't want to do kind of and try to regulate what's going on outside the classroom I want to ask you a question when we propose a Dei policy does that mean we do not trust the teachers that's why we want to have a policy so so short answer no yeah so so I I I think the purpose of policies in general is to put everyone on the same page and and and and and that's the benefit of it all and so I I I appreciate Christian your quick response bass I I understand there's some ads here that that you were supporting and I
127appreciate your support of them I I I I want to avoid this this this back and forth on items that that really don't matter in the grand scheme of what the board's position is um and what I want to understand right now is the board's position on this first reading to include the revision that I think some people have referred to as number three if if they're fine with that um or not and so um in the interest of time because we do have some important budget stuff to talk about I would just and if if it if it fails it fails but uh all in favor of first reading of 4810 please uh signify by i i i any opposed let the record reflect one in opposition any extensions no thank you everyone fantastic
128okay so that I think concludes the consent agenda and now for our Marquee presentation we had spotlights earlier but now we have our Marquee which is uh Harvey in continuing our discussion on putting together a budget for for next school year so with that Terry do you have anything you want to add no take it away Harvey thank you good evening so tonight we begin once more uh our third presentation on the Public Presentation of next year's budget and before we get into tonight's main areas of topic which we talked about talking about expenditures and talk about Revenue I first want to go to the topic of universal prek to piggyback off of what Terry said before we have to we have to update our needs assessment to reflect what has come to light just
129recently with respect to the upk as a result of the lottery that we just held this was information we did not have before so now we can present it in a in a meaningful way uh essentially based on the number of participants that or people who want to participate in the upk program in conjunction with the fact that we're being able to expand the number of placements or the number of communitybased uh facilities we can open it up to another seats 20 seats equals another class okay the cost for that would be about $52,000 our previously identified needs and so it brings it up to about a million 75,000 76,000 okay this again was not known to us before and we think it's really critical and important to addit needs assessment is that the $52,000
130is the net result of what the true cost is for that extra class less the aid that we'll be getting from the state okay remember we don't get 100% Aid okay we'll be visiting this next meeting when we when we have more information uh but I just wanted to plant that seed with you and it's important to know okay so where do we now um we've had our does this keep cutting out yeah I'm sorry okay much better so when we first uh pulled back to curtain we recognized that we were about $239,000 negative with regards to where we stood you'll notice tonight I'm presenting we're about $251,000 negative there's a slight $112,000 change as a result of we got late information with regards to one of our upk provid ERS had an increase in
131their tuition okay again it wasn't something that we knew about before I didn't even interpret it or or perceive it to be an open item but they notified us so consequently we have to increase that that cost brings us to a little bit greater deficit right now okay so tonight we really want to focus on the revenue we talked about expenditures last time how do we pay for everything it really comes down to three uh distinct areas one is the state aid that's the money we get directly from the state next is the school tax levy school taxes we get directly from the taxpayers the community and then we have miscellaneous let's start with the state aid so for 2425 our Revenue projections are about $33.5 million that is directly from the the governor's proposal
132okay the state uh the legislature and the governor have not yet come to terms and identified a final budget so this is all the information that we and every other school district has what the governor put forth now let's talk about State a and what has at least transpired since we've last spoken the two houses have released their budget the Senate and the house the assembly have released their budget the governor's proposal the first bullet point there is really important the first bullet point identifies what the governor's proposal has reduced our fi uh uh Foundation Aid by because she has putting certain restrictions and certain limitations on the formula if we go to the second bullet point um this is what I think is is extremely favorable uh from a budgetary perspective both houses are
133in agreement on the following items number one they are rejecting the governor's proposal to alter the uh Foundation Aid okay as you can see there we're being short changed about $363,000 so if the house both houses win we we would get that 363 that would help us tremendously additionally they want to both increase the aable salary cap from bosis from 30 to $60,000 so what does this mean um we send our children to bosis and they employ people out there teachers and we get aid from bosis on the cost that we incur the problem is that if they're paying a teacher $100,000 we don't get Aid on a 100 we only get Aid on the first $30,000 of that teacher salary so what they're looking to do is bump it up to 60,000 this has
134been something that's been reoccurring for many many years um it just has never kept up with the times as salaries increased so this would be significant to us uh as with any other school district I can't quantify it because bosis calculates it and knows there are numbers but it would it would definitely help us tremendously the other thing that they're looking to do is increase the funding for Universal prek right now the difference between the tuition and the aid we get depending on the provider is anywhere from about3 to $4,000 okay so if we have an extra 80 if we have 80 students going to Universal pre and even if we got $11,000 more in Aid we'd pick up another $80,000 which would be very good okay so that's the latest on state a I
135wish I had more but nothing has come out other than this next we move to the school tax levy as I mentioned to you the numbers that we're using uh right now is a it reflects what we currently have as an increase for this year one 1.2% on the levy we could go as high as 3.12 which is what they call the maximum allowable tax levy I don't think anybody even wants to think about that we would we wouldn't go there um but it is important to note that for every 1% that we increase over the 1.2 or percentage thereof it's about $515,000 okay so if we we went up another half a percent it'd be about $260,000 so what does this really mean I I mentioned that I factored in 1.2% what does this
136mean to the taxpayers what would their tax bill look like next year and depending on the fair market value of your house again not the assess value but the fair market value if you can sell your house for $350,000 your taxes would go up $74 for the year so that gives you some perspective on on what it means next we want to look about we want to talk about miscellaneous Revenue so miscellaneous Revenue projected for next year is about just short of 1.4 million about 800,000 of that is interest income as we know the interest rate environment right now is extremely favorable and we are benefiting from it okay um and we hope it stays that way the last item there again just put's open items is the state aid figures once we have that
137we'll be in a much stronger position to know where we're headed now last week or last meeting I should say we spoke about how do we get rid of this deficit how do we even consider what's on the needs assessment and there's really two ways we either get more state aid Andor we can dip into our reserves Andor you can increase the tax levy okay state aid will be the driving force on our conversation for the next two meetings but if we were to consider dipping into our reserves and our fund balance this is going to give you a little bit of an idea of where we stand right now so we currently have I put up there a three-year uh showing we currently have two types of fund balance our first one is what's
138known as unassigned we currently have almost 3.5 million in unassigned we are allowed and what I've done for you is I've given you a description of each one of these and and some insight the unassigned fund balance is what we do not have to identify for any specific reason it is our rainy day fund if something comes up we can tap into it okay we are restricted however to 4% of our budget whatever our budget is times 4% and we are at the a limit right now at at three almost 3.5 okay so that's good the other kind of fund balance that we have right now is what's known as assigned fund balance assigned fund balance is something that the board identifies that helps bring down the tax levy okay we currently have 2.5 million
139in this year's budget as assigned as I mentioned there it's really important that this amount is sustainable uh because if we put a huge number in there we're going to have a problem the subsequent year because if we can't at least equal that we're going to have a gap okay and I think as I as I mentioned here uh in the last bullet point I think that a reasonable and realistic sustainable number for us has been historically somewhere between two and $2 and A5 million and that's not a number that's budgeted for or baked in you might be thinking well where does that number come from as I mentioned to you the budget is formulated in such a way that we have to anticipate the worst situation in some accounts and if that doesn't happen
140if that dark cloud isn't over the district every single day we will inherently have some kind of a surplus at the end of the year and that's where this comes from let's shift now to some of the reserves that we have the first Reserve that we have is something called a tax Sher Reserve anytime somebody challenges their assessment and we are requ and they win we are required typically per court order to reimburse the taxpayer the amount of the reduction in assessed value okay we currently have we have a we have an extremely uh detailed spreadsheet we are required to be put on notice every time someone files one of these requests we keep track of them we file them and if we're not we are not held liable for that um so they make
141sure that they get them to us the exposure that we currently have is about 1.25 million that's about 30% of what the maximum exposure is and the reason I say 30% is because that's really what our historical payout has been so if someone is challenging their assessment and they think it's it should be a million less historically it it'll end up somewhere around 300,000 so we have 1.25 million in what I what I see as open uh liability and you can see right now we have about 841 in the reserve it'd be nice to try to bump that up a little bit to put us in a little bit stronger position there the next Reserve that we have is the ERS the Employee Retirement System and the TRS teachers retirement system pension Reserve every year
142you hear me talk about you know the rate is this the rate is that it went up a little it goes down a little ERS and TRS are are tied directly to the economy tied directly to the stock market and we've been doing very well um but there's going to come a time when just like everything else things come up things go down and we want to be in a position where we're ready for that um you can see here we had a um we've been building this Reserve up pretty nicely over the last three years and that's a good thing um it's important to keep in mind that what we typically pay um TRS for instance our total salaries that are applicable to TRS are about $35 million okay so if there was just
143a 2% increase okay there's 700,000 right off the bat that we're going to have to pay okay of just an increase okay so we want to keep pace and we want to keep you know conscious of how the Market's doing how things are doing out in the economy and um even though it looks you know 2 million 1.2 seems like a lot of money which it is we want to be ready for that downturn the next Reserve is called the employee benefit acrude liability Reserve very simply put when somebody retires the they contractually may be entitled to their sick time and their vacation time that they have acced this benefit Reserve gives us the ability to dip in and pay pay them if we need to we currently have about a half a million dollars
144in there and I think that's really that's really adequate based on our level of retirements that we've been having um over the years um next we have an unemployment insurance Reserve this is a very small one that we started years ago we have not added to it we are on uh what's known as the direct payment method and what that really means is that when someone goes out on unemployment if they collect a dollar we have to reimburse the state to Dollar if they collect 10,000 over their unemployment period we have to reimburse the state to $10,000 so it's dollar for dollar that we have to we have to pay out um generally speaking um we're usually anywhere between 50 and $75,000 on on you know a typical year so we don't have a lot
145in there um it' be nice to have up to150 which is really like two years reserve for those kind of situations lastly is our capital reserve um we have and I when I say we have two Capital reserves realistically you only really have capital reserve number two I'm showing number one because I'm showing historical data capital reserve number one really applied to what the Architects and the construction managers the project that they were talking about we have already dedicated that money it was $5 million and it's being used right now for the current project so what we did back in May of 2022 we implemented the taxpayers approved the ability for us to fund another $5 million capital reserve currently right now we're just under $3 million and we can go up to five okay
146it's important to note so you know you look at these numbers and you see the total 13 million it's like wow that's a lot of money you got to keep things into perspective the first thing being that the capital reserve once that gets up a little higher you know we're going to be looking at another project that's gone okay that's going to bring you right down to about 10 million um you have to remember the assigned fund balance two and a half million we're using that this year you got to take that away okay so that number is is a is really nothing more than a snapshot in time okay it's not something that we're going to have forever and ever and ever but we want to keep it at that level lastly we have
147two meetings left our next meeting is on April 8th we should have we hope to have a uh a budget from by the state which will then identify exactly what we're going to get and once we have that information we will know better what we need to do uh in terms of our needs assessment as well as filling up and and and funding that deficit that we have that's going to be a very important meeting and then lastly we always have even though we have to adopt the budget on the 18th we always have the ability to still make decisions right up until that vote any questions Brendon go ahead thank you John and thank you Harvey this is uh starting to uh to come into view um so I just want to go through
148a couple of questions just to be sure that I understand and then maybe some some follow-ups so you mentioned that the needs assessment is uh updated needs assessment with the additional 20 seats would be uh a mil 76,000 just to confirm um the projected 1.2% tax levy increase that does not include that million plus that's just the rollover budget is that right correct okay that is correct so back of the envelope math if we were to do if if we were to fund all 176,000 I mean the usual math that we go by is about 500,000 per percentage point so that would be another two percentage points so it basically take us up to 3.2 if we funded everything yes now the impact of you you mentioned the U the 300,000 difference between what our
149foundation Aid currently is out of the governor's office and what it seems like the uh two houses are willing to approve could put $300,000 back into our budget correct which would be a little bit over half a percent so that would take us back down to 2.6% if that you know if that worked out so then we get into where if we wanted to fund all of those things we either need to um stomach A 2.6 or look for other ways to to get money which is where you mentioned the reserves right okay so then it becomes a question of those reserves now you had mentioned the only one that seems to me I mean I know they assign fund balance you know you take it out this year you got to put it back
150next year so you have to ask the question why do I think next year is going to be a better financial position than this year and in my view there's no compelling reason to think that correct at this moment so kind of cross that one off the table um the pension reserves that seems really dangerous and we've been trying to build that up for a very specific reason so I'll take those personally off the kind of consideration list but then there's the unassigned fund balance I'm not to my memory we haven't done this in my years on the board yet so I want to clarify what this would mean um well first of all there's uh we're at three almost 3.5 currently with our with our unassigned fund balance go back two years that's about
151a $400,000 increase over where we were two years ago so let's just use that as a a rounding number let's say we took $400,000 and put it towards I don't know if it would technically be towards the tax levy or be to actually fund those programs right small distinction maybe without a difference what would be the long-term impact of taking money out of the unassigned fund balance and using it to fund those needs is it would it essentially be the same thing as the assigned fund balance that we would need to replace it the next year because we're just funding it this year right so next year we have to find another although we're not putting it back in the reserve we have to put it in the operating budget to keep those programs moving
152forward right so it's essentially the same underlying calculation of like okay I could do it this year but what makes me think I'll have that 400 Grand next year is that right that is correct okay now keep in mind also I mean you don't have to be at the 4% it's a good thing to be at the 4% because it helps build up your reserves um what's the impact other than fiscal it's just being ready for God forbid the unknown and the other thing to keep in mind is you were in the middle of a of a big Capital project as you know we're using uh band uh Bond anticipation notes at some point we're going to be rolling this into a Serial Bond they this is something very important that the rating companies um
153look at when they establish the rate so the stronger we look the lower the cost on the bond so it's kind of a catch 22 and okay so um I think the yeah the the reserve question is is always a rob peter pay Paul type of thing U to go back to a a maybe a more hopeful more sustainable way of of finding dollars was uh under the 2425 Revenue project projections and you mentioned those three items that were kind of breaking our way potentially rejecting the governor's proposal that's the 300,000 that I mentioned that would be great an increase uh uh so these next two increase in Bose's aable salary cap from 30 to 60 uh and then an increase in Universal prek first of all what what would be the increase in Universal
154prek and just really the point what is in your view the tax impact if both of those last two items broke our way obviously the the first one that's 300 Grand but what is the likely round number that we can shave off of uh our tax levy increased essentially we don't have a clue we we just don't have a clue they they've talked about they their comments were and their proposals was we want to increase funding for upk they didn't they didn't a number they want to change it from 30 to 60 we don't have a clue what how much salary components that would impact at bosis and increase our Aid we don't we don't know because we don't they don't give us access to that information or it's just unknown from year to year
155we don't have that access we don't have access to that and in upk the the ask is you know finally being heard in Albany of you know it's a change in in strategy that we just haven't seen in a while so before increaseing upk funding meant let's throw more seats at all these districts who who keep telling the governor that we don't have any space to put them this is the first time I've seen since I've been here that it's been an increase in per pupil so where that lands we we truly are clueless about where that could could land yeah yeah okay um yeah so just I guess we wait till next time and it seems like we're going to have next next time hopefully we'll have a Clarity at least on that 300
156I would agree and then it just becomes a question of priorities how much do we how much are we comfortable with and do we scale back on the needs correct yeah okay thanks B you had thanks John and thanks Harvey for this presentation I it's like I really uh enjoyed I can say the explanation of every single balance and reserve and uh really it's it's very helpful thanks my question is just uh regarding the assigned fund balance in contrast with the unassigned I noticed that the unassigned uh the state limits it at 4% of the total budget and what we have really reflect the full extent of the 4% so basically kind of tells me that you're following some guidance now when you go to assigned I did not see any guidance is there any
157guidance anywhere I mean why I mean why would you go 2.5 million 4 million whatever that's kind of part of my question the second part of my question is why this up and down if you go from 21 why yeah two good questions first of all there's no limits on what you can assign okay if you have it you can use it that's the state's perspective okay but the problem comes the next year you don't have it again so now you have quite a gap to fill so in terms of why you see it going three years ago 2.25 and then it jumped up to 4.1 and then it jumped back down it came back down to 2 point it has to do with combination of our needs coupled with where State A is for
158that particular year okay the the middle year the 4.1 the reason that it was so jumped up during that period of time that was when we got federal funds and we were able to supplant some take some of those federal funds and use them for that which we had in our budget and what we wanted to do was we wanted to take that that extra money it was about one and a half 1.2 1.5 we wanted to use that money for the air conditioning project in the Middle School which is what exactly what we did okay and then we it was done and we we we brought it back down to 2.5 to more sustainable number uh yeah thanks I mean that clarifies it the sustainable I mean is that I mean is it can
159it be objective not subjective kind of I don't know like if I'm trying to make myself clear here I mean why wouldn't you go and say 10 million is okay 10 million is sustainable or only 3 million is sustainable like where where would you draw the line I mean how would you make that judgment it's based on it's two things it's it's based on what we typically and historically have and I'll use the word leftover the Surplus we have at the end of each budget and it's also ties in with our expectations and what we need to use to make the budget balance okay I could easily stand here and say okay sustainable is is $5 million it's not realistic I have nothing to prove that I can St I can stand behind two to
160two and a half and go back in time and show you this is what we've we've we've seen to be you know repeatedly having left over Richard yeah thank you um I just want to piggyback off of what Brendan brought up about using some of these reserves potentially to bring down the the uh tax levy and my memory might be mistaken but in 20120 didn't the board at the time do something like that that's correct during the pandemic that's correct correct and uh it was taken out of the unassigned fund balance assigned fund balance right okay and at the time just to compare how much did we take out of the assigned fund balance so so just to to clarify it it was unassigned money that we then assigned for the budget okay to reduce
161the tax levy on the taxpayer because of this environmental conditions during covid we thought it would not be appropriate to put the burden on the taxpayers especially when we had these I hate to use the term but additional funds they're not additional they're they're Surplus uh until we can find a better purpose for them and in this particular instance that you're referring to Richard we did find a a a better purpose which was to reduce the burden on the taxpayer right otherwise the taxpayer would have had to incur that cost okay and you know if you fast forward to present day don't lose sight of the fact of what we added this year we had a tremendous amount of um positions and so forth because we had that funding from the increase in Foundation Aid
162that trick has played out now it's already baked in um I don't know how many more tricks the state has to to bail out and help out school districts so I it's really a time to go go very very cautiously thank you Terry you got you want and um as we always do my team is going to look at the needs assessment list and rep prioritize this is not the year to fully T tackle that list my team's approaching it as as such we're in a deficit now we're praying for nuggets from the governor and in both houses so we're going to come prepared for the board should we be asked of you know where do those needs fall as as by way of sustainability impact on um students in in staff for the district
163um but we're going into it as that needs assessment will not be fully funded this is not that year so we'll do our due due diligence over the break and come ready for the April 8th meeting for that relook at that needs assessment anyone else so so Harvey I I have a couple questions the the the first has to do with your uh miscellaneous projections Revenue projections um slide four I think of this so currently for this year projected revenue is at 1.17 correct is is that what was budgeted or is that what we're projecting based on the performance to date year to date that's the budget what are we um forecasting based on you know nine months of performance in that area do we have that well there you have to remember it's not
164just one number that's it's a lot of outside of interest income it's a lot of a little and but interest income is the largest interest income is the largest no question it it moves the needle more than any of the others so interest income is going to beat the budget that we had for it by by how much um I would I would guess maybe 150 to 200,000 and and that's an environment where the the FED has actually kept rates after increasing them earlier in the year right kept kept them where they are that's right there was no decrease so so so there had been talk actually as early as like in December that the Fed was going to be more accommodative and and fense rate was going to then go down if you look
165at the projections actually for 2025 based on the FED Dot Plot speaking of dot plots we were talking about dot plots earlier in our executive session different issue the rates that the FED Governors are currently projecting for next year are lower than what we've experienced this year and that is that is factored in and that's baked into the cake of your higher number of 2425 so so so if you were to show what our estimated um Revenue would be for the whole year of 20324 it would be basically more than what you're currently showing for 2425 yes thank you good um the other thing I I want to ask you about is this unassigned fund balance over 50% of school districts in New York violate that 4% actually that is correct it's a running joke
166um and they do it for actually a good reason and hopefully they'll be legislative support to actually increase that number from 4% to a more reasonable number I think that that 4% is multi-decade old it is and not reflective of the current environment that that that business operators like um Harvey have to encounter when dealing with today's realities that we heard actually bill enumerate a lot of the challenges that people encounter right in the normal course of business did you hear anything about this possible increase when we were when Christian and I were on the up in Albany that was a topic of discussion and there were some promises that some politicians were making to make that a a priority to to to increase some actually said double from 4% to to 8% but have
167you heard anything since I have not heard anything yeah I I I I I don't see that actually becoming a reality and I think for us as a board based on that case where you have 50% of the school districts in the state willfully violating that that threshold of 4% at some point we're we're we're we're going to have to to to think what is the appropriate level for us I'm not saying we're at that point at we're we're right at the at the edge but as our budget increases and it will because that's what happens to budgets over time we that that 4% will not be sustainable for us and we're going to have to think about how many levers do we pull to either get that approved through legislation or to to to
168willfully um find the reason and the gumption to go to maybe 5% albeit with good reasons based on some priorities that are being unaddressed because we're unable to do it otherwise and I just throw that out as a as a uh a seed not for discussion but Christian you have another comment or just to follow in on what you were saying about the the unassigned fund balance the reason why there's a a limit to it is the idea that we don't want school districts to over tax their community ities and therefore the point is you don't want to build up money that you don't need or not using for something um the argument for it is that sometimes there are big things you need to build up a reserve so you can make a big
169change whether you're going to like create a new whole new program or some other things and so uh in my district we were well over uh and then they did a big push to kind of do things like the Winter Circle project and a few other big big ticket items they were able to do it very quickly and also for example justify f for example replacing all the sewers at two different schools out of that unassigned fund balance without having to do a capital project the reason why I don't think it'll change is because there's never been any penalty for it and so the point is it's like jaywalking you don't have to change the law because it's not enforced and because it's not enforced no one cares about it and people do what they
170think is best at the local level and I think that's why you know it's kind of a discretionary thing that the state leaves to the school districts and so do you treat it as a guideline or do you treat it as the law I think that's not for our discussion or consideration this year but as the board in the district moves forward those that that that threshold will impede a lot of the continuing Improvement that I believe is underway here in the district but so it's a law and I'm not going to say Advocate breaking the law in public and on you know tape but I'm just describing what what has been done in a lot of different places so I think the point about is why the why Albany talks about it and then
171never changes it is because they have no intention of really enforcing it and I think they just write you a letter saying by the way you're over this number and please address this and get it back under as soon as possible and usually that means they they spend it on something so my point about it is that you know that there's a reason that's the reason why the limit's there and there's a logic for both ways and I I heard as you did it always gets floated out there and it just kind of dies because it's really not important to anyone to pass it okay um anyone else Harvey thank you so much great presentation all right so that brings us to I believe our second round of public comments is there anyone who would
172like to come forward um and share their thoughts please do so now there's microphone brenon please find a microphone and well Harvey has it there you go good evening Brendan coin 13 Paul Court cor one Hudson I just want to thank and commend the board and uh the superintendent for coming up with the uh diversity equity and inclusion policy when I was on the board some 15 years ago it didn't enter our minds and I'm sorry about that but uh this is so important and I I had the the pleasure of going to the first meeting I I missed a second unfortunately I didn't calendar it and was out of town but the enthusiasm that night was was incredible I felt so good after that meeting uh you know we broke into smaller groups and
173there was a lot of enthusiasm in in my particular group but overall it was it was Sensational I I just want to say I kind of want to piggyback on what has been said a little bit tonight uh it's to help our students contribute to society and I think that what is very Paramount in my mind is that our society needs this right now our community needs this right now and so I think it's important for the board and for the superintendent to continue to let the community know just how important this is how much we need it not just our students but our our adults people out of school for a while who can't get a handle on this and it's very important that we do so thank you thank you anyone else or
174yep peace hi Chris beer uh two Pine Street Cornwall and Hudson um the reason I came down was just to talk about the upk program and how important it is um it sounds like that's going to be a topic of the next meeting if I heard right April 8th is that what Harvey said okay so I think we'll I'll probably continue with them that's why I came down I just think it's super important um I'm sure as Educators you could see how important Head Start programs are pre- programs are in the future of their development preparing them for kindergarten in first grade and Beyond um you know because it may increase the budget now but you're going to increase the budget on other things that like speech and OT and PT and um other services
175they might need later on which could have been identified early on so that's all I had to say thank you anyone else okay so that brings us to our second and last agenda item which is closing comments uh from the board um Richard thank you g to keep it short tonight because I know it's already late um I just want to thank Kate for her uh presentation and Christian I think that was his name our great musician tonight he did a phenomenal job and uh just shows how great our students are and how proud we should be of them and ensure that we give them all the supports that they need uh with that I hope everybody has a nice spring break and have a good night thanks Richard Bry thanks John uh thanks for
176setting the bar very short Richard um also yeah uh great job by uh Christian also uh Mrs Johnson who's the the was up presenting her uh the strings teacher just does an extraordinary job um and if you pay attention to uh yearly budget items that was a position created I think three years ago so we're seeing the impact filter through the district and it's a it's a great thing uh thank you to everybody who presented tonight um it's like one of those things you I don't want to forget anybody uh it's it was so many but to uh to Mr rinsky uh everybody at Palumbo group and obviously to Harvey really uh you know coming into form as I said and uh it's a lot of choices are going to be in front of us
177but I know you'll you'll continue to guide us through this process uh finally just uh a congratulations to the uh the Middle School drama club a great performance performances uh over the past weekend I had the pleasure of uh volunteering backstage for them it it was exciting as always uh Mr Dade was there on a particularly uh bommy evening um I believe it was uh Thursday night uh everybody did an extraordinary job I it's just such a uh it's such a pleasure to see my own kids go through these programs and and be a part of them and just want to I I think our uh Kate actually uh mentioned everybody but Mrs Molton Mrs Horn uh Miss mailings Mr Firestone Mr Baer M Mrs Firestone Mr Baer and Mr Firestone um and uh also
178uh Miss Sue King who is a a volunteer extraordinaire both uh on the CES and on now the CCMS side um these the first time I believe they had two separate casts um which I know I see it at the uh CES level we had if not our biggest number than one of our biggest numbers ever 120 kids almost this year and it seems like the Middle School was seeing all another surge in enthusiasm and as Mr rinsky mentioned earlier we're at the high school level we're the first um High School in New York state that's being trusted with Harry Potter so I think that you just see where the the trajectory here is uh particularly with uh our drama clubs and I know I'm a broken record on this front but I I never
179miss an opportunity to remind us all of our responsibility to not just celebrate these programs make sure that we make decisions on both a uh resource and Personnel level that ensures that they um have staying power because as is too often the case uh all of the um all of the momentum is tied into just a few key people and if those key people go away uh then sometimes your pro programs have difficulty surviving so uh it's our job as Leaders uh in a position to do something about it to ensure that we are always prioritizing the the funding uh for those programs and clubs I'll I'll close with just a a real u high note from the weekend on Friday night's performance uh there was a uh a tech malfunction um not going to
180name names I don't know who it was but somebody coming up a flight of stairs knocked out a uh the main audio line for the music and this was in the middle of one of the big numbers and if you know anything about these shows each kid basically gets one each lead gets basically one big number so if the wire goes out on yours yikes um but the the young actor uh his name is Andrew Hurley I'll call him out I uh hope he doesn't mind he's in sixth grade I had the pleasure of uh being one of his uh they call him ranglers at uh in the elementary school level which sounds as glamorous as it is um but he was he was a first grader when I got involved so see him come
181all the way through but uh it's been great but when the music went out he kept singing and everyone at first was like oh no what are we going are we're going to like stop the show but Andrew Hurley kept singing everybody kept singing with him and it the entire crowd was like okay we're doing this together and they started clapping and keeping in tune with the music kind of keeping everything going um and it it was just an extraordinary moment you know we do we we do so much all of us at this table and Educators you know professional educators are certainly touching students lives uh more than we are um you got to be careful where you stop there um but you you ask yourself like what like what is the the impact
182of that and then you just see a moment like that where a kid kind of reminds you what this is what the impact of what you're doing somebody a lot of people along the way made a lot of really great contributions to that kid's life that in that moment he was able to just keep going and everybody followed him so hats off to Andrew and hats off to the entire cast it was great to be a part of it thanks Brandon Christian um I'm going to be shorter than last time um just some numbers on upk and just I think because people can tell you about the benefits of it but I think it's important to contextualize the cost and I just ran these new numbers just based on Harvey's presentation tonight but the household
183cost to increase the 20 seats for you know fair value $450,000 works out to be 67 a month per household and that seems to be an incredibly manageable cost to improve for 20 students or about 10% of our incoming kindergarten class um Timothy bark has said that for every dollar spent on upk community gains $2.78 in higher for capita income in the community in the long term once again so you spend a dollar you make more money and it's a big investment and I just want to and just on the if we increase it just for the 52 seats at the rate that uh was quoted and I realize it's not necessarily a constant rate but that would only be $2 per household per month for a relatively nice house in Cornwall and I think
184that's worth it and lastly just in the New York Times last week just quoting it says caregivers of children lose an average of $118,000 a year due to scaling back work hours or leaving jobs because they can't find child care it's important to understand that that's what a lot of people are facing and not just the parents of children but their parents too who often end up being the caregivers when uh two income households go out to work um and I'll just leave there the second thing is um as a person who is taught in secondary education is subject to let's say controversial issues policies and has read probably about a hundred of them in the region um we are out of Step of what most the districts in this area have in their policies
185and I would encourage everyone to go read the underlying Supreme Court cases that are underneath the policy in the the logic under them is very clear about the First Amendment rights of teachers and the First Amendment rights of students and what the logic is is because the classroom standard is tied to that and that is why the policy has been pretty consistent for a long time on that and extending outside the classroom uh I think Le I will reiterate leads to a very dangerous situation and um I would encourage people to read that and maybe become more educated either by reading our peers policies on this or by looking at the Supreme Court cases at our own policy sites Lewis thank you um I'll peel a little bit of of uh Brendan's shout out there
186um and congratulate all the musicians and the and the musical accolades that have happened over the past months and coming months that are ahead of us you you learn quick when you you give a speech you never thank individual people because there's always one person you forget so I'll blanket the whole thing and I'll also um give a shout out to all our sports accompt or accomplishments over the winter um there there were a few uh again uh enough to mention and I'll forget one so I'll stay away from it um more to come in the spring from both thank you our to our presenters uh always always nice I appreciate the Palumbo group coming in and and giving us the the update you know so often we don't we're in while we're in tune
187a lot of us are parents uh you know you need that presentation to to to re reiterate you remind you of truly what's going on um and lastly Christian with you our little chist that was fantastic I'm I'm quite confident if it wasn't the star spangle Banner we would have all stood at the end anyway with a with a ravenous handshake so congratulations to him keep up that good work thank you thanks leis Christine thr me off there um I don't want to repeat what everyone's already said I think um I got chills Brendan when you were describing the the young man who just kept going because those are life lessons that you are thrown into but you take with you forever right and I think they happen they happen in theater they happen in
188sports but it's those teachable moments that if we can take a moment to reflect on them you know um they're they're just probably more powerful thing one of the most powerful things that happens um as we grow up so kudos to to that young man I know I saw through social media and I know next time we'll have a um update about Athletics but I believe it's our um indoor track team our our our women's team they did All-American if I'm not I'm not as I'm I can talk theater all the time but allamerican and um but it's just really exciting when I see those posts and and their their accomplishments a great group of um young ladies so congratulations to them and I'm sure next time we'll have an opportunity to to um give
189them Kudos in person and then Harvey really I I can't thank you enough for making this um budget process digestible and not just for me or for the people here but I also think for the public it's so transparent it's clear you know in terms of the decisions that have to be made I don't walk away thinking like what does that mean you know this isn't my business dayto day and so I really appreciate that you just make it so clear and and easy to follow so thank you for that thanks for see B thanks John yeah first C is to to Harvey I really enjoyed the presentation I mean sometimes you watch presentation you appreciate it but like it's not like every time you watch something you really enjoy I really enjoyed listening to
190everything uh as uh Chris uh Christine says like the transparency and the accuracy and kind of like the Judgment behind the numbers I this is greatly appreciated uh thank you and uh another CL is to the modified wrestling program uh this year uh the results were outstanding if I'm not mistaken 110 the meets were or 10 to1 something like that I uh but still kind of 10 to one I mean this is this outstanding we had the the enthusiasm among the students was uh kind of unbelievable I mean they were uh hoping to have like 30 wrestlers they had 60 and and I think I mentioned that before I mean the the the coach Daniels tried to do some U what do you call it kind of like screening if you want right if you
191don't show up at time whatever can but then he he thought like he couldn't cut out anybody so they had to find another uh uh coach and please forgive me I forgot his last name but again both so they had like two teams and I went to meets like everywhere and other schools much bigger districts than us they didn't have half of what we had like they had less than 30 they had like 20 18 15 and we had like 60 that was kind of outstanding and the results were were perfect um uh again kudus to uh the fourth grade student musician I Believe Christian was his name uh outstanding performance I really enjoyed that and kudus to the music uh teachers and the music program as a whole at CCSD uh definitely kind of
192corwall mil perform tonight so kudos to to them uh lastly uh uh while this is done um you know as uh our understanding is as time allows right time of the busy students busy teachers um I I I'd like to say that this is a privilege and a pleasure to us on the board uh to see to keep seeing more and more students performing during our meetings thanks thanks bass so I want to thank everyone for all their hard work and staying with us tonight uh almost four hours but I think we've covered a lot of of ground and in in a quality way I think there's been some initiatives that have been talked about this evening that uh uh not only put Cornwall on the map but but put us on the map in
193a way to a brighter future so so I thank everyone's participation and commentary in in helping that along and I know it just didn't happen tonight there's a lot of effort that started early on with Terry and uh and others so we're starting to start to see the the fruition of of all this hard work so I'm very very grateful for everybody on that the the only thing I want to add to what has already been said is congratulations to the quiz ball team I think that's just fantastic that we've regained what is rightfully ours and I am so proud of them for for that accomplishment you know we we we say we have uh a triple A rating here at Cornwall right a for academics a for athletics a for arts and quizbowl I
194guess we're going to have to find another way to describe that that in that even though I know it's uh it's popular kind of like Trivial Pursuit but but but still it it it shows that our kids are not only knowledgeable about the subject matter that they're being taught in school and doing it better than other school districts but they're also contemporaneously understanding current events because a lot of what they're asked in that setting has to do with what's going on currently in the world so that's off to them and with that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn second all in favor I all right thank you everyone Mission closed