001If we could reconvene our meeting to open session, we have been in executive session since 6:00 to discuss three legal matters. Uh, can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. [Music] We have the introductions. Dave Hurst, Lauren Grazo, Robert Tun, Jody Monroe, Meredith Morardi, Catherine Natto, John Walston, John McFillips, and Holly Delva and you McNay are unable to be here tonight. Um, do we have any pig or super students here tonight? Um, if so, you need to stay until 9:00 or the meeting is over, whichever comes first. and be sure to sign out on one of your sheets that will that will appear at
002some point. Um so to make sure you get credit, you have to sign out um before you leave. Um first up is the approval of minutes. It is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the minutes from the March 5th 25 2025 regular board meeting. So moved. Second. Uh any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That carries. Um next we have the meeting reports. Can we start with the superintendent report? Sure. Thank you. Um I want to just highlight what uh the district will be doing on March 31st. Uh so on March 31st, we have a superintendent conference day scheduled. We'll be focusing on two of our core values, community and wellness. Staff members have been collaborating within their buildings and departments to choose meaningful ways to support the
003local community. Um, as part of this effort, we are excited to partner with a variety of organizations. Some of examples include the regional food bank, the animal protective foundation, hair green senior living, grassroots givers, hospice, the Albony County Safe Harbor Program, Pine Hollow, St. Catherine's Center, Catholic Charities, and Ronald McDonald House. Additionally, several trail and park cleanups are planned for the day as well. These are just many a few of many initiatives taking place throughout the district. Um, additionally, some buildings and they're highlighted on this slide. Um, and departments will be collecting donations or fundraising to support these causes. Uh, we will send this information out to the community for those who are interested in helping to contribute. Um so at Hammigrail they will be collecting travel size um shampoo and hygiene items for St.
004Catherine's. Ellir is making I think the little granola bars for the um street soldiers which is an organization out of Skenctity and Glenma is doing a book sale and the proceeds for that will benefit the Bethlehem community fund. Uh again, there's a couple others that are still in the works of planning, so we'll provide updates and where people can make those donations as the date gets near. I'd like to extend my gratitude to all of our staff who've taken time to plan, organize, and participate in the day. Uh their dedication and generosity will have a meaningful impact on the community, demonstrating the power of service and strength um in our shared commitment to making a difference. So, I'd like to thank our staff because they really have been the ones to identify the organizations and
005what we'll be doing on that day. So, looks something different and hopefully it'll be good weather for those doing outside work. And that's my report. Does anyone have any questions for Jody? Um, next we have uh board reports. Does anyone have anything to report? I just want to say I believe anything goes the High School Musical um is I believe that's next week, April 2nd. Um is that two weeks? Okay. All right. Well, I know tickets are on sale now. Um next is item C, student reports. Uh is anyone here from student high school student senate? You can come on down. Hello. Um, my name is Julie Lucarelli. I'm from the Bethlehem Student Senate. Um, recently we've been working on planning a stool school dance. It's the spring fling. Tickets are on sale now and
006then we're also planning to sell tickets at the door. The dance is this weekend and we've been going around to local businesses to get donations. Um, many businesses like Swifties, My Place, I Love Books, um, McCarol's, and then Foco Taco have donated gift cards to us for a raffle that's going to be taking place. And then we've set up things like a photo booth, and then we're going to have activities like cornhole and ping pong for students to take place in. And we've been playing that for a few weeks now. It was scheduled for before break for um the winter dance, but we rescheduled it for the spring because it got cancelled due to the snow. So, we're hoping to have a few more kids than we planned to last time. And that's basically it.
007Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh do we have anyone here from middle school? Good evening everyone. and my name is Macy. And to start off, we would like to congratulate all of our band members from elementary, middle school, and the high school. Um, they performed at the band festival, which was last Thursday. So, congratulations to them. Congratulations to our eighth grade classmates who were recognized by their physical education teachers as recipients of the Capitol Zone Leadership Award. These six students attended a ceremony this past Saturday when they were with other eighth grade students from around the region. Another thing that's been happening is we just passed out our character t-shirts and we would like to um thank everyone who has been displaying their character their character strengths around the environment and the community.
008Spring board started at the high school level this week and the modified teams will start in the next two weeks. and we wish all our classmates luck who are participating. Um, this is one of my favorites, but we recently had a Pi Day event where the teach 23 staff members participated and they got pied in the face. And all proceeds from this event are towards the uh math counts team um to raise enough money for their competition. And the cool thing about this is we raised money for this year's competition and next year's. So, the vernal or spring equinox falls tomorrow on March 20th, and we want to wish everyone a happy spring. Thank you and good night. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, next we have uh item four, presentations. First, we have
009our food service presentation. Hi everyone. Um I'm Claire Gardin. I'm the food service director. Um and I'm here tonight to give a uh food service update. Um so I wanted to start out with a little school lunch 101. Just a refresher on how um the school lunch program operates. Um so school meal programs operate under the C funds which are separate from the general funds. Um the cafeteria operates as its own business within the school district. So the goal is that it is self-sufficient. Um it's funded by federal and state meal reimbursements and cash sales. Um it's governed by the USDA. Um and regula the regulations are administered by uh the state education department. Um, the school breakfast and lunch meal program must adhere to USDA uh, nutrition regulations. So, there's certain things that we
010have to serve and there's certain things that we can't serve. Um, and we are what's called a standard claiming district, meaning our students either qualify for free meals, um, reduced priced meals or paid meals. Um, so we are not a free district at this time. Um, so I want us to start out with some highlights from the current school year and I'm going to start out with some of our green initiatives. Um, so I'm really uh working towards food service reducing its carbon footprint. Um, and Mark and the green team have really been helping us uh do that. Um, so currently in all of our kitchens, we are now composting. Um, we also are using produce uh from the school gardens at our 6 through 12 grade levels. Um, so this year we got produce
011out of the garden from about September to November. Um, and we also introduced more local foods onto our menus this school year as well. Um, we got a local food for schools grant um that totaled about $35,000 that we were able to use on local foods. Um, so we brought in local beef from Kilcoin. um local cheese from the Argyle cheese farmer. Um and we also brought in uh local maple syrup from Mountain Wind Farms in Burn. Um some future plans for these green initiatives um is I'd like to expand the use of garden produce to our K through five grade levels. Um I know Mark is working on expanding what he calls our kitchen garden at the high school, which which I love that he calls it our kitchen garden. Um, so I'm hoping
012we'll be able to get enough produce out of that garden next school year so that we can um start utilizing that produce at our at our elementary levels. Um, the next thing is less singleuse plastic. Um, now a lot of the containers that we use in food service, there's some food safety reasons for using those products. Um, but right now what I'm doing is I'm doing a cost comparison between some more paper compostable products um and comparing it to what we can currently use to see where we can we can make a switch. Um, I'm also looking to increase um selfs serve and I'm looking to do this more at the high school level. Um, and this would if we could get this going we could eliminate uh the use of of certain paper products
013and plastic products altogether. Um, and lastly, um, I'd like to start using real plates at the 9 through 12 grade level. Um, this would not only help us save money on on paper products, but it gets high schoolers away from that, um, school lunch, five compartment tray feel, um, and more into, you know, a university level dining experience. um that's going to take a little time to execute because there's a labor piece that I need to figure out with the real plates, but it's something I'm definitely striving to do um at the high school level. Uh harvest of the month. This is something we started last year and we've continued into this school year. Um this is a farm-to-school initiative that uh promotes different locally grown and locally made um products. Um, and we feature
014those on the school on the school menu. Um, and the goal is really to introduce students to to new foods, encourage them to try new things, um, and increase their access and consumption of of of fruits and vegetables. Um, and teach them a little something about their food system. Um, this month we are featuring local maple syrup. That's our highlight this month. Um, I will say that in December we featured an uh a kale apple salad that was actually a hit with staff and students. So that was a that was a big win. So that was pretty cool. And these are just some pictures from the harvest of the month. So there's that apple kale salad that the kids actually liked. Um here's some students. Um I think it's over at Slingerlands. We like to
015hand out, you know, coloring sheets or activity sheets to the students just so they have something to do during lunch, but it's also just a little extra to teach them about um the harvest of the month. Um and then the last picture, this is uh students uh shucking corn. So in September, we had a whole bunch of local corn come in. We needed some help in the kitchens getting that prepped. Um, so we got all of our the students in our schools involved with um helping us get that prepared for the kitchen. So that was fun and it was um pretty cool. Um menu diversity is a is a big one for me as well. So um I'm really trying to provide options to accommodate more students and get more students um you know into
016our cafeterias and eating. Um a big one I've heard from students is more vegetarian options. Um, so I'm really trying to expand our daily options um, more so at the high school. So right now we offer, you know, like a vegetarian wrap. We have some sort of garden salad, um, fruit and yogurt parfets, hummus beastro boxes. Um, at the lower levels we're doing, um, you know, hummus and chip kits, PB&J, things like that. Um, just so we can get more options on the menu for the students. Um, I also took it a deep dive into looking how we could get halal foods um into our schools. Um, Jod, John, and I actually met with a community member to see just just to see what it would take to um certify our our kitchens as halal.
017Um, we also looking at a local company that um makes individually packed um halal items. Uh we actually did a uh taste test at our high school recently and got really good feedback from these products. Um so this is something that I I really want to do, but I want to do it the right way and I want to do it responsibly. So um the the halal piece I'm looking to implement next school year. Um but I again I just want to make sure that we're doing it the right way. Um I also partnered with Alana for Black History Month. uh they provided us with some really great recipes that we featured on the high school menu. Um so we did things like uh scratch Jamaican rice and peas. Um we did collard greens. Um
018so that was that was a cool thing that we did in the month of February. Um and then currently something we're doing and this is new for the school year um is we are offering take-home meals to students that observe Ramadan that may be fasting during the school day. Um, I've gotten a lot of good feedback from from parents, from community members on this initiative. So, this is definitely something I want to carry over year to year. Uh, so reaching more students. This was a big goal for me this year because when I started last year, something I noticed was that um, a lot of parents didn't know a lot about our food service program. Uh, specifically, uh, breakfast. A lot of parents didn't even know that our our schools served breakfast. Um, so I
019have been working with communications to get more information out uh through Parent Square. Um, and one of the things that we did this school year is we are sending out a breakfast flyer monthly. Um, which just highlights uh, you know, a fact about breakfast, why it's important um, and just reminding families that we offer uh, breakfast at all of our schools. Um, and I've seen a nice increase in our breakfast meal counts, which you'll see in the next slide when we look at um, average daily participation. Um, but I I think, you know, getting that communic communication out out has really helped. Um, another thing we did this school year is we I started offering grab-and-go meals um, during elementary half days. Um, and I just thought this was important because I wanted to make
020sure that those students that rely on school lunch hat meal to go home with. Um, and then something we're working on right now is a mobile breakfast cart at the high school. Um, so something I noticed was that a lot of students come in down by the lower gym. Um, and you know, they probably don't have enough time to get all the way down to the cafeteria to get breakfast. So, we are working on setting up a mobile breakfast cart um down in that general area so that students have um a more accessible spot to get coffee, to get um to get breakfast as they're on their way to home room and entering the building. So, um, these graphs are showing, uh, the average percentage of students that participate, um, in the meal program each
021month. Um, so, as you can see, we've seen a nice increase in in breakfast over the last couple years. Um, in the 223 school year, on average, we were serving about 4% of the student population daily. Um, this current school year on average we're serving about 7 and a half%. So, you know, we're we're seeing a nice increase year-to-year. I think, you know, between getting more communication out about about breakfast, um, having more more to offer on our menu, um, I think more students are willing to participate, um, in the breakfast program. Um, for lunch, we're seeing more of a a gradual increase in participation. Um, it's very similar uh compared to last year. We do have some dips in participation this year just because we had less serving days um during some of the
022months this school year. Um, but on average, we're serving about 39 and a half% of the the student population on a daily basis. So, um, jumping to what the 2526 school year will look like. Um, right now it's it's unclear what the the 2526 school year will look like for food service. Um, as you all know, an executive proposal is out for free school meals for all students in New York State. Um, this would bring a lot of great benefits to our program if it passes. Um, it would eliminate stigma, it would address food insecurity, improve academic performance, um, eliminate unpaid meal debt. Um, and obviously we would see more students participating in our meal program, which would mean more money back into the program. Um, but like I said, there's a lot of things
023that are in question and and still un unclear right now. Um, like will this pass in our state budget? um what will the reimbursements look like and the funding for for the program? Um we've already seen recent um cuts to school meal programs. Um the USDA recently cut the local food for schools program. That's the funding I mentioned earlier, the 35,000 that we got to spend on local foods. Um that program right now is no longer. Um and we also are seeing an end to uh supply chain assistance funds. This was COVID era funding that we've been getting over the last three years um that we will no longer be uh getting for our program. So for the 25 2025 school year, the program's projected revenue is just over 1.9 million. Um, in the 2122
024school year, uh, all meals were free, um, resulting in more participation and more revenue back into the program. Um, with the conclusion of free meals in 2223, you can see a decrease in revenue. Um, but that appears to be leveling out a bit. Um, with a projected $183,000 increase in re revenue over last year. Um, it's also important to point out that we did get roughly $51,000 in Bosey's aid. Um, this current aid is for a partial year, so we should be expecting to see an increase in this aid next year. Um for the 2025 school year, the program's projected expenditures is just under 2 million um with notable increases in benefits and salaries. Um and this is associated with the collective collective bargaining agreement that was approved last year. Um overall, our food costs
025our food costs are projected to be down. Um with that being said, we all know that food costs are high right now. I'm sure we all feel it when we're at the grocery store. Um, and there's a lot of uh global and national issues that are still impacting our our food system. Um, within the National School Lunch Program, we operate under what's called the Bi-American provision. Um, which means we have to buy domestic as much as possible. Um right now it's unclear um how things like the recent tariffs are going to affect our food costs and our purchasing uh going forward. So looking at revenues over expenditures, we're looking at a projected loss of $118,000 for the current school year. Uh when the beginning fund balance of $41,000 is applied, this results in an approximate
026$77,000 general fund subsidy to make the program whole. Um as you can see with the conclusion of conclusion of free school meals in the 2122 school year, um it's been difficult to match or exceed our revenues against our expenditures. Um this is due to increasing labor and food costs um that is not being offset by by other revenue streams. Um so as mentioned earlier, it's it's uncertain whether universal free meals will pass in the state budget. Um so our projected revenues for next school year are based off of our school meal program remaining asis and paid meals returning. Um, we see a slight increase in revenue over our current projections for the current school year. Um, I also want to point out the state and and federal funding. Um, there is a decrease from uh
027this year to next. Um, and this is due to the funding cuts to that uh local food for schools program which I said we got about 35,000 and the end of this supply chain assistance funds which we've received about $250,000 over the last three years. Um, as mentioned earlier we will see an increase in the Bosey's state age which the BOSI state aid which will be uh helpful for our program. Um, I am anticipating an increase in expenditures for the 2526 school year, notably in salaries and benefits. Um, I just want to point out the the equipment line. Um, so I have been working with operations and maintenance to put together um an equipment list with install dates. And the goal here is to start uh an an equipment replacement plan um with the idea
028to be more proactive about replacing our aging equipment versus um waiting for it to fail. Um and that accounts for the $60,000 that we've budgeted again um for the 2526 school year. Um, so in summary, as you can see, our fund balance is decreasing year-toear. Um, between the rising costs of food and labor, um, it's been difficult for our our revenues to catch up to our expenditures. Um, if we continue this way, um, we are projecting a loss of $248,000 in the 2526 school year. Um again I I I want to point out that these are projections based on uh the notion that we will continue the way the way we are right now. Um if universal free meals comes to fruition, these projections are going to look a lot different. Um right now we're
029we're still waiting on a lot of information. Um, like I said, on one hand, universal free meals is is still in the state budget and we're waiting for that to pass. Um, but as you've you've probably seen on the federal side, um, they're proposing a lot of drastic changes to the school meal programs which could really change how we operate. Um, so right now we can only focus on the information that we have. So with the idea that our meal program will remain the same, um I have the following recommendations to combat the the projected loss. Um so we will re-evaluate meal pricing. Um breakfast meal pricing has not been adjusted in quite some time and an adjustment may be necessary. Um, you may recall from my previous um, presentations, every year I have to
030fill out what's called the paid lunch equity tool. Um, and this helps the district determine if their paid student lunch price is sufficient to cover the the cost of that meal. Um, so once that tool is available, um, I will fill that out and re-evaluate, uh, lunch pricing. Um, with that being said, I know that we recently increased lunch pricing in January. Um, and I I want to make sure that the paid student lunch price remains affordable um, for our community. Um, I will also look at evaluating um, and scaling back some of our menu offerings to reduce food costs. Um, and I just want to say, you know, I would look at this from more of a um, a less is more perspective. Um, I have a really amazing group of staff, a a
031really creative group of staff, um, that could, you know, I have one person that could literally make cardboard taste good if I gave her a piece of cardboard. Um, so I'm confident that even if we do reduce some of our options, we could do a really great job at at what we're offering. Um, as I mentioned before, labor costs are high. So, as staff retire and positions open up, um I will re-evaluate hours and and our staffing needs. Um catering is something I've been looking at expanding. Um and this could be generate more revenue for our department. Um and lastly, I'll explore different ways that we can um boost our alleart sales um in different ways. Any questions? Thank you. That was that was great. Um and all the photos that are in the presentation
032are actual that's from our that's from our kitchens. Yep. Um you mentioned early in the presentation that you're um composting food waste. The compost um is that used how how are you using the compost? Um so all of the kitchens have compost bins. So all of the scraps that are produced when we are prepping food gets put in those compost bins and it's being picked up by the compost 360 um which which comes to all of our schools to pick up the compost bins. Yep. Um so um you mentioned an idea for selfs serve in the high school. Logistically, how does that work? Um, so right now, um, it probably I'm I'm I'm thinking more so we have like a a fresh fruit and vegetable line at the high school and right now we cup
033everything up in plastic cups and that's something I really want to get away from. Um, and I think at the high school level, uh, high schoolers could serve themselves things like, you know, the fruit and vegetables. Um, so I want to get away from that piece. Um the the hot meal would probably still be served to the student, but anywhere on the line where we can get away from um cupping things up and using more of those single-use plastics, I'd like to get away from that. Yep. Um and then the the breakfast service. Um especially my kid sometimes buys breakfast, but I always wonder logistically like how does how does that work? Do do they sit in the cafeteria and eat the breakfast um at the elementary school? I'm sorry. It's grab and go. It's
034okay. Yep. So, that a it it differs at each school. So, some kids get right off the bus, go to the cafeteria, pick up breakfast, and go to their classroom. Some go to their classroom first and come down, get breakfast, and go back. And I had one last question. Um, in your comparative revenue slide, um, actual 2023 Allocart and snacks was over $900,000, which is seems drastically different from some of the other years. Do you know what happened there? Yeah. So um that particular particular year they combined um lunch and breakfast and allocart into one line. Okay. So that has lunch and breakfast revenue included in in the student and allocart and breakfast and lunch are combined. Okay. Yep. Into one line. Thank you. Yep. So I also want to share my thanks. I love
035the very clear passion that you bring to this and making sure that we've got a really vibrant food service program that is part of the community and that goes to meet the community rather than just doing what needs to be done. I think that food and nourishing our students is at the core of of some of what we do, especially for students who get a lot of their meals at school, which is a lot of our students. So, thank you so much for making sure that we've got really thoughtful um and you know engaging ways for the for students to come into our food service program. So, thank you. Thank you. Um a couple things that I just want to lift up. First of all, when you're talking about the um potentially doing a breakfast
036cart at the high school, you couldn't see the high schoolers assembled behind you, but I saw a lot of head nodding. So, we've got a focus group here. Um, that was uh that that seemed interested. Seems like that could definitely be an idea worth pursuing. Um, I just to again going back to those community connections. Um, making sure that we're offering take-home meals at Ramadan, great initiative. I heard a lot of community uh support and response for that as well that I wanted to share here. So, thank you. um and all of the initiatives that you're talking about to reduce our carbon footprint, get plastic out of um you know, off our students plates um is I I think definitely the the way to go. So, thank you so um so much and just keep
037keep doing great work and let us know how we can support. Thank you. Just have one question on the comparative expenditures, the uniforms, postage, and point of sale fees. That's every year gone down. What What can you attribute that to? Let me just take a peek here. Is this the slide that you're looking at? Yes. Y um let's see. I mean, it's great. I'm just wondering why I want to say and John, you may have to It's the application that was included in the Boseies. Uh it was the point of sale fees. Yeah. Gotcha. Hardware lasts a long time, but it cost money. Gotcha. Y. So the annualized application cost for is built into the the postseason contract that Claire is part of and then we get postsees aid on the back end of that.
038Understood. Okay. Thank you. One last question. Yeah. I know that we've been talking over the last couple years about working to um be able to uh apply for and get increased incentives for local food sales for breakfast as well as lunch. I know that there's a big push for that. Yeah. What's that? There's a big push for that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I know there's a big administrative piece and I know it's something that you were um when we talked about it last year, you were trying to figure out if there were ways to kind of untangle the accounting um so that we could apply for and hopefully receive those additional incentives. And I was just wondering any headway there or is that something that might be available for our district? I know there was a
039big push to start including breakfast in that 30%. Um, I don't have any more information on on where we are with that. I'm hoping that will happen because right now I like you said there's a lot of administrative work in the in the back and you have to separate out you have to back out any of anything you spent on breakfast. Um, which it it's it's a lot of work. um this school year. It's not something I looked at just because we did have that local food for schools grant money that I needed to spend within a certain period of time. Um but it is something that I I'd like to look at to see if it's something that would be worth it for our district. But in terms of breakfast being included, I don't
040have any information on that right now. But I know there's a push. Got it. And I'm sorry I conflated the two things when we were talking. We were talking about trying to get the lunch incentives. And to do that, we'd have to separate the the breakfast. Yeah, they don't include breakfast in that, right? I'm sorry, I misspoke. And my um my last question, you mentioned the local partnerships with the various farms. I think he's at Argyle cheese and perhaps I know that um we have Cornell in as part of the healthy foods program to talk about different um different things. I'm wondering has there been an opportunity or would we want to think about an opportunity to bring some of the um local partners from a in our region in as well like some of
041the places that the food is in fact coming from you know we're eating cheese from here today or whatever. So just something to consider. I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why that would or would not work but just thought I'd Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah, it would be cool. Great. Um to piggyback off of that question from Katherine, um you mentioned, you know, that we are trying to use more of local businesses and also we do the harvest of the month. We bring in um businesses to talk about those types of things. But then you also said that the USDA just cut the local food for schools program. Yes. So is that going to um impact our ability to do the harvest of the month or to bring in these local food from local
042businesses? I don't see it impacting um the harvest of the month. Um so our our produce distributor is out of Florida, New York, and a lot of the the produce that we feature for the harvest of the month is they're growing and it's it's coming right from there. Um so a lot of the harvest of the month stuff we're getting from our produce distributor. Um as far as the uh local food for schools grant, um a lot of the products that we brought in are more expensive. Um, so that's something it may be more difficult without that that grant funding to have those items on the menu all the time like we did this year. Um, but it's definitely something, you know, I'll look into and try to work out, but I don't think we're
043going to see it as much as we did um, this year. Um, and I just appreciate you um, creating this budget in uncertain times. I mean, there's a lot that you don't know. So, I do appreciate that. And um if over the next few months it determines there's major changes to the USDA's requirements or reimbursements um if that is something that you need to come back to us and tell us that you need a a major revamping of your budget please please do so. We understand that um there are these factors that we just don't know yet. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Our next presentation um is by John Mc Phillips. Just a budget presentation overview and discussions. Unfortunately, I won't be here talking about food or snacks. So, um, we're
044wrapping up our budget presentation here, folks. Uh, it's March 19th. We have one additional meeting April 2nd, uh, two weeks from now, where the board will consider various, uh, ballot options and, uh, for buses, uh, capital reserves, and the operating budget. But before we get there, I wanted to sort of regroup uh for both the board and the public at large to see where we were, where we are, and where we're going for the 2526 budget process. We started our budget process back uh in February of 2025. Uh at the original meeting, we uh presented a baseline budget of roughly $17.5 million offset with revenue of $111.2 million, which left an initial gap of $6.3 million. That at that point in time translated into a large tax levy increase. But over the course of not
045only that meeting but several other meetings, we've uh presented to the board for its consideration various additions and reductions in various program areas. In the administrative section, there is a proposed increase of $40,500 for the human resources department associated with the digitization of employee records. That's the second phase of a two-phase process. We also added roughly $3.5 million in revenue associated with the GB2 pilot, which was an extension agreed to between GB2 and the Bethlehem IDA on February 26th. That is a one-year extension. There is ongoing negotiations between the IDA and the entity uh as it considers a potential pilot moving forward. As information comes available over the course of the next several months. I will share that with the board and the public. With regard to transportation, uh Ellen Dorado, the director of transportation
046proposed the elimination of five drivers and three attendants. All those positions are vacancies. That roughly translates to $490,000 in reduced expenditures. In technology, the chief technology officer recommended a reduction of a uh data web architect who will be retiring later this year. I'm sorry, the beginning part of 2526, a reduction of a U purchasing agreement with Boseies that would had expired at roughly $175,000 and the reduction of roughly $10,000 in a library application. Operations and maintenance, Nick and Sonia, our director of facilities, recommended a $34,000 reduction, which um that's a net reduction. It included a $5,000 increase associated with the green teams initiatives for uh associated with the gardens throughout the district. A decrease of a senior account clerk who is retiring with the replacement of an account clerk one. So that those three uh
047changes in the budget uh resulted in a $34,000 decrease. In athletics, there was a uh small request of roughly uh $2,900 associated with an ergonomic table. On the instructional side, uh Dr. Hurst last meeting presented several additions and reductions. On the addition side, there was the $50,000 increase associated with the bookworms initiative. Uh that's the final implementation phase. There was a $5,000 increase for a supplemental allocation for arts and and education, a $38,000 increase for Bosey's library surf services services and various stipens for clubs and activities that have been presented to the district for consideration. On the reduction side, there was the proposed elimination of two vacancies at in the elementary schools at roughly a $27,000 decrease and the reduction of a Bosey's library coordinator at $10,000 gets you a net decrease for the instructional
048program of roughly $480,000. Is that after tonight? Okay. Uh Dr. Dr. H will come back and and provide some some of the additional information with regard to uh the instructional programs on student support services. There was um the director of cess Doug Morsy presented a an elimination of a vacant social worker, speech therapist, and a clinical assistant for roughly $272,000. All taken taken together, the gap now stands at roughly $1.3 million or 2.3%. Oh, I forgot these slides were in here. I could have went through here instead of memorizing them. Apologies. So, I just want to run through a few slides. Um John had raised a question at the last meeting regarding home instruction because the numbers were different on two of the slides. So I was able to confirm that the one slide um
049contained three lines which is why it was substantially higher than the other one. So that clarifies that. Thank you. On the other piece, um so last time again I recommended um some reductions and I had said that we're still in the process of high school scheduling and some of our elementary um enrollment numbers were still sort of being finalized. So I did tell you last time that I'd be coming back tonight to propose additional reductions based on um high school scheduling and sort of where we are comfortably with our elementary enrollment at this point. Um again, all of these reductions are done through retirements. Um, and they're all based on enrollment and course requests. So, I did leave off um, one of the stipens from last time. We replaced this club with another one, but
050I forgot to put the this one on there last time. So, we are proposing um, three reductions at the high school. Social studies teacher, English teacher, and.5 physics. Again, all due to retirements, and then elementary teacher, an additional section due to retirements. So last time the number was like in the $200,000 range and now it is 217,000. You can see from our last meeting. Um these additional 363,000 brings the total to 480 which was on the previous slide that John had. So with all the reductions and additions, this is a summary slide of where the 2526 budget currently stands. I want to highlight on this slide two a couple of additional changes that I'm recommending to the board for consideration. Uh the first of which is an increase of $475,000 to the district's capital reserve.
051that is actually offset further down on the slide on the revenue associated with $475,000 in state building aid. When we first were putting together our 2425 budget, the capital project was still open. We were securing final costs, what our actual debt service would be, and associated building aid. This $475,000 actually represents the state reimbursement associated with the capital reserve dollars that we had used. I'm just uh suggesting to the board that for that state aid that's coming in, we replenish the the capital reserves to the to the same effect. A $210,000 increase in the transfer to the food service um budget. The original budget presented back in February assumed a $40,000 transfer from the general fund uh to the food service fund. Given Claire Grein's uh presentation this evening, she's forecasting, as things currently stand,
052roughly a $250,000 general fund subsidy. This line item provides that additional funding to ensure that at least from a budget perspective, the food service or C fund is made and kept whole. to balance the 2526 budget and to make sure that the tax levy increase is in line with the tax cap uh law, we can only increase the tax levy by $820,000 or 1.12%. The gap is larger than that. In order to to balance the budget, uh, I'm proposing that the board consider the use of approximately $715,000 of the district's undesated fund balance. This $715,000 fills the gap, which is a structural gap for 2526. I'm comfortable prop uh proposing fund balance for a number of reasons. First and foremost, and the largest of which in 2425 the district received roughly $610,000 in un anticipated
053unforcasted revenue associated with the psg pilot. At the time the uh pilot was put together, the pilot schedule uh was what was budgeted within the agreement with PSCG. If that entity reaches certain production thresholds in terms of energy output over a 2-year period, it requires PSG to pay taxing jurisdictions a sweetener or or bonus payment. We were not uh aware that PSCG was in that position over the life of the 20-year term with PSCG. That threshold had never been met. So, it was uh met over the past couple of PSG's fiscal years, which triggered at least for the district roughly $610,000 in additional revenue. Given that that was unanticipated revenue, most of that $715,000 use of fund balance is attributed directly to uh the the additional PSCG pilot revenue. the tail of the tape in
054terms of the expenditures uh a comparison of where the 2425 budget uh was, where our baseline budget for 2526 started and where we ultimately ended. In total, we're anticipating an increase of roughly $2.6 million between 2425 and 2526 or a 2.27% increase in expenditures. Um a large component of that you can see is between you know the first column and the third column is tied to salaries uh which are governed by collective bargaining agreements salary and um and fringe benefits. Uh I've talked at length in terms of the pressure the district is feeling particularly on uh hospital medical insurance more particularly on pharmaceutical coverage. Those anticipated costs are included in that $30.9 million for fringe benefits along with a not insignificant increase uh for the ERS retirement the employee retirement system for our non-instructional staff.
055Do want to highlight a decrease in debt service from uh 10.6 to $9.2 million. That was a strategic decision that the the district uh implemented in 2425 understanding where we were going to be with debt service for 2526 and the associated reimbursement with building aid. The other um areas of the budget remain relatively flat. You will see an increase in the transfers um and capital outlay. Capital outlay is roughly $100,000. I'll get to that in a later slide. But the real increase from the 415 to the 1.1 is associated with the $457,000 in increased building aid and the additional funding needed for food service to make it uh make itself whole. Overall, the adjusted budget is $116.6 million that will be presented to the public if the board so chooses. Same information distributed a different
056way based on the programmatic area. uh same total. Um the the increases that we would be seeing on the previous slide are more equally distributed uh amongst the various uh program and instructional areas taking in consideration the additions and reductions that were pro uh proposed and articulated earlier in the presentation. On the revenue side, couple of uh points of uh highlight here. As much detail as we can go in terms of the expenditure side, the district's revenue is somewhat limited. There's roughly four or five main pots of funding that the district has to offset expenditures, school taxes, pilot payments, state aid, various other revenue. Um the $73.9 million in 2526 assumes an $820,000 increase which is that 1.12% maximum allowable tax increase based on the tax cap law. The pilot payment assumes the 3.6 um
057based on the the extension. State aid shows a a small increase. Uh you may recall from earlier presentations that the executive budget proposal included a 2% increase in foundation aid. Uh that is reflected in uh the budget as well. A more um deeper dive on the state aid foundation a uh roughly 19.6 six. Um, Boseies and special education, small increase. Transportation, again, a you know, an increase, but not not sizable. And and building aid. The building aid you'll see that $475,000 increase that we uh referenced earlier. Overall, the increase in um state aid is $1.2 million or roughly 3.7%. do want to highlight that the state a uh the figures in the state a chart do not include the universal prek allocation to the district at roughly 1 uh 1,269,000 the district is not immune
058to the inflationary pressures that we are experiencing at at home and what I want to highlight here is that over the course of time between 2012 and 2021 one where the district could increase taxes by roughly 2% under the tax cap law. We sort of mirrored that based on what the inflation was at the time until we get to 2021 where because of the pandemic and supply chain issues and other factors at both the local, national, and and global economies resulted in significant year overyearover-year increases. You can see over the last four years, inflation actually increased 4.7%, 8%, 4.1%, and 3%. Which compounds to roughly a 21% increase in goods and services over a 4-year period. However, under the tax cap law, you're only allowed to increase taxes by approximately 2%, which compounds only an
0598.2% increase over the same 4-year period. This graph illustrates that that yellow shaded area is the inflation that the district had to absorb over the course of those four years between various methods. Either maximizing revenue or decreasing costs or uh thinking outside the box in terms of how to deliver goods and services at a um at a lower cheaper cost to remain as close as it could to what the inflation was. This is a side-by-side comparison of uh the tax levy in terms of what was allowable for the tax levy, what the board ultimately levied in terms of taxes, as well as the amount of allowable tax levy that was not levied. So in essence, in 2324, the district could have increased taxes by roughly $543,000 more than it did. didn't need the taxes at
060that point in time. It provided some tax relief to uh to residences and commercial entities within the district. Same thing for 2425. $634,000 um was left on the table, so to speak, in terms of untax authority, resulting in roughly $1.2 million over the course of the two years. in 2526. Given the pressures that we're feeling both on the revenue and an expenditure side, the allowable increase is $820,000 or 1.12%. We're recommending to the board that that's within reason. It's the we're not seeking an override of the tax cap. We'll deal with the $820,000 in terms of increase in taxes back filling any additional need with the undesated fund balance. In terms of what that tax levy increase may be to uh folks in both the towns of Bethlehem and New Scotland, I can provide a
061little bit of information. This is always an uncomfortable component of the presentation because there's still a lot of information I do not have access to given the timing of where we're at with budget compared to the real property tax calendar. Tax rates in particular are influenced by the assessed value in and between both the towns of Bethlehem and New Scotland. They're also impacted by equalization rates. Quick uh summary in terms of the calendar challenge in terms of forecasting what the impact to tax rates are in March. The equalization rates are available in February of 2025. Uh the district's taxable status date is March 1st, which is all applications for exemptions or changes in um assessed value need to be to the town assessors by no later than March 1st. The preliminary assessment role is not
062available to the public until the earliest May 1st. So it's very challenging for me to forecast what the actual impact will be to tax rates. And the final assessment role is not due and available until July 1st. So the information I'm going to be presenting to you today is the information I do have available for 2526 along with the assessment role the final assessment role for 2425. It's not the best gauge but it's the most accurate gauge I can give you at this juncture in time. the um comparison of equalization rates between the town uh and Bethlehem and New Scotland. For Bethlehem at 64% and New Scotland at 65%, you can see it was previously 75 and 74%. What does that mean and what does that translate to? In essence, it's showing that Bethlehem's assessed
063value is roughly 64% of what the market value of any residence or commercial business is. 65% for New Scotland. The final tax rate for 2024 for Bethlehem was $22.27. For New Scotland was $2259. Because of the change in the equalization rates, the decrease as well as the fact that the decrease was not as great for New Scotland as Bethlehem, it translates into sort of a difference in the percentage increase or decrease between the towns. Bethlehem would see a 1.35% increase in its tax rate. New Scotland would experience roughly a 1.64% tax rate decrease. That does not translate to that the town of Bethlehem is going to be paying more taxes compared to their uh friends and family in New Scotland. This all works out to make sure that the assessed value for a home, whether
064it's in New Scotland or Bethlehem, will pay the same amount of taxes at the end of the process. But from a tax bill perspective, Betham would see roughly a $30 increase per $100,000 of assessed value. and New Scotland would see a $37 decrease per $100,000 of assessed value. Again, when we get later in the process, when we set the tax rates in late August, early late August, in that August meeting, these numbers will change based only because I will have updated assessment values for both towns when the final assessment role is available. But I do want to give a sense to both the board and the public what a 1% tax increase on the levy translates to in terms of a tax rate increase or decrease between the towns. I always try to take some
065time to to highlight the uh district's um savings accounts. It's its uh financial stewardship of making sure that it is maximizing opportunities to save money for specific purposes. This is a listing of all the fund balance and reserve dollars for the district. A lot of these uh reserves in particular are earmarked for specific and specific causes only. The funding is not necessarily transferable between uh reserves. Um, workers comp, we have $780,000 which will be used to offset uh workers comp uh claims or incurred losses that are outside of the u operating budget. That $780,000 is based on a 5-year average of claims paid by the district employee benefits. um that's roughly at $3.3 million and represents the dollar value of um the acrruel value for all employees um and recommended by auditors. Your taxert reserve
066is $500,000. That's based on the present filings for um residences and commercial businesses that are appealing what their current assessed value is. So, we want to make sure that we put some money aside uh for those taxert filings in case a judge u rules in favor of the the residents and the entity and the district would have to pay back tax dollars to those residences and and uh commercial businesses. On the retirement, we have roughly $6 million between both the employer retirement system and the teacher retirement um system to offset what can sometimes happen. large market swings in Wall Street can translate into large operational expenditure increases for the district. This reserve would be able to be used to flatten those um those large increases. several capital reserves. Our 2015 and 2019 capital reserves uh
067as at the end of fiscal year 232 24 had been exhausted most associated with the 21 capital project as well as the middle school auditorium project. The 22 capital reserve presently has $14.3 million uh and available funding for future capital projects. We have a debt reserve at $1.6 $6 million that can be used to offset future debt service for district needs. In May 2024, voters approved uh the establishment of a bus reserve that can be used for future uh vehicle acquisitions and associated uh transportation requirements and needs. And the undesated fund balance as of June 2024 was roughly $4.5 million. Uh, under real property tax law, a school district's undesated fund balance can be no more than 4% of its operating budget, and the district is right at that uh level in compliance with real
068property tax law. Overall, $31.5 million in various savings accounts um that the district could use. These are more or less your rainy day fund should things um take an unexpected turn for the worst financially. I want to highlight particularly the capital reserves. Again, as I noted, the 15 and 19 capital reserves have been exhausted um for various capital projects. We use them for the intended purpose. Both those reserves had a $10 million maximum funding limit. We had uh the district had funded those over the course of various budget cycles to $10 million, but we had used all the funding. in 2020. The 2022 capital reserve was a $20 million um capital reserve. As of June 30th, 2024, uh the district had funded up to $7.2 million. The available funding in that reserve is at $14.3
069million. You may recall that we pulled some money out of the 22 capital reserve to offset the middle school auditorium project. That entire project was paid with cash. We did not incur any debt service. But I do want to highlight that the funding limit left in the 22 capital reserve is roughly $2.8 million. Um we cannot exceed that $20 million threshold and I anticipate that we'll meet that max as we close out our 2425 fiscal year and we'll uh propose a um a solution to that uh in a moment. Again, uh a chart summarizing how the real property tax law is associated with uh the undesated fund balance. The undesated fund balance presently is $4.5 million. Of that $4.5 million, I'm going to be pulling out roughly $715,000 to balance the 2526 budget. Do want
070to highlight that the maximum threshold forecasted for June 2020 2025 is roughly 4,664,000. Again, that's 4% based on the $116 million operating budget proposed. It's always good to provide both the board and the public in terms of a a multi-year projection in terms of where we will stand in both in terms of revenue and expenditures. I'll start with the revenues first. We're making some assumptions here in terms of school taxes will increase by roughly 2% over the course of the next three years. I'm assuming the pilot payments will remain flat at roughly 3.6. I'm only assuming that only because I know that there's active negotiations between the Bethlehem IDA and the GB2 uh GB2 uh power company that any agreement should one surface that pilot payment may be less it may be more it may
071be structured in such a fashion uh that it impacts these estimates I'm just putting that as a placeholder right uh right now again as additional information becomes available uh publicly from the IDA I'll be happy to share that in terms of where the pilot payments may stack out for the future. State aid is assumed at a 2% increase per year. Again, state aid is somewhat variable based on factors outside of the district's control. We're not sure state aid may be um increased or decreased based on changes in the state aid formula. Other issues impacting uh state in general. We talked earlier about concerns about loss in federal aid at not only the district level but at the state level and what that may translate into state aid moving forward. All other revenue roughly flat at
072$3.8 million in order to balance the budget over the course of the next few years. We will continue to need uh additional funds from our fund balance. We talked about roughly $715,000 for 2526. I'm anticipating based on these estimates a use of $1.4 million in fund balance and 2627 and it increases by roughly5 to $600,000 for the next few years resulting in um the the revenue totals that you see there. a a visual image of what the the chart translates to in terms of a graph. Um the additional taxes of a 2% increase are uh reflected in the the pink color and then the use of fund balance to balance the budget in the purple color. As I as I stressed earlier, the $715,000 that we're building in the 2526 is a structural deficit and
073absent some changes moving forward um additional management of 2526 and future budgets. Um we want to try to limit or decrease the structural balance moving forward. on the for the projection side on the expenditure side roughly a 3% increase in salaries of instructional and non-instructional staff in accordance with collective bargaining agreements fringe benefits this may be a little rich I I'll admit to that but I kept uh my calculations more conservative only because of the increases that we're seeing in fringe benefits in general and I didn't want to necessarily short that line given some of the pressures we're experiencing uh and some nominal al increases in supplies and purchase services. The debt service is pretty much a given. I am able to at least in terms of the current debt schedule for existing issuances, I'm
074able to forecast that out pretty well. Um so there are some some nominal increases which I really attribute it to uh bus purchases that the board may consider moving forward. Transfers moving forward gets you to the the total dollar value figure that you see here. And those dollars match both appropriation and revenue. Same sort of uh visual presentation on the chart side uh in terms of how the various appropriation categories stack up uh both individually and uh in total. The district is allowed a $100,000 allocation for capital outlay. Every year we look uh in assistance with Nick and Sonia. our director of facilities provides a recommendation in terms of what that $100,000 capital outlay can be used for. Over the past several years, we've been updating our security systems at various buildings and hardening uh
075the exterior of of our buildings. Uh two years ago, we did the high school. This year, uh we're just closing down the middle school um door contact system by Avalon. Um we are now branching for 2526 in future years. the same security measures for our elementary schools. Uh Nick's recommendation was to start with Hammergirl only because it's in a more rural section of the district surrounded by some wooded uh areas uh along the perimeter. Uh we anticipate that between the actual equipment, hardware, software, and engineering and design fees that should um be well within the $100,000 maximum uh capital outlay. future years. Uh Hammergirl and Glenmont are the more expensive of the elementary schools just given their design and the number of doors they have. As we get into future budgets, you know, we'll consider
076which schools can be accommodated within that $100,000 outlay with the with the goal over the next, you know, three years or so, all of the elementary schools will be able to be um fully secure in terms of the perimeter ballot propositions. Outside of the operating budget that the board will consider during the April 2nd meeting, there are two propositions that will also be included on the ballot. First of which is the bus proposition. We talked at length over the past few meetings in terms of what the district should be presenting to voters. At the last meeting, the board uh recommended uh to bond council to pull a proposition for three large diesel buses um and um three small gasoline power buses not to exceed a total cost of $814,770. That's the language that will be
077presented um to the public on May 20th as well as the establishment of a capital reserve. Uh we talked earlier in terms of how the 22 capital reserve was uh closely meeting its funding threshold of $20 million. This is the establishment of a $30 million capital reserve. Again, this is just a the establishment of a an additional savings account for future capital project needs to help minimize the issuance of debt um and principal and interest costs that negatively impact the operating budget moving forward. Overall, the ballot will consider con consist of the following. The district operating budget, the bus proposition, the 2025 capital reserve along with the Bethlehem public libraries operating budget, two open district board of education seats, and two library board of trustee seats. In particular, with regard to the board of education,
078there are two open seats. Robert Tisian and John Walston are uh the the current occupants of those seats. Uh, it's for a three-year term expiring June 30th, 2028. I'm sorry, June 30th, 2028. Uh petitions first became available February 20th and are due to the district clerk Britney Barrett no later than April 21st at 5:00 p.m. The remaining schedule for our budget process again April 2nd which is our next regularly scheduled meeting. The board will consider uh for adoption um the the ballot propositions highlighted above. May 7th is the public hearing on the proposed budget. May 14th is the meet the candidates night and ultimately May 20th from 7 to 9:00 p.m. is the the district vote. That's all I have tonight. Does anyone have any questions? Um starting with pro possibly the easier one first.
079Uh the meet the candidates is that gonna be on Zoom or in person this year? Do we know that yet? Um I don't know. It we only have pulled it if there's more than Got it. Right. Seek people running for the seats. Um we've done it the women voters have requested to do it by Zoom the last couple years. I don't know if they they'll continue that or not. I just just it's one of those things just getting the word out as soon as what we do know, but it makes sense that we would know that yet. So sorry about that. Thank you. um just about the so using the the um fund reserves rather than attempting to go over the tax cap. Could we talk about that for a couple minutes and just ask
080I'd like to ask a couple questions there. Um, so if I understand, so so that 117 uh, excuse me, not 117 the 715 $15,000, sorry. Um, that transfer this year, is that coming out of the Did you say that's coming out of the $4.5 million fund? That's correct. And if I if I could just pause there for a second, it is coming out of the $4.5 million that's presently available. Correct. Keep in mind that there was $611,000 in additional revenue from the GB2 pilot. That's immediately because it was not anticipated can be used to offset that. Got it. Thank you. But it's still a structural imbalance in in in the budget. Correct. But it's not it's not quite such the imbalance that it would be otherwise. It's a smaller imbalance because of that sweetener that
081we're getting. Yes. Okay. Then the um the projections and is it a safe assumption? Sorry, I was like scrolling through the slides up and down here. We're projecting to continue to run a deficit for the out years for the next several years. And those if we were to cover those with fund balances that would also come that would be the same fund. That's correct. And is it a safe assumption that we're not we're not projecting to continue to put money into that fund as we not the way because not not the way the budget is structured, right? We only add to fund balance and reserves at the end to close out depending on where we may have expenditures let's say associated with vacancies that we did not fill or revenues that uh exceeded expectations. So,
082in terms of the budget presentation, there's not the anticipation to immediately add to reserves. We won't be in a position to make that determination until much later in the fiscal year as we're closing expenditures and revenues. That makes that makes sense. Um, however, if as projected even with the 600,000 coming in this year, we're continue to build increasing deficits in the out years. Um if could we go to the sorry I don't know what number it is the I know but I will find it here in a moment thinking of the slide that shows the outy years. Yep. So if I can anticipate your qu question here Katherine is over the course of the those four years in that orange use of fund balance slide we're using more fund balance than is available assuming no
083additional increases to fund balance at the end of the year. That's what I'm driving at. And and that's the challenge when you use fund balance to address a structural deficit. You know, it's it's not we're using uh fund balance to offset a one-time acquisition of a large piece of equipment, right? But in conversations given where we were on the tax levy limit of one, you know, 1.1%. An override of a fraction of a percent or or somewhere at one additional percent or somewhere less. uh the the conversation internally was like let's see if we can give some tax relief to um to to our friends and family in the community to given the pressures that they're feeling at home presently and see what where 2526 ultimately winds up and then we we're constantly in the
084business office re-evaluating and managing the budget and and that that's a key component here. The budget process is really it's like a 9010 split. the the 10% is in the the the development of the budget. I know there's been a lot of talk here. There's been a lot of work by all parties within the district, but a real lion share of the work is coming to the management of the budget once the books open on July 1st. Really evaluating where are we in terms of our revenue streams? Where are we with enrollment and FTEEs? Where are we with posting of positions for for vacancies? Do we really need those uh positions to be filled? Should we wait for to to to gain some savings and maybe re-evaluate on January 1st? So, the the process of
085managing the budget is really what allows the district to remain within the parameters of um revenues and an appropriation to make sure that we're not really if if we're if we have to hit fund balance that we're not hitting it as hard as we first forecasted it. Now something may change outside of our collective knowledge or control that may require more fund balance use in one year or multiple years. Um this budget process has been a little bit more trickier than than others uh for for a number of reasons. A the pilot agreement coming through while beneficial in some ways um minimized our our levy increase from one year to the to the next. the federal impact that we're seeing in terms of tariffs and changes as well as other federal funding, what that may
086translate to district specifically andor the state in generally and how that may then translate to the district. Those are all unknowns. So, um I think if anything the district will be, you know, keeping the pulse on this and reporting both to the board on a little bit more frequent, um the timeline than than usual only because there's a lot more in flux this process than there have been in previous ones. I'm really grateful for that. And I think one of the things that I'm just trying to lift up here is that there's there's going to come a point, you know, there you can do more with less to a point and then you're just doing less with less, right? And with the projected structural deficits and continue continuing to draw down fund reserves um that's
087something that would put us in in my opinion would put us in a very is in a pretty untenable position right we have no we have no room to breathe there if any unexpected happens and as we think about I hear I absolutely hear what you're saying this year about the challenges of of of exceeding a tax cap or or what that you know what that looks like if it's really worth trying to to bring our friends and family and the community you know into that conversation. However, just like by having bus propositions every single year so that we can anticipate those costs so that we can think about that as a community as a necessary cost when we go to the polls. um making sure that we can to the extent possible build in
088that predictability when it comes to just kind of general taxation in order to keep our services and um mission delivery possible across the district I think is also really important. So just wanted to kind of like underline that as we're as we're considering what impacts the choices we make this year are going to have on the coming years as well. And and to to flip it a little bit different different way, Catherine, when we had not taxed up to the maximum taxable authority because we didn't need it. I'm not suggesting we revisit that, but the way the legislation works, any money that's left on the table or wasn't taxed does not cannot be sort of recouped in a later year. So every tax cap process or any individual fiscal year, it's a you know, start
089start from from the starting line and and recalculate. So, um, I think it's important to highlight that at least in the two years that we talked about, we gave roughly $1.2 million back. It's even more when you look back over the past several budget cycles. Um, so in a situation, if the board did choose to to override, I think you need to at least compare the two that while if a if an override was under consideration where you were above the the tax gap, you should look at it as well as the years that you were under. Right. Thank you. Yeah, sort of following up on what what was just you know discussed about the undesated fund balance. Um I mean what is that generally used for? So it's your it's your rainy day fund,
090right? So you know by law if you adhere to the law you can only maintain 4%. That that's a relatively low threshold. uh school districts are held to a much different standard than your municipal organizations whether it's fire districts, towns or cities. Um I mean you look at some of the the counties that their fund balance is approaching almost the value of their operating budget because they have so much more funding and flexibility to deal with. Uh 4%'s a tough number to to remain in only because any one or two things can marketly swing that $4 million in terms of use. Um there are proposals at the state level to increase that that that have not gained traction. Um from an operating perspective, it does provide some cash liquidity uh when we are a little
091bit in our poorer months until uh state aid comes in or uh tax revenue comes in. So from an operating perspective, that's how um we we use it uh any given year. But it's really used as hey emergency break glass. let's use this to to plug a hole that was unforeseen. Remind me how that gets filled back up. Like where is the how you know where does that flow in from? So any given year um as we do our our closeout process we look at our budgeted revenues compared to our actual revenues. Anything above and beyond that is surplus funding. And the same thing on the expenditure side. We have our appropriation. If we spent less because uh the retirement bill was less or we had you know 10 vacancies in the instructional staff that
092funding would also go to either fund reserves or or the fund balance and so that PSEG you know sort of gift however we want to think about it that would just generally ordinarily go into that that's correct that fund balance and that's why for this particular year I was more comfortable using fund balance because I all else being equal That's at least a majority of that would be offset by that pilot. Given the amount, you know, given the the whatever was in there prior to that, would that have put us over the 4%. The district may try does its best to remain in that 4% which is why the capital reserves are so so critical. Um, and why we why I'm proposing the the creation of an additional $30 million. In other words, if it
093was going to put us over the I would move money to the capital reserve. It was sort of over the bucket into a different That's correct. Okay. Thank you, Katherine. You have another question. No, I was just thinking though like but when we do when we do that, right, we lock up those dollars once that goes capital reserve fund. Those are those are very specified uses for for the capital reserve. Yes. Now, in terms of flexibility, the district can use certain ones like the employee benefits one and the retirement reserves in particular to minim minimize sort of um cost increases from one year to the next. Right? Again, I always caution in terms of um using the reserve dollars which are onetime once money with ongoing expenditures. So, we'll take the the retirement reserve for
094an example. If Wall Street had had a terrible year that negatively impacted what our retirement bill would be, maybe we would use a retirement reserve in the hopes that next year Wall Street would be a better year and the bill would come down, right? That's I would feel more comfortable in that situation using a limited resource for an ongoing need. Um, and the same thing with with employee benefits, but most of the other ones under uh state rule and regulation are specifically earmarked for a designated specific purpose. Thanks, John. Yep. Next on the agenda, item five, recognition of a public comment on an agenda item. If anyone is here who'd like to speak on an agenda item, this now is the time to come to the microphone. Next, um number six, action items. Um it
095is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following finance action items 1 through 4. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any extension? That carries. Next item B, professional personnel act action items. Is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following professional personnel act action items 1 through eight. So move. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That carries. Item C, support personnel action items is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following support staff action items 1 through 4. So moved. Second. Any discussion? I've got a question. um the proposal to reduce um the number of AIDS to students with disabilities. So just on that topic there can can administration sign some shine some
096light on this or the background here that was the one um those five positions that had been cut the prior year and never were actually abolished that we talked about at the last meeting. So that's it's really a carryover from last year's budgeting process. Okay. Thank you. Y and those positions are just to cl are unfilled currently. They're not they haven't been filled since that time. Thank you. All in favor? I I. Any opposed? Any obstension? That carries. Uh item D, other action items. It is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approve the following action items one through four. So moved. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any extension? That carries. Excuse me. Item seven, recognition of public comment on a non-aggenda item. If we have any members of
097the public here would like to address the board on a non-aggenda item, now is the time to come to the microphone. Item eight, future meetings and events. Um our next um meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025 with anticipated executive session at 6 o'clock, regular board meeting at 7 o'clock. After that, um, the next meeting is April 23rd, 2025 with anticipated executive session at 6 o'clock, regular board meeting at 7 o'clock. Uh, seeing no need to go back into executive session, can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? So moved. Second. All in favor? I adjourned. Oh, yeah. Pig students and students, we have the signup sheet right over here. Be sure to sign.