BCSD Board of Education meting 2/26/2025

001e e e executive session since 6 o'clock to discuss a Personnel matter a legal matter a student matter and a contractual matter we could please stand for the Pledge of [Music] Allegiance I pledge allegiance to flag un States of America and to the for it stands Nation indivisible introductions Dave HST Catherine Nat Lauren CR Robert T Jody Monroe Holly delau youan MCN John Walston John MC Phillips uh do we have any pig or Supa students visiting tonight welcome thanks for coming um you need to stay until the meeting is over or 9:00 whichever one of those things comes first um before you leave make sure you sign out on one of the sign out sheets it's up here um on the table that way you get credit for being here um first up is our

002approval of minutes um it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the minutes from the February 5th 2025 regular board meeting so move a second uh any discussion all in favor I I any opposed any extensions that carries item three meeting reports and first up is our superintendent report sure uh thanks so much uh so I have a few announcements um I wanted to share if you didn't see this that news 10 visited the high school um prior to vacation they visited the um health desk at the high school and they were featured on News 10 broadcast on February 10th there a short little news story on them sharing how this innovated internship program um has established an inhouse technology Workforce um that supports teaching and learning so there is a

003link on our website um it's a great little feature also like to congratulate one of our middle school students Arnav Jack jacketti um Arnav won the middle school spelling be back in January he then Advanced to a regional qualifier that was held over the great uh he pered he performed so well on an online test he is moving on to the Regionals of the scripts National Spelling be uh this Saturday March 1st and he is one of only 17 students who will compete in the regional B so top finishers on Saturday will head to the national spelling B so we'd like to wish wish him luck um I'd also like to uh thank Our Food Services director Claire gine and our staff who uh are trying this year take-home breakfast and lunch for students uh

004who are fasting in observance of Robin uh the take-home meals will be available during the school weeks throughout Ramadan and there's a Google form that families can fill out in advance all meals are vegetarian will be either charged to student School Meal accounts or free for any students who are eligible for free or reduced price meals so I'd like to thank our staff for for offering that and finally my last announcement or plea perhaps is in kindergarten registration uh we have a projected number of case thinking k for 270 student and as of last count I think we had about 140 registered and the deadline to guarantee registration in your home school is March 1st so we have sent out reminders uh last year we did look back at this time we were only about

00540 students off our projected numbers so it's a real significant change so I'm not really sure what's going on so if you know anyone who has an incoming K student or get the message out please have them register sooner rather than later because that does help with our enrollment obviously how many class sections we need at each of our buildings and that also plays a factor in our budget process so so I guess that's a plea more than announcement have we done direct Outreach to the preschools in the area yes we've done that I know the preschools have sent out information our buildings have sent out information you have a sibling potentially that's coming you know you have another student coming in and we've sent districtwide communication so it's an odd situation so yeah I

006guess you think of any other way to get brainstormed yeah there's another way to thank you yep uh and that's everything for my superintendence report um any questions for Jody on any of that okay uh next up is the board report um and I don't have a lot just coming off of uh vacation I do know that um the high school is hosting a hygiene Drive uh right now so um if you want to send anything in or stop by um I there's information that went out um I think on parent Square about that um anybody have anything else that they want to share um anybody here from uh high school student Senate come on up boy should I just like I think if you pull it down pull it down or jump up or

007just take I'll just oh take it out okay you know what I'll just go like this um okay um hello I'm Lauren I'm the president of student Senate um so I have a couple things um I'm sure you all know that our dance was canceled or postponed um for the winter dance so we've moved that to March 22nd and we're renaming it the Spring Fling cuz it's like a couple days after spring equinox um and then we've also secured a $5,000 donation um for the backpack program from the Bethlehem Community Fund um and then a couple things that Mr irons wanted me to let you guys know um um was the boys basketball team is going to semi-finals their game is on Saturday at Hudson Valley against Amsterdam girls it's me going to quarterfinals um

008on Friday against Falon Spa in Mechanicville and Charlie Ike is going to girls wrestling States tomorrow so yeah it's sophomore which is great but yeah that's all I have for you thank you thank you thank you uh next next is our um we don't have anyone here from the Middle School I didn't see anybody but just double checking okay uh next is our presentation um this evening we have our first um big budget presentation we are going to have our budget overview um and then talk about transportation technology and operations and maintenance so we'll start off with John good evening to the board and our friends and family at home the meeting tonight's really the the introduction to the school district's 2526 uh proposed budget for the upcoming school year customarily when I'm up here

009presenting in in late February I really usually have a good sense of where the district stands in terms of finances and expenditures what the um maximum allowable tax levy is what the percentage tax increase will be where we are on key revenue streams and expens expenditures this year's budget process has been a lot more organic and dynamic for a number of reasons much of what I will present today is still um in in draft form I anticipate that when we get to next week's meeting um the numbers will firm up and I'll get into a little bit more explanation in terms of why we're not on as found uh solid foundation at this meeting as we are in in previous uh budget Cycles the school district's budget is broken up into various pots of Revenue

010school taxes account for just under 66% and those are the school taxes are subject to the tax cap calculations as defined by the New York state property tax cap law the inflation index for the upcoming school year uh is actually two almost 3% but that factors capped at 2% under the tax cap law meaning that the district has to make up the difference in that um inflation index the maximum increase under the law as it stands currently tonight is at roughly 5.8% which could yield just under $4.3 million in additional tax revenue when I say the maximum increase that means the tax increase the district could propose to voters without without needing an override to that uh tax cap and tax levy uh proposal state aid is at roughly 31% uh you remember last year

011there was a question in terms of what Foundation Aid would look like in the future given the governor's proposal to ask the Rockefeller Institute to sort of recalculate re-engineer um the way state aid is both calculated and distributed to school districts throughout the state the Rockefeller Institute did meet over the course of the summer into uh the late fall the governor did incorporate some of the recommendations into the reallocation of the state aid Formula One of the provisions that came out of that was a a maintaining of the hold harmless provision and by hold harmless all districts received at least a 2% increase in their Foundation Aid certain other districts made out more depending upon the factors that get added into to the foundation 8 formula but Bethlehem at least maintained its 2% increase which

012translated to roughly $385,000 and additional Foundation Aid the district's Universal prek allocation remained at $1.3 million that's not actually incorporated into the general fund budget we're discussing tonight it's actually in the the F fund budget but that was an important carryover uh from one budget year to the next other state aid streams were relatively flat flat comparatively some up some down but overall relatively consistent pilots and miscellaneous sources of revenue account for the remaining 3 and a half% the budget that I'm presenting today reflects the actual loss of the PS pilot that we have been talking about over the past several cycles that is a loss of $3.5 million as well as the phase out of other Pilots associated with the Vista Tech Park these are the initial State estimate a state aid estimates broken

013by some of the larger categories um comparing the 2425 budget what the current 2425 state aid run uh based on U the most recent data the district has entered into State Ed as well as the executive proposal uh submitted by uh the governor uh earlier this month you can see that there is some increased Revenue um I do want to highlight that the total is a little bit inflated only because of the universal prek allocation that 195,000 represents the actual gr dollars we applied for compared to the actual allocation that we're eligible for so last year we were also eligible for the 1,269 but what we ultimately submitted in terms of our application based on our partner with TS uh kids crew and TSL Adventures was 195,000 so that difference is just a little bit

014um artificial I just wanted to highlight that out the one asterisk I want to highlight is on our building Aid um that represents the current building Aid in the executive proposal in the current state aid run it does not reflect the additional building Aid associated with our 2021 Capital project Nick and Sonia did his his darness really to close out that project uh as requested as of December 31st to get all of our paperwork into State Ed so state aid could flow 2425 into 2526 so we anticipate anywhere from another 2.3 $2.4 million coming onto that total later on so next next year he'll be presenting later that was a huge lift to close out a very large Capital project in short order and I uh I give my thanks to to that effort I

015wanted to highlight some of the risk exposure on the federal government to uh on the federal aid sources to the district I know that there's been some question in terms of given um what we've seen in the news what is the actual impact to uh the district specifically as it relates to to Federal Aid sources again because it's federal aid these federal aid sources are not reflected in our general fund budget they're reflected in our fund budget we get roughly $2.3 million in federal funding from the sources allocated uh highlighted above we get some some educational title grants are 611 619 funding uh at roughly you know $1.1 million is associated with our special education services those dollars do much to offset the salary infringe benefit costs associated with staff um in cess we do

016get some Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement um from the feds and the food service allocation of $645,000 represents the USDA uh funding that we get to help for free and reduced lunch those totals about $2.3 million again not a significant amount of funding but funding that could be at risk if uh Federal changes um impact um our district I do not think that the federal government is going to come and tell Bethlehem specifically as a school district we are cutting your 611 Grand funding by x amount of dollars the larger concern the district has is whether or not federal funding is reduced Ed or reallocated or readministered in any way shape or form at the state level which may then trickle down or Cascade to all of the school districts within within the state of New

017York you know going back we do get 33 $34 million in state aid that's state aid as of today if there is some change in how federal dollars are allocated to States including New York state that may have a unintended consequence to our state aid calculations moving forward quick summary of our um revenues school taxes I'm currently proposing a flat tax levy uh just for for sake of the argument here to show the impact of the other revenue streams against expenditures you'll see your pilot payments decreasing significantly by that $3.5 million associated with the PS pilot changes in state aid um for a total revenue of roughly $11.2 million Which is less than where we were last year so out of the gate we already sort of behind in terms of where we anticipate revenues

018to be for 25 26 pie chart that sort of distributes U by by percentage the uh School District's revenues again I want to highlight that there's really only four sources of revenue that the district has and even of those revenue streams it's some Limited in its flexibility to increase those from one year to the next three important um items involving taxes in general we talk um on a yearly basis about the tax cap that is what New York state law allows districts to increase taxes by the tax levy which actually represents a revenue stream after taking into consideration all your expenses and all your other revenue streams gets you sort of the the balance and that balance is um ultimately levied in the form of taxes and then the tax rate which is the tax

019levy which is distributed amongst the assessed value uh throughout the towns of Bethlehem and New Scotland we talked earlier about the loss of the PSC pilot that's been sort of a theme over the past several budget cycles and what that impact was to the district the district did a lot over the past several years years to plan for the loss of the pilot this gives you a quick timeline of the PSC uh plan it's now known as gb2 power New York LLC uh prior to 2002 it was on the tax roles and was one of the larger tax paying entities within the district at um $5.2 million in annual taxes in 2002 there was a 20-year pilot agreement that was entered into between the entity and the Bethlehem Industrial Development agency that benefited both the

020town the school district and the various other taxing jurisdictions in the town in 2024 that pilot was extended in an additional year which resulted in um one additional year of roughly $3.7 million in Pilot Revenue that benefited U that number is the figure for both the school district and the library moving forward in 2025 we were anticipating that the pilot agreement was going to end and that the assess value associated with the plan at roughly $100 million was going to roll on the tax rolls that's where I was in terms of the presentation conversations we've had over the past uh several Cycles what this budget presentation the assumptions our calculations were driving towards for this presentation until 8:52 a.m. this morning at 8:5 2 a.m. this morning the town of Bethlehem Industrial Development agency voted

021on one uh an extension for the pilot for one additional year which will impact the school district for 26 the challenge for the district is well there's several challenges with this the benefit is that additional pilot dollars will come into the school district budget which will minimize the impact of any tax levy or tax levy increase to uh res other residential and Commercial uh taxpayers anticipating that the pilot was going to roll off of a pilot agreement onto the tax rolls the district had made some certain strategic decisions over the course of the past several years to sort of plan for that loss of the pilot the fact that it rolled in while it's beneficial from a revenue Source created some challenges Downstream when the pilot was scheduled to come off as a pilot agreement

022and roll on to the tax rols it uh let me rephrase with the with the pilot um ending it resulted in a tax levy increase not to exceed 5.8% because we were losing the revenue the tax cap law allows districts to actually increase taxes a little bit more than might may be usual or customary to make up for that loss in funding now with the pilot as of uh this morning rolling on or maintaining its pilot status our tax levy increase really can't exceed 1% and that's again because of some of the other decision points we made uh over the past several years one of the challenges with the tax cap law is that it only looks one year to the next in terms of what your tax levy calculation is or can be and

023does not take into consideration or reward for that matter sort of longdistance forecasting financial planning so because of some of the steps we took in the prior uh budget cycle to sort of even or level off this sort of evf flow of of tax increases unfortunately hinders um the amount of tax dollars that can be generated for 2526 what I want to highlight is that the increase at you know 1.1% is the maximum amount that the tax increase can be absent an override which means that the the board wants to propose a um tax increase greater than 1.1% it can do so the voting public would need to approve that by a super majority or a 60% plus one vote as opposed to just the customary 50% plus one if you're within the uh the

024tax cap margin compounding the challenge with the tax cap U law is that it sort of caps inflation at 2% and I I I highlight this graph because over the past several years prior to 2021 the 2% factor in the tax cap law sort of mirrored what the actual inflation impact was until you get to 2021 what happens in 2021 you see significant increases that are compounded year over-year with regard to inflation we in 21 to 22 there was an 8% um increase in inflation there was a 4.7% inflation the year after that 4.1 3% that compounds to roughly a 21% inflation increase over the past four years the tax cap allows for only a compounded 88.2% um increase over those same four years which means the district has to eat up the um the

025area shaded in yellow through additional Revenue um increases or decreases and operational expenses the district more or less has been able to do that given the tax levy uh increases over the past several years but it's been able to do that only through strategic decision-making really monitoring expenditures making sure that any proposed expenditures were offset with available Revenue over time that becomes more and more challenging to maintain because the inflation costs are just growing at a pace that exceeds the district's ability to sort of manage over the this is a a quick snip quick snapshot of the allowable tax increase under the law what it could Levy or or increase by and what the actual adopted tax levy increase was so in 2324 the district could have increased taxes by 3% but only chose to

026leave uh increase it by 2.3 last year it was roughly 5.3% in terms of an allowable increase uh but the adopted tax levy was only 3.25% in those two years alone the district did not tax by almost $2 million meaning that those were tax savings to residential and Commercial entities in in the town the the goal for the district and the business office is always to live within its means increase uh taxes only to the extent necessary given the pressures that we're seeing and an increase of 1.1% that's only allowable for 25 26 the district may be in a situation where it has to sort of recoup some of the tax dollars that in tax in Prior years for every 1% increase in the tax levy yields roughly $731,000 so if we to be in

027compliance with the tax cap law if we're around one uh 1.1% you're looking at roughly only an additional $750,000 an additional revenue for 2526 moving on to the expenditure side of the budget a a quick uh chart of the breakdown of where those costs lie um salaries at roughly $6.8 million which take into consideration cost of living adjustments from one year to the next Fringe benefit costs at $3.8 million we'll see a you'll see a Debt Service decrease given some of the Strategic decisions we made last budget cycle into this budget cycle that's actually a decrease uh bosi services are up uh somewhat nominally as well our equipment supplies and contractual overall the budget that I am presenting to you today is roughly $17.5 million which is up from the 1114 million the prior year

028that's an increase of roughly 3.4% or I'm sorry $3.4 million or 3% same sort of pie chart again showing sort of the large cost factors driving the budget again the largest component being salaries and Fringe at roughly 7 78% I take a slide just to highlight the health insurance uh The Fringe Benefits component it's a large driver of the budget um and a significant increase from one year to the next I want to pay particular uh attention to health insurance um health insurance alone is increasing by almost $2 million or 12% the district is seeing significant increases in health insurance on the hospital medical side we're anticipating at least an 11 half% in premium expenses on the pharmaceutical side we are self-insured plan uh we're anticipating roughly a 20% increase in pharmaceutical costs a lot

029of that is driven I I often joke whatever is on TV our um our friends and family are are on it um gp1s in particular uh are a huge cost driver for our pharmaceutical spend uh and are really what is driving that double digit increase U for rx's two retirement plans for the district TRS is our teachers retirement um uh system expense that is calculated at a uh straight calculation of roughly 10% of payroll um that's down a little bit from from the prior year our employer retirement system for retirement for um staff other than teachers is had an 88.6% increase and represents now roughly 16.5% of payroll compared to 15.2% the prior year we have some our social security Medicare and uh some miscellaneous expenses um rounding out our fringe benefits for an actual

0302.2 million dollar increase or roughly 7 a half% year-over-year it's a big cost driver for the district comparison of Debt Service I highlight this only to show because there was a significant decrease a lot of that is how the district in consultation with its Financial Consultant structured the initial payments for the 2021 Capital project you'll see that uh was $3.5 million in 2425 because we um front loaded not only our ban payment but the first year of the actual Bond principal and interest payment in the first year um so the ban payment went away and resulted in an actual um decrease in debt service Service uh that we were able to translate into some savings um into into the budget overall you'll see the actual net debt servicing decrease from $5.3 million to uh roughly

0313.9 we customarily uh pulled together a quick chart to show how we got to the 117.5 million by functional area within the district broken up between the administrative instructional programs student Support Services Transportation operations and maintenance Athletics technology fringe benefits and Debt Service we went over some of those earlier um tonight um Aon Sher is our chief technology officer will go over technology Ellen Dorado our director Transportation will go over the transportation budget and Nick and Sonia our director of facilities will uh go over the operations and maintenance component of the budget on the administrative side side just a more of a detailed U drill down in the functional areas under the admin side uh overall uh there is a decrease of roughly $47,000 over 25 26 and 20 compared to 24 25 when I

032get to where the size of the Gap is on the budget one thing I want to highlight is that this has been a very conservative budget conservative in a number of ways you know there's always uh wants needs and asks that come from various departments in terms of what they're looking to uh budget for in the upcoming year we really held held the line because we knew the pressures on both the other cost drivers and the impact on revenue streams so a lot of folks did not necessarily get everything that they wanted we made sure to the best of the ability they had everything that they needed but this really is a very conservative budget there are some uncomfortable areas on the expenditure side where we brought cost Down based on prior expenditures which really

033do not leave a whole lot of room for changes or unknowns in circumstances over the course of the year so with conservativism bringing things in line so we're not increases increasing taxes more than necessary to do that we've got rid of much of the flexibility we have to encounter things that may surface over the course of the fiscal year um again the the second page of following on the administrative side again you'll see roughly a 12,000 decrease in the areas where we could really uh afford to do so some of these costs are are sunk you'll see for example Insurance uh for Property and Casualty we're expecting roughly a 7 or 8% increase in those costs uh associated with just Market rates the other uh items really fall in line where uh past expenditures have

034been these are uh these are our self-supporting uh programs meaning that whatever costs are incurred by either continuing it or driver's education are offset budgetarily in terms of the fees and revenue bought brought in by those programs we continue to include driver's dead as a program and hopes that it can get sort of responsorial component okay so quick summary of where we're at uh revenues are in at roughly $11.2 million expenditures 117.5 that leaves an initial gap of roughly $6.3 million without using any reserves fund balance any additional decreases or increases and expenditures or Revenue that result in a preliminary tax increase of 8.6% to close that $6.3 million gap admitted on the administrative side there is one request for an addition of roughly $40,500 that represents year two of the digitization of employee records

035being um coordinated through bosis for our human resources department our goal is to get all of our paper records out of paper form in an electric electronic digital format um bosis has been working over the course of the past year sort of getting the step ready and then the next step is the actual scanning of those documents and that if the board so approves will start in the 2526 school year one item that I am proposing the board consider for the May ballot is the establishment of a new capital reserve you may recall from when we closed out our 24 23 24 uh fiscal year we're running out of room in our savings account not necessarily a bad problem to have because we're going to need those savings dollars for future capital projects we closed

036out the 15 and 19 capital reserve associated with both the Middle School auditorium project and the 2021 Capital project both of those uh reserves have been closed out and liquidated the 22 capital reserve was established a few few years back at a not to exceed amount of $20 million to date the school district has funded 17.2 million there's a balance of $14.3 million in that Reserve fund as of as of today you can only fund the reserve up to the 20 million if you take money out of the reserve for projects doesn't allow you to sort of replenish those Reserve dollars so the funding limit that we have remaining presently today is $2.7 million however given the um the the good management of the project by uh the director of facilities we will be adding

037to the reserve because there were leftover funds from both the Middle School Pro uh Middle School auditorium project and the 2021 capital reserve between those two projects we're roughly adding 1.3 $1.4 million back into that Reserve so the flexibility only have left in the 22 capital reserve is roughly about $1.3 million the ballot proposition will just uh ask the public for permission to create the reserve for the district to fund over the course of the next several years should funding exist at the end of the fiscal year again this is just a savings account it's not committing to any particular expenditure for any project that will come at a later date depending on what the building condition survey of the district um highlights needs to be part of the capital project or any other Capital

038project initiatives the the board and the district decide to to move but this does need to be a separate ballot measure uh for consideration by uh by the public before we jump to Ellen and transportation any questions clarification on at least the budget overview so first I just want to thank you for preemptively answering my question about why driver's ed was still up there because I was going to ask that um and I just want to clarify with the reserve so for the 2022 capital reserve for example which has that 20 million limit so we can't spend it down and then add more back up oneway door you can only fund it which is we funded $17 million to date pulled money out we're going to put some money back in but I really can

039only fund an additional 2.7 because we've already funded 17.2 I thought that was what you were saying I just wanted to make sure that was clear to everybody um Catherine you have question so going back I think one of the things I'm picking up from the presentation is that given the late breaking news on the pilot it seems as that we're going to have to reconsider some of these numbers and it seems like you have a sense of some of it now but more to be determined is that right okay um big picture question along that those lines we've got a $17 million budget are you expecting a significant increase or decrease to that bottom line amount as a result of the shift on the pilot so fair question thank you for that so the

040initial Gap today or before this morning was six 6.3 million that does not include the pilot Revenue coming back on okay so out of the gate that $6.3 million is going to be decreased by when when we meet next week this slide will be different it'll show a uh a gap without any other uh decision points at roughly um 2.8 million that translates to roughly a 2.8% tax levy increase before there there are other Chang is coming right so that's just if we were to sort of revise this slide while flying the plane in mid-flight here yeah yeah that's what that change is so the 8.6 drops immediately because of the pilot rolling on but again if that translates to a tax levy increase still of roughly 3% I wanted to highlight that the tax

041cap law as it currently stands only allows you to increase a buy about 1% so if you want to maintain that you still have to find roughly a million and a half million six of addition uh funding decreases or Revenue offsets to bring that into compliance I'll have more questions next week I'm sure because I'm not having the visual helps me really understand that so we I'll I guess to maybe switch my question a little bit so I understand what you're I I hear what you're saying on the revenue side of things and the impact on the Gap and that in impacting the levy and and what what we're asking voters to um to make up for I guess or taxpayers excuse me um I guess the part of what I'm driving at is do

042you see that impacting the expenditure side of this do you see as a result of the um the pilot coming back on do you see potential for growth of you know putting more money back into the budget do you see or are we just addressing what's happening in the Gap with this new information in these new dollars so the revenue side of the budget assuming the the rooll uh the roll backend of the pilot revenu is sort of set I the other revenue streams outside of a tax levy increase are the those are pretty much packaged up with a boat the expenditure side um other than what I presented today some of those costs are fixed for example Fringe benefit costs there's not a whole lot of room to to mver that my debt service

043is is sort of set because of decisions made in in in the past there are some options that the district will be presenting in subsequent meetings in terms of reductions on the programmatic operational side some of those are Incorporated later in today's presentation even to sort of Whittle down that Gap meeting by meeting to hopefully get the board in a position where it's comfortable with whatever it may choose in terms of a tax levy and a tax levy increase so there's more to come okay but again there's a lot of uncertainty out there in terms of what is impacting the state what is impa in impacting the state uh the district by extension when I'm talking about this you know a 5.8% levy increase uh if the pilot wasn't in and only a 1.1% if

044it is back uh into the budget I still need to run those through um the state in terms of what I'm calculating makes sense to them so I've reached out the state controller's office I need to do some some additional work just to verify my numbers I'll have a more secure number uh next week for the I don't expect too much of a of a change but I did want to highlight that this was very quick back of the envelope map based on the events of uh of this morning do we have a concrete number for what the P pilot payment y so the um the extension that was approved this morning maintains the terms and conditions of the extension approved last year no change in the dollar amount for the district specifically it's $3,476

045th000 of additional pilot re Vue that is not currently in the budget before you um no additional change in terms um I can uh say that as part of the Ida's uh public meeting this morning there are ongoing negotiations for a subsequent pilot at the end of the extension um for for this U for this round I can't speak to the terms I'm not uh privie to all of those conversations but I do think there is some decent traction between both the Ida and and gb2 power to to consider some additional pilot uh for 26 27 I do not think we will be in a similar position next budget cycle I think all that information the agreements will be in place much earlier than you know the day of our actual budget presentation and before

046the tax cap um compliance form needs to be submitted and before the tax will status St so this was just a very very unfortunate timing component given where the district's budget process line lines up um with real property tax law in the calendar so it's a little awkward for us but I don't anticipate a similar circumstance next year um would you go back to the slides that talked about the state aid please one of the things that just kind of really jumped out to me here as you were talking about where our money comes from and where our funding comes from is how steep the stakes are for the district if there are any major shifts that either come if I slide before I believe said2 2.3 million directly from the federal government correct and

047then I think am I right to say it's safe to assume that a fair that that at least some of these dollars from the state is flow through from the federal government as well yes I can't speak to the extent or the the mechanism by which they flow but the state is leveraging federal dollars for purposes of state aid you know the district is in turn leveraging State a dollars for its budget so this is a very closed system right like any one individual actor or partner that is impacted by anything sort of can run the risk of being impacted either positively or negatively by any other action within the system so uh if there is a a change in the manner and how the federal government allocates Aid to the state not just education

048Aid it could be other uh Medicaid Aid or or or other project Aid um the state because it has its own budget process to maintain and its own taxpayers to safeguard may look to find that equilibrium elsewhere and there is the risk that it could be uh on state aid that comes to the district right right right um and do we have any I mean just to really understand I mean if if if we were to lose a significant amount of state or federal aid what would that mean for us well the timing here is important in terms of when that Aid is lost right keep in mind that while the district has done a lot to sort of maintain its savings accounts they're they're somewhat limited some sometimes by Statute for example the district

049can only maintain 4% of its operating budget in fund balance that's only $4 million where capped at that so any change to the system would result in either addition the only other source of Revenue are tax levy dollars and depending on the timing we would have maybe already levied those dollars and not have an opportunity to go out and relevy for an additional amount if that happens in sort of a midyear process we would need to consider okay what do what can we do and manageing house in terms of either spending freezes or maybe we're not hiring for acies or maybe what was budgeted for in terms of equipment and contractual cost we need to reevaluate and see what we really need and what we can live without so we can sort of rebalance and

050and to follow up on that several years ago when the state um basically withheld state aid they called it the Gap elimination adjustment I if you remember that it was a number of years ago um we were looking at deficits of $10 million because of that so here's your aid but we're take we're basically withholding that the only way to make that up is either by tax revenue or reductions in spending so if we get monkeyed with at the state or federal level we've got to put that on the backs of taxpayers to keep our local taxpayers to keep our if we want keep those same programs running that's essentially yeah those are we really don't have a lot of options yeah okay thank you you and you had a question can you attempt to

051walk why the pilot changes the maxim sure with the p the um the state tax capit law considers pilot revenue and tax revenue dollar almost the same kissing cousin so to speak so they're both considered sort of tax taxable dollars in terms of the formula when the pilot was slated to come off the state sort of realized well you lost some some taxing in a way the formula will allow you to sort of increase taxes to make up for that loss now and that's how we got to our 5.8% figure with the pilot now rolling in as a as a pilot Revenue stream because it's back on as tax dollars well you don't need 5.8% because you have it now you get to one 1.1% and that Delta between the 5.8 and you know 1.1

052is roughly the value of the pilot when you do the calculation that's just on the pilot side that the form is a little complicated there's ins and outs on other things one of which is being Debt Service we had made some changes to Debt Service um strategic decisions based on assumptions at the time this time last year and a budget cycle or two before the fact that this changed so late in the game we actually um I wouldn't made those decisions today knowing what I know today back when I made those decisions that 1% is you know clearly well below the rate of inflation State doesn't care it does not and that and that's one of the challenges with the the tax cap because it's all often referred to as the 2% tax cap rarely

053is it 2% the only thing 2% comes into is you cannot exceed 2% in terms of the inflation Factor not that you can't increase or uh taxes more or less than 2% that's sort of a an end result um for example last year the district was able to increase by 5.3% its uh tax it didn't it increased it by three and a quarter but we're still within compliance um because there there's just ins and outs it's a complicated messy formula in terms of trying to message how that formula plays into actual changes to the tax bill that folks see at at home Mar a question just one brief question um you were when we were talking about your budget that you presented before we knew this new information from this morning about the pilot you

054had described it as conservative and that we're only addressing um needs not wants and the the concern about the less flexibility to deal with the unknowns of the next year when we're using that language are you describing the situation as as you understood it yesterday with perhaps a 3% um tax cap or are you just or were you describing what we may be looking at today with the 1% it's actually both because before this morning we knew that the T um we were dealing with a gap of 8.6% that's an unmanageable tax um Levy increase for any District to go out to to the public so by being conservative it was higher than that until we you know after what we've done we we were able to whittle that down to 8.6 given some of

055the other cost pressures or fringe benefits or cost of living adjustments loss of other revenue streams um that um either are not maintaining the the pace of expenditures are actually decreased as well so that's when I'm saying it's conservative but there's additional we were conservative to get to this point tonight there's going to be some additional conversations in terms of how much more conservative we need to be to get into a territory that the board is comfortable so just so I understand initially we're talking about an 8.6% budget increase you said that's unsustainable so let me try to whittle it down and you got it down to about 3% with the addition of the pilot Revenue today okay okay Catherine but in order to get from 3% to the 1% there's going to be some

056additional conversations and dialogue in terms of how to do that okay I just want to offer my sincere thanks um this is under a normal year as I understand it a challenging job to do and it's a lot of threads to weave together and to hold and so to you and to all of the staff that you're representing this evening who who aren't here before us just our thanks it's also I think um the business office office and the folks running the finances in the district are some of the least seen people um but they are what allow us to keep the lights on and to actually keep serving our students and our families and doing succeeding in our mission so thank you apprciate that any other questions before we move on to Transportation okay

057so stay tuned all this will change next week but U at least provides hopefully a good primer so to my esteemed colleague Ellen Dorado uh the director of Transportation will lead us on to the next phase of our presentation this evening this is going to be a little bit of the John and Ellen show or the Ellen and John show we're we're going to sort of go back and forth on a couple things particularly when we get to um bus fleet and uh bus propositions okay hi my name is Ellen Dorado and I'm the director of student transportation I'm seeming it seems like my support staff was gracious enough to show up and support me in the department so if you wouldn't mind could I just introduce them quickly please do we have Sandra mortensson

058she is the assistant director and uh of special needs Roots um a bus attendance and she oversees safety and training uh the safety and training department then we have Kevin good he is the assistant director of all the gened roots drivers and um substitute drivers and attendance and he oversees operations and dispatch and then we have John Hazelton he is the fleet supervisor who's really had to step up with the with the uh influx of electric buses and he manages his seven mechanics and he's the go-to guy when anyone has a problem with the buses and I thank them for being here tonight I'm using this because I can't really see very well we're going to start off with the Staffing update we are budgeted and have been budgeted for 70 driver positions 30 bus

059attendance um uh 2.9 Million for our drivers budgeted and 979 th000 for our bus attendance we have seven full-time mechanics that number goes down a little bit from last year with the loss of two long uh longtime mechanics uh we lost them in the last eight months so we have two new ones and all positions are filled we have the assistant directors and myself who I just introduced and then we have uh two dispatchers two full-time dispatchers one in the morning one in the afternoon they overlap for the busy time and then we have a 19a head trainer uh who is in charge of um um training everybody from start to the road test he handles um all our safety meetings uh mandatory safety meetings and he makes sure that everybody Under The Roof is

060in compliance so he has a lot to do he also drives when we need somebody um and then we have one halftime clerical assistant um she's a return employee so she manage basically the payroll and purchase orders I'd like to go back back up to the drivers in attendance just for a minute because um well I think that we all know that people aren't banging down the door to get a job as a driver it's not just our district it's um our neighboring districts it's throughout New York State and Nationwide so we've had to uh work within the parameters of what we have and we're really making um this model that we're creating work and that's thanks to the continued support of you all here um so we wanted to appeal to all ages and

061uh because it's needed I think that Years Gone by it's been an older uh average age of the bus driver were older so we wanted to appeal to all ages so we're trying to Foster the younger um career building uh the career-minded uh young you know couple uh so by doing that we can maybe enhance their dayb by offering them extra work or maybe an apprenticeship in the training department or a dispatch apprentice and if we can't do that if we can't provide the extra work for them to enhance their their earnings then we look for positions within the district like noon noon AIDS um just to extend their debt and then we have a larger group I think the average uh portion of our drivers and attendants are um you know set in their

062positions um they they're content and um they want to retire from from here so they're pretty good and then we have the retirees the people that can see the light at the end of the tunnel they want to retire but they're kind of afraid you know some people don't really want to retire and and not come back to work and so that most of the time we have a conversation say well do you want to come back to work but the thought of coming back and driving um route that you don't know in the cold in the dark it's daunting so so what we've tried to do is create runs and because of the needs of the student population um we've try to create runs that are less in hours um 4 hours 5 hours

063and we they don't take a contract but we're able to offer them to come in and and we assign it to them so they can come in and do the same route each day so this way um you know they're happy they're um comfortable um they're already trained and um so the we have 12 subd drivers and three sub attendants so that little bubble will will you know vary because people will go out and people will come into the bubble but to keep this bubble happy we we've been able to offer these roots and where it's not a line on the budget um it certainly does save us money because you it's not a revolving door people and we're not spending money on training hours moving along so $5.7 million for all the aforementioned so

064the budget overview $5.7 million from the slide before and um because of the um uh loss of Revenue the business office has asked us to maybe tighten up our belts and not to cut ourselves short but just to see where we could tighten up a little bit and save the district some money so we had an equipment account with 40,000 we've we've used that for things like um the lifts in The Bays um some of those have been replaced and probably in a couple years we'd have to put more money into other equipment but for now we've decided to bring that down to 10,000 we feel comfortable enough to do that we're not cutting ourselves short um we're just cutting back a little bit in the numbers fuel is has come down to 322 budgeted

065um however it's kind of tough to get a full view of what fuel will be uh last year it was a little bit more expensive because we were offsite fueling while the fuel Islands were getting done to the tune of about a dollar more per gallon so we have come down with that but with influx of electric buses it should come come down anyway it's a comfortable number to budget 322,000 for next year bus parts and supplies have gone up a little bit because just of the price of things Insurance remains at 100,000 and that's just insurance for all the vehicles we have in the lot other operating costs that's gone up some but that does include the GPS software that we have we're also migrating to a new routing system um that's included in

066that it office it also includes office supplies uniforms tools drug and alcohol testing offsite Bus Repair uh easy pass no salt which we used a lot of this year and thanks to that nature garage building includes radios and electricity for buses that's about the same at 23,000 so it is an increase of 375 4,000 we are asking for one addition and this is the EV bus charge management software this is actually um following through with what the district started um left over from the bond project or with the bond project that was um uh management uh of the um Electric is software to help us manage uh everything about it I think that the company that was helping us out at the time took their sites in a different direction and in the meanwhile between

067onm um U technology uh the business office and transportation we talked to a few different companies and we found a company Mobility house who has um uh really met our needs um so they they have done a lot of work for us and they can not only manage the new uh proera uh charging um towers that we have in the lot but also the seven Delta wall charges that we started off with that's going to be 22750 this will be us a a user interface to help with charging efficiency um they promised to um well they can monitor all of us so monitor all the buses that they could tell us when peak times are to charge our buses um they can also help us with uh which has been a huge part of our

068jobs lately and that's data collection and data reporting um it will be easier to grab the data from this software um over time we're going to have to see you know the man hours that we put in here like who will be managing it but they will be helping out they will give us alerts if we ever had a power outage we used to come in when the buses would be off on a Monday morning and low on charge um this will alert them or us whoever decides the management it's in place we're going to start training in a couple of weeks and the more we have electric buses in our Fleet um the more important this charge um the software um seems like a necessity so earlier we talked about the 70 positions in

069bus drivers that we have and the 30 that we have budgeted for in the 30 attendant position and I think we all know that we're not going to really make that we've been hovering about 50 we at 53 right now and 21 um attendance uh last year it was about the same was 52 and 22 um we're not going to make it to 70 and 30 so I think we feel safe in taking off five the drivers bring it down to 65 and three of the attendants to bring it down to 27 that will be a savings of 512 um ,000 so with the addition of the $222,700 for the charging software less uh the reduction of the $512,000 for the employees gives us a net decrease of $489,000 250 moving on to the bus

070fleet I think we've all seen this slide or something closer to that we have we have mandates in place uh 71 uh 2027 school districts can no longer uh purchase fossil fuel powered buses and effect of 7135 um we can only be operating on zero emission buses uh meaning that all the all the gas and Diesel that's what we use other than EVS all the gas and um diesel buses will have to be reti ired as of today these mandates are still in place with 2027 and 2035 I think we've learned some things over time and uh well we never said that electric buses were going to be less expensive they were going to be healthier so I think that we know now that EV buses are significantly more expensive than traditional buses the state

071reimbursement window is they've closed the Gap a little bit down to eight years which is better but it's um compared to the 5 years for traditional buses so the annual net impact of the district is a little bit greater the battery warranty is presently eight years on a uh on an EV bus after eight years the price of the battery would be about $80,000 today that's what the price is maybe over time they will come down charging infrastructure is looking good here in Bethlehem when you come here to Bethlehem you say oh we're we have we have arrived the infrastructure is down we even have charging software in place we're ready to uh go live with that anytime other places however in in the state aren't aren't as ready as we are it is great

072to be you know on the leaderboard we've been able to help our constituents but we've also learned a lot a lot of things that aren't written in any manual there are some operational limitations and challenges of today's EV buses did I do that one of those unknowns are the state and federal grant funding that Mr Phillips works very very hard on um um he's done all the applications and um it it minimizes the net cost of these buses the feasibility and commitment to the existing 27 and 2035 mandates are still unknown they could put the brakes on that or they could they could stick with it we're in pretty good shape we have a good start but we have a long long way to go before we are 100% electrified National Grid has been working

073tirelessly to get us ready uh so we can go live um operational efficiencies to meet the district needs we've had a couple of challenges there with um that cold snap that we've had buses were going out in the morning and coming back with less than 50% so they were unable ble to make up that charge in the break so they could go back out for their afternoon run I know I talked a little bit about this last year um but that was more to the effect that these buses would go out for their daily runs but they didn't have enough charts to take them on say a sports trip so um I'd like to develop or help develop a program to say where these electric buses would be best suited maybe in town I know

074the first five that we got have to continue on the routes that they are but the um the rest of them maybe if they were just in District and maybe under 100 miles a day until the batteries improved and some of their wrinkles get ironed out but it's just a thought um so we know that terrain plays a role and we know that temperature plays a role we also have not been able to um zero in on what the electrical cost would be we have enough money budgeted um but charging software will help us to zero in on uh a more specific amount up until now we've kind of been grouped in with um onm and then we have the solar and stuff like that so this is what the replacement plan looks like and

075while doing up this chart there has been no monies that came into play this is just what uh there's been a plan in place for a while that goes far out maybe to past 2035 so we have 29 70 to 72 passenger diesel buses 59 I'm sorry we have 10 we will have 10 uh this year one the three that uh I think they are in at the dealer and they should be coming to us anytime that'll give us 10 electric buses there's seven on the lot right now we have three midsize 45 passengers that can be reconfigured but they are wheelchair buses we have 24 to 30 passenger buses we have 26 of those they can also be reconfigured for Wheelchairs and then we have five eight passenger gasoline Suburbans at the beginning of

076the year I thought it was in excess to have these many Suburbans but the student population and their needs is what governs what we'll use consequently we uh absolutely needed every single one of those because we had the out of District out out of District runs that came in with that all required One driver one attendant with one student so the Suburbans really came in handy this year we use them all uh the replacement plan usually is 12 years for big buses and 10 years for the little buses so it's usually around 10 in and 10 out um however way that breaks down but usually more big buses than little buses so um this slide shows you that it should be around six six big buses replaced and three little buses and now if we

077could invite John up so Ellen I want to take a little bit of time to refresh uh the board and Public's memory in terms of the federal and state grant opportunities that are available presently for funding to offset the acquisition price of um EV buses so very similar to the um past year or so there are two funding streams available to the district to offset the cost of EV buses one is through the Environmental Protection Agency the clean School Bus program which provides for $200,000 up to $200,000 uh per EV bus there is a requirement that for any EV bus that you using the gr dollars for you must either sell donate or scrap a diesel uh counterpart uh 2011 or greater the second funding stream is the Environmental Bond act through um the New

078York State uh New York State bus and Center programs administered by ierta that provides for up to $147,000 uh on a voucher a base voucher and then you can increase um that voucher in in a couple Fashions if your bus is vehicle to grid enabled which all our buses are and if you scrap a bus you get an additional $61,200 these rules of engagement here are what they were last year the ni ctive ones have changed a little bit in that if you get um before you were able to stack dollar for dooll on top of each other both the the federal and state funding i s of had changed its rules a little bit for moving forward that the base voucher is a little bit less than 147,000 but I highlight this slide in

079particular because the district to provide the board um an opportunity to think about different options submitted an application last July before the nerer rules changed so what we were able to do was um we submitted an application for originally six large EV buses the three that Ellen talked about and then we put three sort of on layaway hey we may want these at a later date so those three buses are still available should the board want them these rules would apply meaning that we would get the $200,000 from the feds we would get the the maximum $147,000 base voucher from nerta the 12250 and the 61250 uh for the scrappage very very rudimentary math in terms of what those look like so what I want to highlight is because of the the district's diligence and

080getting some Grand applications in an advance we're able to if the board so chooses any EV Buss purchase would actually result in a z impact to local tax dollars meaning that between the Federal funding and the nerta funding we would not have to either go out to issue debt or uh spend any tax dollars associated with those Acquisitions this is how they they would currently stack up again it's not it's zero dollars of an impact some of that has spread over the course of time only because state aid is going to re be reimbursing us the district the full gross cost cost of the bus not the net so over the course of time we actually result in a z impact that's all well and good in terms of what the impact from a dollar

081perspective is for the district but as we were doing research on the operational component of EV buses one of the concerns that Ellen and I had was the comparison to EV buses and your traditional diesel buses on term of their operational how often are they on the road so I asked Ellen to do me a favor I said pull the last um fiscal year or the last calendar year 180 session days and give me a side-by-side comparison in terms of the EV buses in terms of when they were operational when they could be on the road compared to their diesel counterparts again the EV buses are new technology the the manufacturers the the district and transportation are managing not not only expectations but some of the changes and operational challenges associated with EV buses I

082think this slide is sort of important to sort of show the side by side um days that EV buses are not able to transport kids compared to their diesel counterparts so while the funding is is helpful in some cases the EV buses when they're down they cost me three they cost the district three buses out operational you got the EV bus that is up at the shop you have the EV bus that we had to scrap sell or donate to get the EV bus and then I need to pull a diesel bus to fill the route of the EV bus that's up at the um at the shop doing whatever maintenance some of this is not necessarily EV related maintenance associated with the battery some of it's EV bus maintenance because the the the real

083estate underneath the bus has changed to incorporate the battery it's not necessarily we're not talking oil changes and tire rotations here we're talking uh mechanical um issues associated specifically with EVS there's not to say that there's mechanical issues with the diesel buses which is why I wanted to sort of show a true side by-side comparison outside of your customary day-to-day routine maintenance I fo not that absolutely I just wanted to footnote what's John's saying um when it comes to electric buses is there's mandatory maintenance that only the manufacturer uh can do um so even though some of these they look like oh but we there were some drivetrain issues uh in the beginning um some compress compressor issues but a lot of these things like ancillary plug things like that that's just really a filter

084um the the important thing to know is that everything EV has a mandatory maintenance program to the tune of $2,000 a year so that's on top of regular maintenance so training has become an issue for um well for us because they had level one and level two training level one training would be somebody like me or the drivers what we need to to to know to go out and operate an EV bus level two training um the the mechanics received so they can do some things of you know they can change LA buels and whatever else they do um for for their maintenance also do um but this other uh you know warranty work always goes back to the dealer but it's level three training are the people at the manufacturers and um that can

085only do this for now it will probably change over time when we were on break I read an article that uh there is going to be a level three program coming out which would enable probably our mechanics to um would get more training and then maybe the mechanics maybe it would trickle down who's going to do it I don't know but over time it will iron out and get better um but if you look at the um we took the seven eeve buses that we had in the newest seven diesel buses um the difference is considerable with days off of the road One driver had a eeve bus assigned to her and it was in December and she still hadn't gotten it back from the dealer um the dealer is also getting the dealer the

086and the manufacturers they're getting jammed up with there's a lot of um you know maintenance warranty work and they're ironing things out so they're jammed up besides the influx from the Mandate that they're trying to manufacture buses so everything is kind of slowed up for now um if the buses that we ordered last year the three EV buses should be coming next month soon they'll be coming soon even diesel buses people are beefing up their diesel fleet before 2027 and they're taking almost a year to get on the lot so I think things are just jammed up one point regarding the funding while the funding that's how it's set up under statute right now we had reached out to the EPA because of two two reasons a it's the largest source of funding and given

087some of the um pauses instituted at the federal level we wanted to make sure that that funding was Secure we have not heard back so while there was paused and unpaused in terms of what we heard in the news Cycles in terms of EPA funding we have not heard confirmation one way or the other from our from Matthews who is reaching out to their EPA reps so I I just want to highlight that while we've made application funding has been granted I don't know if it's necessarily secure given some of the changes uh changes recently John sorry good so the Ellen and I wanted to provide the the board with some some thoughts and options here and we we'll provide a recommendation in a moment in terms of what we're looking or the options for

088the board to consider for a bus proposition so presently we're we're recommending three um well let me take a a step back this is sort of a a cross comparison of what a EV to diesel cost comparison is for both a large bus and a small bus so an EV large bus the gross cost is $456,000 it's actually a little bit higher I think from for these are the current costs today we do have some quotes that are a little bit higher we're working massaging those quotes with Matthew so we can get you and accurate costs they costs are going roughly up by 2 and a half to 3% per quarter um in terms of increases that's driven partly by demand partly because there's a lot of funding in the system right now um which

089is driving the cost up so roughly $456,000 on an EV bus um the potential federal and state aid gets you roughly 360,000 results in a net cost of $0 the counterpart on the uh large bus on the diesel side is $180,000 that is a large Delta between the gross cost per the bus between EV and Diesel and you can see it's similar on the small bus a $326,000 price tag for a 28 passenger EV bus compared to roughly $92,000 for a gas powered bus so we are proposing three large buses and three small buses to be considered on your bus prop for a total of six the board's uh decision on whether you go EV or diesel or half and half um we can certainly have some additional conversations with that given the concern with

090the EPA funding and whether or not it's actually secured given the timing of when we need to vote on things here in time for a May ballot I'm not sure if the EPA is going to be able to give us an answer first and foremost and whether or not that answer will hold now next week next month or about the time that we actually purchase the bus and are seeking reimbursement coupled with the operational challenges that we're we're seeing at least initially uh we're recommending to do three large Diesel and three large small gasoline power uh buses the actual cost of the bus prop would be 814,000 provides us some time to beef up our existing Fleet with traditional fueling before the 2020 27 mandate the those buses are reimbursed at roughly 66% by state

091aid as on state side there are no additional uh federal or state grants for this type of prop it would be all regular state aid uh for payback over the course of five years for a net impact to local taxpayers of roughly $278,000 I know that there there's a lot to to unpack there particularly because we've did our due diligence we have grant funding at least from a handshake agreement that would result in a z price tag my concern is we go we put a prop up we wind up we're not getting any buses because of things outside of our control coupled with some of the operational impact that we're seeing we have 10 EV buses or we'll have 10 EV buses on site now that's roughly 10% of the district's Fleet I'd like some

092time to see how our EV chargers are working associated with the 2021 Capital plan that were just uh implemented there's a $23,000 request for charge management to see all right let this is the next phase here in terms of managing the electrical load for the EV buses that we have um adding three or six additional um EV buses given some of those challenges the board can certainly have that we would you know absent some change in circumstances at the state or federal level those dollars may be there uh for a z impact um but six buses at 27 $8,000 isn't necessarily a bad deal either and your plug for hir all right Ellen's hiring uh $24.98 an hour is a starting rate very very competitive uh not only uh for Bethlehem but within the capital

093region there are um recruiting and retention bonuses that are available as well it's a great staff uh wonderful people to work with great kids um so anyone that's interested has some downtime please apply and then if I could just add when we were talking about the bus drivers and how how who we have we are covering we have six open runs so we do cover 23 uh runs not Roots 23 runs each day and we wouldn't be able to do that without a an extraordinarily flexible staff um so it's always been my mission to Target each um age group like I talked about before but also to have a happy and cont content staff um I think we were well on the way to accomplishing that so if you know anybody send them our way

094and I think that's it for us right John did anyone have any questions for me I'm sure there are some questions I just wanted to start off by saying thank you for uh for presenting and to your um your support team over there for coming and cheering you on um and and I'm just Bob do you want to go ahead sure um first of all as was mentioned earlier thanks so much to your department just in general I know you're not front- facing and a lot of times the work's done behind the scenes but you're getting the kids safely to and from school and that's an incredible thing so thank you very much um looking at the EV buses and how much they're down I mean some of the numbers were above 50% of the

095days um are you able to calculate like a financial cost for you know for a day out of service I mean how does that how does that reflect in terms of money spent you know that wouldn't otherwise be spent where is it all you know so I guess repairs additional wear and tear on the other buses I mean it sounds like you guys are able to to deal with it in terms of having enough buses to to to address the situ we Beginning by barely as far as calculating the cost of repairs um so far a lot of the repair work has been um under warranty thankfully um they uh the dealer has um taken a lot of the towing charges from us um that we you know because they have to be towed up

096to you know Matthews um I think we've only had to pay $600 in toing so far they're they've been very willing to work with us along the way um for more specific numbers I let me look at that for you and I can get back to you and then is it your sense that that is a cost that will will stay the same or grow up or down given I don't know if warranties are running out or we think that maybe um you know they're going to work these problems out I don't know if you've been able to think about that well it's a great question and you know warranties will be running out eventually but you know as time has gone by they've all you know with this when the second generation came out

097and so on and so forth they're ironing out problems um uh and for us here at Bethlehem we've you know we've been able to share some of our problems with with our neighboring districts but um to help them as well but yeah I I think that they're going to improve I think the batteries will improve um you know the battery in a in a bus will be you know failing over time just like your phone battery would um it loses strength so I think that they're working on the batteries um and the functionality of those so but do I think that it will work out over time yes thank you one thing Bob if I if I can um the the fleet's structured at 100 plus Vehicles now every day we have roughly 55 buses

098running routes now compounding that Fleet utilization we have do mandated inspections that's X number of buses that are coming off on a daily basis then your regular maintenance that are coming off so when we have buses that are being maintained for outside of ordinary do you know daily maintenance runs into some flexibility for Ellen and her team to have that you know that cushion of additional fleet vehicles to pull if you know oh I this one wasn't scheduled for maintenance we got to pull it in now so that was a challenge that I I saw was when we have seven now 10 buses that are out for things that are out of the ordinary or unplanned um starts to eat in the operational efficiencies and flexibility for other things maybe a school trip right we

099were going to use this bus for a trip out to you know wherever and now we need to use that because we had a an EV bus that was down and we needed that bus to so it creates some some logistical issues got it thank you um question which I think would be for you John is I I hear what you're saying about the with the EV funding from EPA for obvious reasons it's not we don't know what's happening with that right now would there but if it does come if it is there then it feels a little bit like we're leaving leaving money on the table would there hypothetically would there be a way to um write the proposition so that it would be to purchase the six diesel buses that you recommend plus

1003 EV if those 3 EV were at no cost to the tax yes we did something similar to that in the the last um bus proposition for last year if and only if grant funding is available with a not to exceed amount local cost of whatever we decided at the time we can certainly do that it gets the proposition gets wordy awfully quick and confusing to us from a messaging perspective as well as those folks voting on it so and you have to put just to clarify I think you have to put the total cost that's right is what they're voting on so if you were to add three EV buses you have to add that total cost as the overall right proposition so the proposition is going to look much larger than what the

101I'm just I'm wondering if there's a way to write it such that or even break it up into an A and A B or something like that such that we're still kind of where I'm going is I want to make sure that we're getting the buses that you need but that if we have the money if it comes in for these other ones that we're not throwing that away given given that those and that's why I wanted to to talk about it both in terms of financial piece as well as the operational piece so yes they may be free but to me there's a question of yes they're free but they're we can't use them as frequently or as as necessary because of some of the operational issues so I I I and also don't

102if we get three e EVS we still have to scrap three D correct so we'd have to if if we did six of the the diesel gas so three let's say three large and did three three large and three small yep and then did three EVS we would have to get rid of at least three diesels correct yes and then the plan with The Replacements of the diesel and the gas is we would be replacing those with others so presumably you're already getting rid of six diesel vehicles that's correct so you could just use them as the trade ends well you would use older ones yeah but you your net diesel gas would be depending on whatever that proportion would be the same at the at the end yeah and then in terms of a

103contingent proposal I understood you to sort of be I guess flagging the issue I mean the last time we did it I think it was it was con because we didn't we hadn't heard from the ETA at at the time it seems slightly different now in that we got it but maybe before we weren't we weren't sure but now it's it's a little even if they say you know something one day who knows what's going to happen the next day so that was the contingency was based seemingly on a what a what we would assume to be a a binding and good faith um representation well we were still in the application process last year which is I think the difference we did the in the between last budget cycle and this cycle we applied

104twice received the necessary Grant funds so those are secured at least on paper right uh which is where we were not last year uh we had a good thinking that we were going to get approved but now we we were cther I guess uh I have some questions but I just want to make a statement which is that it is mindboggling and disturbing that we municipal government are trying to figure out how to bond and tax and make plans for the next 10 years when we cannot take a grant commitment from the federal government that has already been made on Full Faith I just that is insane and the potential impacts and repercussions of the chaos that we're seeing fiscally are substantial and so uh on the question side of thing can you talk a

105little bit about the commitment the funding committed and what that looks like as far as what type of funding what what does committed mean in this context as far as what have we already what has already been agreed to so we have paper verbal agreement for $200,000 for the large EV buses plus the maximum nerta funding for the large buses the small buses we submitted an application I believe we were awarded that uh we're according with Matthews for a nerta parallel one for the small buses I do not anticipate that to be a challenge nerta is more than willing to to meet us that way we were just we considered the small buses a little bit later in the process and we're just working through that application process now okay so on the EPA side

106it's not a contract it's an award letter no it's an award letter for the large ones we had applied for and were awarded six we bought the three and then I said would you kindly keep three we're going to come back this year right so we're we I just submitted my second extension because they're only the only the extension only last for 6 months and our our schedule such I I need to do a second extension to get us where we're at today we submitted that in the inim we got a bounce back from them um we're we receive but we're not consider ing anything until um we get further guidance so I have the extension but I was expecting either uh yes we we'll carry it over another six months but this was a

107little bit of a different messaging that I got um the beginning part of February got it um and then on to the contingency aspect of this for quite a while um um the district carried and I'm not I'm I'm I'm asking questions I'm like I'm not I'm not trying to for a while we carried a much larger Fleet than we needed day to day to day to day um and then over time the board has been working with the transportation department to rightsize the fleet as I understand it right if we're talking on the order of three buses if we're talking about one to take advantage of um of some of the savings we get from EV operations and if we're talking about wanting to uh take advantage of some of the dollars that are

108on the table would it make sense from and you don't have to answer this tonight right is there any sense in um moving forward attempting to move forward with the contingency rage that we're talking about and a not to exceed amount that would reflect the grants minus the scrappage award and say we'll sit on three diesels and intend to use the EVS longer and we'll say no thank you to the scrappage reward there will be some cost for the EVS it wouldn't be zero but it would still be over $100,000 less than uh a diesel so the scrappage require um ner requires the scrap that's not an option that is not no it is an option the EPA you need to sell donate or scrap so I see so there is no keep there's no

109net you know um I I I can't get an EV and keep the grand money and maintain a diesel I need to do something that sort of just provides a sweetener in terms of dollar value if you were to scrap no that makes perfect sense I'm just trying to understand the different moving pieces of the grants and the opportunities as well as the challenges and I want to tack on to what Bob said and to and to the folks who are working with us every day I'm one of the biggest EV supporters you're going to find and I fully recognize that we are at the beginning of a transition and that this is not easy um and so to you and to your drivers and to your mechanics and to your team who deals with

110us on a day-to-day basis I can see how hard you're working and I can see that this isn't easy every day I think that the value is there for our students and for our community um however I know that I see the challenges so thank you so much thank you thank you one of the things I'd like to point out is just on the charging side the capital project installs three Chargers that are capable of charging 12 buses yeah we have seven wall mounted Chargers um presently that allows us 19 we're still not sure you know we're working our way through this process in terms of how all that charging infrastructure Works coupled with the the charging so we're at 10 EV buses now theoretically if they were all on site we would eat a

111decent amount of that charging capability in terms of plugs uh up you know any additional EV buses would require um or or would utilize any sort of additional plugs that we have I just want to highlight that we have I'm not fully getting where you're going here so we have 12 + 7 19 right right on that um long day um so 19 charging ports right where you have 10 buses depending on what the board wants to do in terms of I just want to highlight that not don't order more buses than plugs that we we may have thank you thank you say that I appreciate that thank you John you a question yeah uh question for you on the other operating costs you mentioned that a lot of that is for offsite work that

112that gets done for the buses and you mentioned that our mechanic team is is very busy um is that because we're so busy stuff has to be sent out or is that more electric buses being sent out for right right and that mandatory uh mandatory maintenance program that they have in place for electric buses yes and our all of our mechanics as um trained as far along as possible on electric as we can be or is there yes sir yes more to be done we are all trained as far as we can be for now there are certain aspects of the buses that you know anything with with an orange wire anything with an orange wire don't touch right um you do need some some specialized training for that so our um our mechanics on

113staff are not going to touch that right that that is still sort of dealer U battery manufacturer um those would have to go up regardless uh warranty non warranty until the training catches up to onsite staff that we're comfortable as a district having them work on that that the dealers the manufacturers are comfortable that doesn't avoid any warranty there may still be sometimes where they have to go up but right now they're up for not only those orange wire related issues if if they present themselves but a lot of other warranty related issues that are still currently covered that our folks may be able to do at some point but they're the buses are still under warranty so we're we're we're maximizing that so one other question so this number is based upon the bus

114we have if we were to get more electric buses does that number go up because there's more more buses that would potentially need more offsite work yes but I think it would also start to level out a little bit as time goes on and um they improve the the overall bus no greed I'm just saying for like for like this year like this is based upon the 10 buses that we're going to have if we were to if we were to do whatever to get more buses for next year that number would then need to be consider the increase absolutely you thank few math questions mostly right now in your position currently you've got 70 drivers 2.9 Million roughly 40,000 per employee um but then when you're talking about your reductions you're trying to educe

115three drivers Five drivers five 350 Grand which is 70 grand per employee so there's a big discrepancy there and I was curious about that there is on the salary side it's just stct salaries the reductions include both the salary and any Associated Fringe benefit costs associated with the reduction we budget full Hospital medical any retirement costs the reduction actually incorporates the entire employee do right okay that makes sense um same thing applies to the attendance the other thing on attendance is there's a uh 18.9 19% increase in cost yes for the same number of attendants this year well there was some mandatory training that came into play that would provide our attendance a considerable raise per hour um they all they all did the training as you would right right okay that b makes sense

116thanks thank you any other questions just um the bus proposition that has to be approved by the board Bo before the budget adoption needs to correct or is it at the same I thought the bus prop had to usually would had to be done a little bit earlier I have to go back and look how we did that yeah maybe next time I think it I feel like last year we had it all gets tied ultimately into the to the public notice right so that's what we usually okay research that just so make sure we're on the yeah right timing you want to do back the same thing so now I'm looking at the total spreadsheets you've got a salary and positions you know 40,000 per driver for instance but there's no other line in

117the budget for overhead costs health insurance premiums CU fair question you we actually budget that on a sort of at a macro level so all your retirement um health insurance was sort of in a they fall into the undistributed category of the budget and it's on districtwide we do not allocate um Fringe benefit costs on individual area we we can certainly do that it'd be an estimate only because sure but uh I will tell you that all fringe benefits are are budget for all ftes that are eligible it's just at a at a much more macro level so really when we're looking at this 52 K suggested reduction it's like in the way it's being budgeted it's really like a 350k transport reduction and then 150 benefits reduction we actually see somewhere else all right

118any other questions for Ellen thank you very much thank you for your time thank you thank you John as we consider various options and recognizing that some that we have I do remember being on a crunch on bus crops in the past I'm wondering if you would touch B or if if the board agrees with me um to touch base with the attorneys just to understand the different options the up to language can we split this into two props that kind of thing is that worth investigating with the attorneys is that something that we feel we already have a have an understanding how to do that should we want to you could you can break them into different propositions if you wanted to so you could have one with the EV and then we just

119about the language if you put it into two it just might be right I don't think you could phrase it as an either or proposition I think you you would have to do EVS as a standalone diesels as a standalone if you get into this A or B it confuses the the it gets overly complicated so maybe we could reach out to them like just as a we know what we know what a diesel yep prop would look like for three and three what would it look like if we did you know three large diesel three large three small diesel and three EV assuming they're free contingent upon in one yeah in one prop so we would be getting yeah so hypothetically if we I just want to make sure or maybe it's two I

120mean that that's what I'm not sure is like in terms of in my mind I could see it written as a and b to keep it clearer but I don't know if it for if that we've always done it as one in the past so that it's not so that it's not splitting super cumbersome and right right right um we could we could check with Council yeah right right just what yeah I guess that's what I'm just it that's what I'm asking is like what is somebody's legal opinion on the best path for here thank you and I guess whether there's a downside in from your perspective right fre free you like this was a very challenging you know compon you know argument for me to make right like look at the financial guy telling

121you you know not to take Grant I to give back free things well I I I hear you but it was the operate like I wanted to at least couch that first off there's nothing as as a free lunch right so abely there are some operational challenges that that are dictating a little bit the impact of the financial comp I I hear you to the extent that the grand funding is actually secure and available and is is going to be uh you know able to be obtained it's it's a difficult argument to be like wait because here's what I don't want to happen three years from now when the buses are $600,000 each and we're paying full price for them and you're like well you left gr dollars on the table but I wanted to

122try to paint as complete of a picture as I could financially operationally and you know all the all the components here and that's the responsible thing to do and thank you I think that's because that's part of the conversation and why I hear like the their need for wanting those like the six diesel ones that they feel like they can count on um but again it's the giving back thanks you another com it's 10 to 9 I suggest before we let eron go we let everyone else go yes that was going to be my suggestion um why don't we take a twom minute recess um so that our visiting Pig and Supa students if you guys would like you certainly can stay but if you want to come up and sign out and go home

123you can do that to e e e you just got all the time all right let's get back to it um the next part of our presentation is on technology good evening thank you for having me I will be presenting uh my budget proposal for the next school year um um we obviously know that there are a need to make some uh Cuts so we kind of took a deep look at that in our budget and what we can do so we were just about under 3.8 million and um just under about 3.5 million for next year showing about a 6.24% decrease overall uh in my budget I have a department of 10 employees and uh that does take into account the one employee that we will be reducing um as a result of retirement

124this is the estate Aid is generated based off of the last school year so we did not have as much um Bose expenditure so our state aid is a little down for projected for next school year based on what we are spending in this school year uh one of the things that we're going to look towards in future years which won't help us with 2526 because it's based off of 2425 um is how we can increase uh more opportunities for state aid I am not requesting any additions for the school year as far as reductions go uh this is the uh reduction through retirement um this we approved an additional person in this role last last year so there are two people currently in this role and we're cutting it down to one person um

125which was needed to learn this position because it is one of our very specialized positions in the department we're also cutting uh the destiny Library service that we have that's the software that the library uses um and we buy that in my budget because it is um owned by Aspen so it fell in the same area we're actually moving to a centralized Bose Library System um but that will be part of uh H's budget so you will see that there uh and we also have an IPA coming off from Bose so that is a reduction there as well so overall we are looking at about $300,000 less uh again about 6.25% and that's all questions only one which is I assume like beer what it's a internal no purch it's a purchase agreement I I

126forget what the I stands for internal in what inter municip intermunicipal intermunicipal purchase agreement yes with that we do with Bose so we've had a number of large purchases um like when we needed to buy you know a th Chromebooks we would it's essentially a loan through bosis okay um more just of just a note I really appreciate the way your department um looks at its work Beyond providing the the hardware but rather also bringing in the students to all of the work that you're doing the health desk the work that you're doing to get one stood up at the middle school um and really looking at the programmatic opportunities that our technology provide Beyond just getting um the gadgets in front of the people who need them it helps keeps keep the cost down

127too having our students able to fix the Chromebooks so we have our internal Workforce and they're learning real life skills and the customer service skills and the technical skills so it's it's great for them it's great for us it's great for the community so thank you thank you any questions for Aon all right thank you thank Youk you and last but definitely not least we have our on M presentation I don't know if you Sav The Best For Last I mine is a little longer than Aaron good evening everybody uh um Nick andonia director of facilities um here to present my uh proposed budget for this year um as far as uh my budget over overview my salaries again that's increases due to cost of living and uh step increases with the uh hourly staff

128uh equipment and vehicles I just want to highlight uh if you look at last year to this year uh it looks like a substantial increase in the equipment in vehicles uh and then if you look down at special projects you'll see a substantial decrease so when you add those two together um it's a net reduction of about $85 $86,000 um so it's a little normally they're right around $100,000 each but they're a little scooted this this year uh because we are requesting and you'll see it in the future here uh one of our vehicles that we really need to replace uh it's imperative that we do that um as far as utility cost there is a a reduction um and that would be our electricity uh natural gas water and our Communications um our contracted

129Services have increased slightly um that is due to some of our recent contracts going uh uh expiring so one of those that was substantial is our snow removal services and our Cartage or waste and refu um that increased substantially um we are are we have the drafts getting ready to go back out for uh for bid to rebid those because we kind of got stuck with what we had last year um the uh custodial maintenance supply was a slight increase there and um I will discuss the uh special projects and the vehicles and equipment in a in a few minutes overall it was a increase of $152,000 from last year um the the department the salary for the Department we have 39 full-time custodians 15 maintenance personnel and four uh supervisors myself Brian Bodner Ellen

130who are assistant superintendent of buildings and grounds and one um uh senior Curr account clerk typist um that all equates to um excuse me and including the substitute salaries and the overtime for events and uh emergency uh the salaries are about 376 million um which is slightly up from last year uh equipment and vehicles um there two pages long list not not high cost items um again the standard um we have a a replacement program for our vacuums and I won't go and read every single one of them but we're looking for a Vacuums at $850 each uh the wet dry vacuums for the high high school and middle school um at at 1375 each uh the infamous Doodlebug stick I remember last budget cycle they uh we did purchase them and they became uh

131very uh useful uh we use those for our bathrooms and it has a substantial impact on our effectiveness of cleaning and disinfecting our bathrooms um the cylindrical scrubbers or the floor machines the buffers that that folks see we need to replace some of these um the they're greater than the this particular one that uh we want to replace for the high school is over 10 years old can't figure out exactly when it was made but talking to our folks it's been here since I've been here if you will so it's it's greater than 10 and we're due um doesn't mean we're throwing the old one out we'll repurpose it to another location uh one of the items I originally had two on here and speaking with John and working through this we strategized the dolphin

132pool scrubber it's an automat machine you throw it in a pool if you're not familiar and it crawls around the pool and cleans the pool it's done daily um we have one each at the high school and middle school and the middle school one has been very challenging to keep operational so we're requesting one uh new dolphin pool scrubber um our pools get lots of use um the floor burnishes again if you looked at them it looks like one of them floor machines uh we do have to replace uh a couple of those the um the burnishers are 15 years old at Hamil and slingerland is 12 years old um and we're looking to keep those in good working order to keep our schools clean uh the hawk floor scrubbers um the high schools is

13321 years old we have used it past its useful life um transportation department with a new addition that was installed in the Capitol bomb project does not have one so we're looking to add one at that location um we transport them between buildings unless we have an emergency so we would like to keep one at transportation and then uh the replacement of the one at uh Middle School which is 12 years old um the chair movers these are um obviously when we have events or what we call chair pushes uh what that allows you is to stack multiple multiple chairs on one device and one custodian can move it throughout the building um so uh we're looking for 10 of those so that we can distribute them as shown between the school buildings um again

134with the uh continuing on with the custodial equipment um air movers uh the the snail fans they look like a snail that go on the ground um we we found that when we did our Pedestal Fans um we were using those to try to move air for uh the environment um these are specific for uh drying the floors after spills or um mopping the floors uh and and then hand trucks standard we need hand trucks to move equipment around for the safety of our uh employees on the maintenance side of this we're we did carry a line item uh we talked uh a couple of times about um you know uh temperature mitigation throughout the district you know we gave options pre previously on you know do we purchase equipment do we rent equipment will

135we need the equipment we don't know so there is a line item here uh that would if approved would allow us if we had to rent 5 12 ton units like we did um doesn't necessarily be have to be at the high school but or a combination thereof for smaller uh uh spaces um the the big one here is the uh replacement of the 2008 Ford F350 box truck if you're not familiar we PR we prepare all of our hot meals at the high school and they are um delivered by operations and maintenance to each of the El elementary schools uh the 2008 uh box it's 17 years old it's at its um end of useful life uh and transportation does our maintenance um we don't think the frame's going to last much longer um

136we do have a 2017 which is the white one that we primary primarily used what I would like to do is replace the 2008 with new letting our 2017 be the backup now again we we have to have this vehicle um the way we ship our food we don't have another vehicle that's large enough to transport it inside and I don't think Claire would be pleased with us driving around with it on our rack truck exposed to the elements so that is one that um we had more on here and and working with John we we felt that this would be uh the most critical item that we need um and then we have some smaller items here um our Salters District does our own surface treatment um the skid mount replacement uh Salter um

137for one of our trucks and a replacement spr uh painter for the fields um we only have one field that has the lines permanent and we we use paint and chook a combination um and we're we'd like to replace one of them and then um the John Deere Gator that serves the turfield um does not have a windshield or a canopy um requesting um a windshield for it especially in the colder months um when the guys are driving that thing it's brutal and you can't have a windshield without the canopy so those are our um equipment and vehicles uh totaling $161,900 um special projects for this year it's a short list um we talked about this in the uh educational cooling project uh the ele elmir elementary school second floor solar film uh we're calling

138it the initiative uh this is one of the hotspots that we agreed we need need to deal with so we're asking for the 16,000 to to complete that um as an aside the middle school second floor is 100% complete and Slingerlands ELC which was approved by the board last year for this year's budget was completed um yesterday so again if we do this we're going to be continuing on with the initiative for those hotspots um the the second line item is u a solar film districtwide uh for $30,000 um and that that will continue this process so every year we want to do this um and again the second floors were the critical ones we're we're knocking them down quickly and then we have some spaces um that are relatively hot even on first floors

139you know again we did Glenmont years ago to to resolve that issue so we want to continue on with that and then the last Light item is a small one for Glenmont um the playground at the front right hand side of the building you have the insurance uh firm that is next door um there's a there's a fence that goes down the property where all the play areas are except it's open between the building and the existing fence and we want to enclose that um Miss heffernon had pointed out we had a couple of issues with some folks just showing up abruptly uh while the students and staff were out on the playground um and that would kind of put that barrier and it also prevents the students from running off the the playground and

140out into potential traffic area um and that total is 51,000 um this year um as we discussed in the previous years the capital outlay we're recommending the hammer Elementary School dor um exterior door alarms or monitoring system excuse me uh again to refresh it uh will send an alarm or notification uh during the day you know at night if someone opens a door that has shouldn't be open we get a burglar alarm during the day if if somehow a door either fails to shut or is propped open on purpose um this will send a notification to specific Personnel so that they can go and investigate and and resolve the issue um the high school was completed um and it has been in operation and we've gotten positive feedback on that and I don't really have

141data to prove or show how much we we've reduced our door jars or door propping but I can tell you visually um you know cuz I'm out and about a lot I see a lot less for what it's worth so I I still think this was a good investment um we actually utilized it because we found that on the weekends um we weren't monitoring because we had so many activities and we found that um the principal actually requested we turn that on on on the weekends as well so now we are covered 7 days a week from 7:00 a.m. till 11 pm and then after it's Burg alarm so it's pretty good so this this year we or this budget cycle I'd like to do hammer gril um we have obviously five elementary schools to

142do Hamil and Slingerlands are uh comparable in size or number of doors not size of student um enrollment not size of building but the number of doors each classroom has its own emergency door which is exterior um you know again I I talked with John we we discussed this how do I figure out which where to start with the elementaries um hammer gril um I recommend because it's kind of out there in the middle of nowhere um yes there's residents uh across the street but nothing really tight adjacent nothing to keep an eye on that we had the trails in the back so you know there's the potential that um um odd things could happen there Slingerlands is a bit more open you know you've got that huge field behind you you can see for

143for a long way and we don't necessarily have the same issues at Slingerlands as we do over at Hammer gril so I'm recommending we start with hammer gril for the elementaries um as I mentioned the high school is completed the middle school is in progress um it will be completed uh by May and tested by May of 25 um and then the installation of the rest of the elementary schools we would use future Capital Outlet projects or operating budget if things proove with with finances um additions um this is uh it's an addition and a subtraction at the same time but um I the addition would be an account clerk one or a clerical assistant I have a retirement coming up with my uh uh secretarial staff and then adding $5,000 for the Green Team

144Garden upgrades and upkeep to maintain our um uh sustainability here at the district uh both those total 69,500 as far as reductions um again the senior account clerk is retiring um and the net savings by hiring a a uh oh gez um I lost my train of thought hiring a clerical or account clerk one the net savings is $13,600 um as far as the budget um impact total addition $69 five uh reductions uh 1036 with a net uh reduction of $34,100 and that is all I have does anyone have any questions questions for Nick when do we get to try these doodle sticks um you know we do have sub openings I don't want Ellen to to steal all the Thunder we do have a sub um uh you can try it at any time

145but but no really it's it's uh one of the challenges we had is is the bathrooms they're all tile and the corners and getting behind the the fixtures wasn't so good before cuz who wants to crawl down around on their hands and knees and do that and these really improved our cleanliness and disinfection so they're expensive but very worth it I have a more serious password question which is you know we've discussed several times the issue with vaping yes from a facility's point of view is there anything we can or should be doing to decrease that or monitor it Oru it um well that would be something that we we could talk about it it it would be an expend expenditure they do make F Vape detectors that do work um and the the we

146actually are getting some funding um from a grant that Albany count is funling through Albany County we're getting funding the challenge with the Vape detectors is that some schools have um implemented some of them in the bathrooms and they alert you but then you have to figure out who's vaping in the bathrooms because there's multiple kids in there at one time and me so it's not it sounds good that yes you're DET you're it it alert you but don't necessarily unless you now you there's one person you can look on the camera see if they went in what time I mean it's somewhat of cumbersome Tex so it's not it doesn't really solve the problem of vaping in the bathrooms it let you know that they are where's be more a deterrent the new fire

147alarm system kids think those are Vape being detected that weren't well yep so but they do make Vape detectors that are effective we do have some grant money coming we could look at that although I it's not a huge deterrent to vaping in the bathrooms you know it the technolog is improving they have one that um they they keep trying to sell it to me like literally every day you know it it will tell you if there's a fight in there because it can tell the sound it'll tell you if you're vaping and it can also tell you if something's on fire in there for an example but um you know again as jod said uh first round on this we did have some connectivity issues which Ain and her folks have resolved um and

148now it could be done using Wi-Fi they wouldn't be have to be hardwired so other questions for okay cther I know we spent a bunch of time earlier this year on um heat and heat mitigation um thanks for carrying on with the solar film just going back so you're recommending renting this year and could you just refresh my memory because I do I'm just not remembering the details of either the cost or the yeah if you could just unpack that just remind me for two minutes like the the the cost benefit renting versus okay so um this past year in uh June we had a a heatwave literally um and it just so happened to be it was at test time at the high school so um our testing area was uh jimbe the lower

149gym and the cafeteria um we in a in a hurry were able to uh rent and connect um five units from a local vendor at a cost of 23,000 in change yeah okay so we we were able to do that it was much appreciated um the reason we talked about this once was if we were to buy them it was I can't remember exactly it was 365 to buy them and we had discussion in the ECP that geez we may not need them will we ever need them because they're almost specific to those two locations that exact tonnage if we were to buy them you know it would be specific to the cafeteria would it be more cost effective to put a coil and make a permanent air conditioning in the cafeteria so I think

150um um one of the board members brought up that gez for 134 we could rent them five times right theoretically and then we talk that we may not need them right right you know um that was an hopefully it was an anomaly at test time you know that doesn't alleviate our our our high temperature conditions in the classrooms and everything that was specific to our test period got it um and did I hear you correctly that these could be deployed you know not only in those two locations did you mention that this evening I did okay what I what I'm saying for that is um there that would be to replicate what we did last June I see um we that $25,000 budget line is if we had a a situation where we needed it

151somewhere else we wouldn't have to I could pick and choose what size unit and it would obviously cost less right but to replicate we felt comfortable carrying 25,000 just for escalation because it was 23 and change last time okay thank you so much thank you thank you Nick thanks Nick all right so a lot of information a lot of things to digest over uh the course of the evening thank you for your patience thank you for your questions thank you to the directors of the district really pulling together uh pulling their presentations together really looking at their budgets to bring things in line uh to meet some of the challenges I think you saw some of those reductions and some of those Creative Solutions um articulated tonight which brings us to to the end of

152our session tonight quick overview we started the evening at roughly $17.5 million in expenditures on the revenue side 111.2 million the initial Gap when we started the presentation was $6.3 Million we had an increase a proposed increase of 4,500 for human resources scanning of employee records Transportation reduction of salary INF fringe benefits of Five drivers and three attendance for roughly 490,000 um Aaron sheers proposed a reduction of roughly 295,000 and operations and maintenance proposed a reduction of 34,000 which shrunk that Gap by roughly $800,000 making a tax increase of a proposed Levy increase today at 7.57% so we shaved over just over a point in our discussion today again I want to highlight that that 5.5 million does not include the pilot Revenue being Incorporated which will include in the slide deck next week that'll

153uh cut an additional $3.4 $3.5 million there are some additional changes going to be proposed over the next several sessions some additions some reductions we're making some Headway um but again what I what I can see in the distance is the tax levy increase is still going to be roughly around 3% maybe touch higher or lower compared to the 1.1% um allowable Levy increase that we talked about um when we first started some housekeeping matters important ones but um there are two Board of Education seats open that voters will be selecting on May 20th the current seats two seats open currently occupied by Robert tan and John Walston there're for threeyear terms expiring June 30th 2028 petitions are available um they were made first available on February 20th from the district clerk and the district

154office all petitions are due by April 20th at 5:00 in order to be a successful petition 61 signatures need to be included on um on those petitions want to highlight that quick calendar in terms of where um where we go from here March uh February 26 tonight is our first presentation our next presentation including again I I'll go back do a little bit of recap um incorporate some of the changes that we talked about give you hopefully a little bit more firmer picture that I'm not talking in innuendo and and estimates uh March 5th we will also have the Athletics by the athletic director Len keys and the instructional programs by Dr Hurst March 19th we'll um have food service General discussion we'll do do some decisions and discussions on the options the board is

155considering in terms of additions reductions any bus proposition language any capital reserve um language any additional propositions it wants to consider uh right now March 19th is slated as the tentative adoption of all of that information given the way the calendar Falls April second provides sort of a cushion meeting for the board if it wants some additional discussion or is looking for some additional information we could adopt um the budget and some of those propositions by April 2nd although we will do our research in terms of the bus prop to make sure that we finalize that date uh compared to the other date May 15th is the scheduled public hearing on the proposed budget May 20 I think those are a couple TP I think it's supposed to be May 7 May 14 May 20

156sorry yeah may may right May 20th is the the the budget vote and the candidates night has to be a little bit earlier on the 14th the seventh is the and the seventh is the the public hear we'll up that slate on the next time I apologize and I think that's it so I'm happy to answer any additional questions on any of the the presentations tonight mine or tell Catherine has a question do I'm sorry I'm so sorry um on the transportation budget going back a little bit did I catch correctly that the um reduction in drivers is a reduction for drivers budget however they are not filled positions at this time corre so this is so we're reducing the budget we are not going to hire them there's nobody retiring being let go or

157anything like that there's no layoffs these are just ideally the transportation would like to have 7 new bus rounds gets kids in there less buses more routes quicker drive times in and out despite its best efforts Marketplace we've only been able to get 50 53 55 drivers so Year over-year we're carrying that we really wish could get here but it's driving other cost centers and revenue streams so we do not anticipate in 2526 is going to be different than 2425 let's try to minimize any tax levy increase and and go from there so that so those are why we're reducing those positions thank you thank you thank you appreciate that any other questions for John thank you thanks for all your work joh uh next item five recognition of public comment if we have any

158visitors who would like to address the board on an agenda item now would be the time to come to the [Music] microphone item six action items a finance action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following Finance action item number one so second any discussion all in favor I any opposed any extensions that carries B Professional Personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following professional Personnel action items one through six so moved second any discussion all in favor I any opposed any extensions that carries C support Personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following support staff action items one and two second any discussion all in favor I any opposed

159any extensions that carries um D other action items it is recommended by the superintendant that the Board of Education approved the following action items one and two sound moved second good any discussion all in favor I any opposed any extensions that carries item seven recognition of public comment on a non-agenda item if we have any visitors who would like to address the board on a non-agenda item now would be the time to come to the microphone item eight future meetings and events uh Wednesday March 5th um is our next board meeting here at the high school um anticipating executive session at 6 and reconvening to open session at 7 uh Monday March 10th um we have a policy committee meeting here at the high school at 6:00 um and then our meeting after that is

160on Wednesday March 19th again anticipating executive session at 600 and reconvening to open session at 7 um so again our next meeting is next week so don't get confused um and we'll see you all then um seeing no need back into executive session could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting second all in favor I meeting adjourned