001yes foreign yes uh yes well there's actually yes uh right uh oh okay thank you six cheers uh okay now um all right you know and um now videos yes now is and i save myself so hey my mother thank you yes foreign okay so oh it is yes um saturday yeah so thank you yes thank you [Music] nice do you want to use this after i do basically when the slide shows up this is advanced but if you screw up that's the back and this is like a spotlight yes great thank you [Music] okay yes okay yes oh is okay we can reconvene our meeting to open session the board has been in executive session since six o'clock to address two personnel matters and two confidential legal matters if we could stand for the
002pledge of allegiance [Music] i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] uh introductions dave hearst willow bear jonathan fishbein meredith moriarty jody monroe holly dellenbaugh christine beck wendy sampson catherine natto and judy kehoe uh first on our agenda tonight is our approval of minutes it is recommended that the board of education approve the minutes from the march 16 2022 regular board meeting second any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that carries next are our meeting reports and first up is our superintendent's report okay thank you we have some recognitions tonight and i see melanie painter where's melanie we have some art students that we'd like to recognize uh this
003evening and with some displays of their artwork that were selected for the 23rd annual high school regional juried art exhibition so melanie do you want to begin every year we submit 25 pieces of artwork from bethlehem high school we had nine pieces selected this year and i have three of the students came with us today if you would like to see their artwork in person is is on display at the albany center galleries until april 22nd and all three of them also have a piece on display at the bethlehem public library there's a show there from april 1st until april 30th if you'd like to see them a little bit closer to home so if you wouldn't mind taking a look at some of these um corrine anderson is not here this evening she actually
004is at a softball game corrine submitted this pieces into the scholastic art association award as well she earned a gold key in new york state and also received we just found out she received a silver award for a national award for this piece too that's great and nya is here nia is here nia hughes created this piece in advanced photography and corrine also created this piece this is a sculpture piece she won the 3d award for this piece it's hard to see in the picture but this is actually a two-part piece it's laser etched on the outside and on the inside it's watercolor painting so it's two pieces that are meshed together this is joy woo she created this in drawing and painting and it's actually a scratch board piece and this is alicia prieto
005she's not here this evening either this is a piece that she created for her ap art and design portfolio this is lee scalaro and lee is here this evening too ali created this in studio in media arts and this is owen's piece owen is here this evening too he came right from play practice right so owen has actually won several awards we keep you know what's nice about having photography is we can keep putting this in all different shows um so owen actually won uh an award for this one as well he won the jurors award for this in the regional and he just got an honorable mention for this in the 2022 capital region media arts festival as well um so these pieces i think is at the end of the show with sierra
006doherty created this one she's in grade nine this is another scratch board piece and robin arenson created this piece for her ap portfolio she's doing a whole series on body image that is it so you can actually see all three of their pieces at the bethlehem public library or at the albany center galleries and these are some of the most prestigious awards that we have this year to have our pieces selected so i'd like to congratulate the three of them for participating in this and being here this evening [Applause] hold on first i'm going to give them their pins would any of you feel comfortable talking about what you drew and the inspiration behind it like where it came from it's fine if you don't it's just very interesting okay just go yeah you have
007to speak into the mic so they can hear you at home just watch the chords because owen's mom actually sent me several pictures of him taking the pictures yeah yeah it was it was a really happy coincidence that she happened to be i so um taking the pictures at that time i was um at the empire plaza and this is actually um a picture of the state museum at the empire plaza there that stairs beyond the state museum and um i'm really happy and grateful that for all the awards it's got and the places it's going and um i'm just happy so many people like it thank you thanks for sharing [Applause] um this was one of my favorite projects we did this year for abandoned photography and i took this at an abandoned factory
008in connecticut and it was just really cool to look at um like different places abandoned places and it captured it really well thank you that's great oh yeah thank you [Applause] all right um this one was made fully on illustrator um we were just um instructed to make any landscape and i chose a wooded one um because i've always loved the woods um but i've also added like other things to it that make it more mystical like um the lake underneath it with the moon and also that it's a nice color palette so yeah it's beautiful thank you [Music] thank you for coming uh mrs painter thank you and for the all the other art teachers who help support the students every time i see our student artwork i'm reminding how not reminded how non-artistic
009i am so thank you for that reminder um next i would like to announce uh the nisba announced the winner to uh 2022 scholar athlete teams and i'm pleased to announce that our boys and girls basketball teams boys and girls indoor track and field girls bowling and gymnastics were all announced to be scholar athlete teams for the winter 2022 season next we have another recognition mr matt bixby has been nominated for an award and i'm going to ask our former middle school principal miss sandy morley who's here to come up and she's going to provide some information about uh matt bixby's honor tonight thanks so happy to be here [Laughter] i asked her if she still actually had those work clothes yeah i said barely yeah so thank you to you superintendent monroe and the
010board for taking a few minutes i know we have some other things to celebrate tonight which is fantastic but it's always nice to bring some celebration in into what's happening in our world for sure so as jody said i'm a retired principal from the middle school but i'm also very involved with the association that's awarding making this award tonight it's the capital zone of the new york state association for health physical education recreation and dance and this district has been very involved in that association for many years it has over 4 000 professionals in the field and it was instrumental in developing the new york state standards and the guidance document and health so it's a very active association normally we would be awarding this to matt at our student leadership awards which we have
011every year at hudson valley community college unfortunately for the past three years because of covid we have not had them in person so i would like to say matt that normally we'd have him in front of about five or six thousand people but in lieu of that we really wanted the the bethlehem community school community to be aware of this award for matt so matt's been with the district 15 years he was hired as a physical educator at the middle school went back got his health certification went to the high school taught health coached at the high school currently is your girls varsity golf coach and is teaching health full-time at the middle school he was a really great hire don't you think i think so yeah so if we have not learned anything in
012the past two years we must recognize how important all of our teachers not just our health teachers are to our students in navigating this new world that we're living in in our health classes mr bixby afford students the opportunity to explore real world problems and deal with a standards-based scientifically based and skill-based curriculum which is very student-centered being aware and creating healthy environments are the basis for the instruction in his class and he sees an incredible need for students to explore and gain competency in the areas such as self-management in terms of mental health which we know is important especially important now social needs stress management communication decision making planning and goal setting which they do in their advocacy project to name just a few of the strands of that are covered in health class
013mr bixby provides a safe emotional place for his students in what can be a very confusing time in their life especially at the eighth grade level and he provides instruction which is pertinent to today's world and today's student what has always impressed me is mr bixby's positive and very easy connection with students if you've not had a chance to visit his classroom i suggest you pop in just go because you might be you will be impressed with what you see i will also tell you that new york state a ford is proud to note that matt is the third bethlehem health teacher who has been recognized in this fashion not only at the local level but then again at the state level so um you're doing something pretty well it doesn't mean there aren't good
014health educators out there but bethlehem has kind of cornered the market on the health teachers so good for you um and at this point i'd like to just introduce joanne sabrin is our committee chairperson for our teacher a year selection from the capital zone of new york state afford and jen murphy freeze who nominated matt for this award uh your supervisor in physical education i appreciate the support that there are other physical education teachers and health education teachers that have worked with matt so matt it's my pleasure to congratulate you um on that being the 2022 new york state afford capital zone health teacher of the year so if there would have normally been a couple thousand people clapping we just have to clap louder is what i'm hearing are we getting photos over in
015the corner joellen [Laughter] should we join yeah a picture yeah we will come come on [Applause] i and last but not least i wanted to recognize one of our students eliza cotton who was awarded the national oceanic and atmospheric administration um taking the pulse of the planet award this was part of the regeneron greater capital region science and engineering fair in march and is presented to a student whose research emphasizes noah's mission of science service and stewardship the science fair recognized students original research in 21 different categories from animal science to engineering mechanics to systems software and eliza presented research on air pollutants and birth weight differentiating differentiating county and census tract level relations that sought to determine if air pollutants vary by birth weight race ethnicity location education level and gestational age so congratulations
016to eliza sounds like a lot of work yes that's my report for this evening yes all right this is next up is our board report and i just have one thing i just wanted to wish the best to the cast and crew of les mis which is opening this coming weekend the performances are friday thursday friday saturday at seven and sunday at two and tickets are available at the door for anybody who would still like to go does anybody have anything else they would like to share i just want to put a plug out there for the art students again the bethlehem library does have a really beautiful display of all grades art and it's uh it's it's really fun thanks wendy really impressive and i just wanted to add even though mr bixby i
017don't see him in here any longer my three children had him i think once twice um so between the three of them at least five times and they all had rave reviews so i know he is well deserving of that award and very happy to see that he got it next year our student reports do we have anybody from the high school student senate tonight oh yes sir do we have anyone from the middle school student council um good evening my name is maxine lee i'm in sixth grade mohawk some student council updates are that we are planning several spirit days that are coming soon we are also planning a welcome for our fifth grade friends when they visit on may 27th for their fifth grade orientation um some character committee updates are that our
018march hero of the month is sally ride who is both a physicist and the first american woman to go to space our april nominees will be decided next week our character t-shirts will be distributed later this week to more than 600 students and staff the other big event at school is that this friday april 8th is the end of the third quarter our student council wishes you all a happy spring thank you thank you maxine uh and next i think we have some guests from eagle with us tonight i think i know how to do this good evening thank you for having us tonight i'm isabel cassion and here with me are taylor babic luke zimmerman and tom whalen tonight we will be sharing our reading initiative at eagle our reading initiative actually started last
019summer when a group of teachers and ms reagan met to figure out how we could increase student reading at eagle the teachers already knew that reading is the key to all learning and life success and math problems are often reading problems and did you know that a child who can't read on grade level by third grade is four times less likely to graduate from high school on time than a child who reads proficiently by that time and not being able to read often may cause anxiety the teachers also found out that the more student reads the better they do in school the more minutes a student reads per night the better they did on standardized tests you can see from this chart there um there is a big difference when a student reads 20 minutes
020per day or one minute per day child c reads one minute per day which is 180 minutes per school year this puts them on the 10th percentile on standardized tests child b reads five minutes per day which is 900 minutes per school year this puts them in the 50th percentile child a reads 20 minutes per day which is 3 600 minutes per school year this puts them in the 90th percentile as you can see from the data on this graph child c reads about one book per school year child b about five and a reads about 15. the eagle teachers decided to call our independent reading books bird books get it bird eagle building independent readers daily actually in tommy's class they refer to it as books i read daily either way all the students
021in the school k through 5 refer to them as bird books we wanted to a common name that we would all share we were hoping bird books would increase each student's time with eyes on text and build a culture of loving to read it eagle to support our bird books the teachers had four big ideas the first idea is to have books at arm's reach when students were at their desks this is so kids can quickly grab a book when they are finished with work each teacher decided how they would do this in their classrooms some ordered book bags to keep on their chairs or desks like these and some just made sure books were always on top of their desks like this second idea was to fill our hallways with reading bulletin boards showcasing
022our reading in each classroom here are a few examples this picture is outside my classroom miss durbin's room as you can see it says i did a read based off that i did a rod a famous alaskan race the iditarod is about a thousand miles so our goal was to read a thousand minutes this year we are rejuvenating our 1 thousands book club the 1000's book club started over 20 years ago the ideas family can come and pick up a book a bag of books for free from the school they then return the bag of books at their convenience to eagle this is available to all students in the school including preschoolers who have not even entered kindergarten yet there are 100 book bags with 10 books in each bag so if they read all
023100 bags they would have read 1 000 books when you read all 1000 books you get a prize from the school this is a picture of the book bag and this is a picture of the calendar that the parents use to keep track of the book bags they get and the last idea was to build a little free library on eagles playground the little free library is network is a global community made up 100 up of 112 different countries the libraries are registered on the website's map and families can download an app to find the nearest library thanks to the eagle pto for purchasing the free library this is currently in the works and we hope to have it up and running by the summer and to end our presentation tonight we would like to
024leave you with a quick thought of how this reading initiative has helped us individually personally i have simply never read so much in school because i always had dick through my desk to find my book and believe me i'm not a very neat guy that was a lot of work but now i can grab my book quickly and start reading and i've read a ton because of bird books i've read more than i've ever read in my life in my classroom we had a party on friday the party was for all students who read a thousand minutes and my bird books definitely helped me reach that goal and some of my classmates and i are now way beyond a thousand minutes when i was stuck at home for a day and i had nothing to
025do i chose to read i actually ended up reading for four hours i think bird books definitely inspired me to do that we hope you enjoyed our presentation tonight now go home and read do it thank you so would any of you guys mind sharing what books you're reading right now i'm reading harry potter in the chamber of secrets oh i like that one um i'm reading a series called warriors and i'm on the fourth book of the series great i'm reading reading wings of fire i recently finished the seventh book and is now in the eighth book i'm reading the five kingdoms uh the third book which is by brandon mull which if you don't know is like pretty is really related to ricordian those all sound great you guys want to come up
026here you did a fabulous job awesome anybody else have any questions for eagle friends thanks so much for coming guys next on our agenda tonight is our presentation and judy quijo will be doing a budget overview and then we can have any discussion that's needed so of course there's a wonderful connection between reading and math the subject of tonight's presentation so um tonight is the wrap-up of our budget after many weeks of reviewing our different subject areas we are prepared to adopt the budget so we will have aligned our finances with our strategic plan and goals and i'm just going to give a few very quick recap slides and reminder all of this information is on our website so if anybody wanted additional details on any of these topic areas they can look at the
027full presentations off of the website so we had very few changes to the baseline budget as part of this year's review and it really only encompassed four different areas and those changes totaled about 385 000 that was added to our baseline expenditures and the budget that we present for adoption tonight is at 102 so just to quickly recap the additions for transportation are for two additional vehicles for the fleet we're actually going to dispose of three older vehicles and then replace them only with the two vehicles at a cost of a hundred and ten thousand dollars in athletics we have some additional coaching stipends that have been added into the budget for the sports that are listed there and also some additional rental costs for fields that will be necessary when the construction on the
028next capital project is starting totaling 22 500. and then for operations and maintenance there were two titles for which an upgrade in the pay grade for those titles was proposed at 13 thousand five hundred and then the majority of the proposed additions were for the instructional program and the biggest change um for those requests was a director of diversity equity and inclusion which following many years of working towards these goals we felt it was time to put that position into the budget as well as adding some additional supports for counseling and social work to support our students there were some reductions that were proposed as well and those are mainly driven by just changes in section sizes the net increase for the instructional programs is 239 000 so all of those changes have been applied
029to our budget totals and the slide just breaks it out by the type of expenditures from salaries and fringe benefits and debt service and boces costs you can see it was not a significant change from what we initially proposed and it is only a 0.65 percent increase budget to budget from last year to this year the next slide gives you the breakout by the various program areas and those dates on the slide reference the nights in which we talked about that so that's your crosswalk if anybody wants to go back and look at those full presentations as a recap on our revenues we were able to balance the budget and provide the resources without proposing any increase in our school taxes so while we had a nominal amount for the tax levy increase that we
030could have put in there we just did not need it in the budget this year in order to balance that so it's not a typo 69 million 233 same levy this year as for the prior year's budget and the state aid estimate um of course we're waiting for breaking news to see when the state budget is adopted that it doesn't appear to be happening this evening but based on the estimates that we have we think the original estimate that we proposed is still valid and that will be part of the budget at 28 million 19 000 and it was a phenomenal increase in our state aid this was the first year a second year actually of a large increase in our foundation aid of an additional 1.5 million dollars which really helped fund so many
031programs for us new tonight is the projection of our fund balance and reserves so this slide shows a growing list of the reserves that we have as part of our fund balance within the general fund new on here is the 2022 capital reserve which the board had approved a few meetings ago and this will be a ballot proposition in order to set up these reserves we need to have board approval and then community approval just to establish it and then down the road when we're ready to spend money from that reserve we also require board approval and a community vote based on our current projections we're expecting about a 3.5 million dollar surplus in the 2021-22 budget so based on some other changes in the various reserves most of them have stayed the same just
032to highlight the teachers retirement system reserve we are proposing an increase up to 2.6 million dollars on that that reserve was permitted several years prior and we are able to fund it at two percent of the baseline salaries so that increase is in keeping with that threshold so that would bring it up to 2.6 million the mandatory reserves for debt are done as of the end of this fiscal year those were tied to outstanding debt on property that had been sold previously there is no appropriation of fund balance because of the additional state resources that we had received the undesignated budget is limited still to four percent of the next year's budget amount and that is about 4.1 million dollars so we will be at that level when we close out our books at the
033end of the year the difference in these projected amounts right now is projected all to go into that 2022 capital reserve at 4.2 million dollars so as we get to the year end and we actually close out our books these numbers will change slightly but this is based on the current projections this also is a component of the property tax report card which as you're adopting the budget tonight you'll also need to adopt the property tax report card so that lists the total amount of spending the tax levy the amount of the reserves and then it includes a description of how the reserves are intended to be used in the future also we tend to do our multi-year projections so that we can look ahead and anticipate if there are any concerns in our budget
034future and as we had noted at our initial presentation starting in the 2024-25 fiscal year we will have a significant reduction in our payments in lieu of taxes because the pseg pilot which we have the whole community has benefited from for the last 20 years has finally come to an end so that reduction in the pilot amounts is going to cause us to need to plan now so that we don't have an impact to the community with that change when pilots go up your tax levy under the maximum allowable tax levy calculations goes down conversely when your pilots go down your calculated tax amount goes up so based on our estimates it would be about a nine percent tax increase four years from now and 24.25 which clearly is not a budget that we would
035ever put out to the community so part of that planning when i looked at our updated multi-year projection is to show what we would likely do when those pilot amounts drop off the projected future pilots although we have a number of projects in the pipeline right now none of them are of the magnitude of the pseg pilot so while we will see some increases over time we're not really going to see it in the near or the mid-term for those the pilot amounts for purposes of these projections we did assume that our school taxes would be increasing two percent a year that's sort of the expectation with the tax cap calculations that's what the inflation rate is tied to so with those increases factored in i did want to highlight so last year we had
036projected based on this two percent increase that our school taxes would be up to 72.4 million dollars we of course didn't need to do that increase because of the state aid and because our calculated tax limit was so low but i wanted to just give a reminder that in this tax cap world if we don't levy the amount per those formulas you never get that back so it is a almost a it's a permanent reduction in your tax loving amounts going forward so we make it work every year is an individual year but there is a compounding impact when you don't do those slow and steady changes in your tax rate the expenditure projections were done looking at the usual increase in our salaries and our fringe benefits associated with those salaries we schedule out
037the future anticipated principal and interest payments on our capital projects and other debt that we have and then we apply an inflationary increase to the other expenditure line items to come up with those totals that are listed on the second row from the bottom so in based on those assumptions of what we know now we would have a surplus of about 1.6 million dollars what we've done with surpluses in the past is we have funded them into our capital reserves so that we had a resource to go to in lieu of issuing debt on future capital projects so in this mid-term period when we're adjusting to that 3.4 million dollar loss in the pseg pilot amount it means that any of those surpluses are going to be earmarked as a funding source in the subsequent
038year's budget so i think that is the most realistic way to address that shortfall in the future while still keeping a lid on the tax rates for the community as a whole also included within the budget is the capital outlay this is a mini capital project and currently the limit is a hundred thousand dollars per year and that gets approved by sed and then the money comes to the district not in a 15-year payment stream but in a single year's payment stream so the proposed project for this year are some upgrades to the high school cameras and if the budget is passed by the community this project is automatically funded within the budget there are a number of ballot propositions of course the budget itself and then we will have our standard bus purchase proposition
039and the proposition will ask the voters to approve one electric bus and three mid-size 45 passenger buses for a total of eight hundred and twenty one thousand dollars we also will have a proposition to create the 2022 capital reserve so again if we have future surpluses would like to have a great place to put that money so that we have a savings account to dip into in lieu of issuing debt on future capital projects as you know we're on a fairly uh steady cycle of every five or six years we develop a new capital project so this is a really um productive way to earmark those funds so that will be on the ballot as well also on the ballot we have two seats that are available these are three year terms expiring june 30th
0402025 and jonathan and wendy's seats are the seats that are expiring as of this june okay so um petitions are out there anybody who is interested in running for the board of education needs to have those submitted back to the district clerk by five o'clock on april 18th hi um i just want to take a minute to um state openly that due to some personal reasons i will not be seeking re-election to the board at this time nature of my job has kind of dramatically changed recently and there's just not enough hours in the day and this board deserves a lot of time because it's an excellent school system and i just want to thank everyone who has supported me in the past and bethlehem is continuing to be an excellent school district despite some
041pandemic pandemonium and i expect it will continue to be an excellent district no matter who's on the board after july 1st i also am announcing that i'm not running for the board either i have spent six years six enjoyable years on the board crafting some good things not getting everything i wanted but nobody ever does if i i said when i got when i was elected that if when i left everyone hated me a little then i'd done a good job and i believe that's probably where i ended up so i'm happy with that and i look forward to seeing i look forward to seeing the new board and how it's composed and how it continues to make bethlehem one of the best schools in in the state and in the country i just had
042the opportunity to have both of my children home because of a loss in the community andrew napierski passed away he was a young man who went to school here with with my son and others and the group of students that came together then at first grade and this is a group of boys that have been together now since first grade and having the kids home and seeing how they have blossomed and grown because of the guidance and and the leadership that this school has provided is something that i will always treasure i didn't think i'd get emotional about this but um it really is important and it's something that i hope the next people that sit in these chairs that get elected come june will put in the time that's required the dedication that's required
043and really take this job seriously because it's not something that you do for fun it's something you do to give back it's something you do because it's important and i encourage anyone that wants to to seek these chairs uh jonathan wendy thank you both for sharing that information tonight and i just wanted to i'm sure we'll say it again um before the end of uh end of the year but thank you to both of you for your service on the board it's certainly a volunteer labor of love and it does take a lot of time so um your efforts and your support are just so appreciated so thank you thank you both who even made jody emotional well that takes some doing doesn't it [Laughter] judy before you you get off the hook um i
044have a question about and i i'm not meaning to reopen it but we are spending i think it was 163 000 to hire director of diversity equity inclusion when we talked about it i don't remember a discussion about what kind of what kind of rubric or statistical information we would be gathering that would help us one make sure that this is the that we're getting what we're paying for in part it is a large amount of money but that it's also a position that we are using to its best ability and like i said i'm not questioning the expenditure i want to make sure that there are checks in there so that the board has the ability to look at it you know towards the end of next year as they're looking at the budget
045and see is this something that was worthwhile as it was constructed or do we need to reassess it tell me so um when we were looking to add the position we did some outreach to there's not a lot of k-12 schools that have uh these positions yet uh but we did some outreach to schools and who do have these positions and also spoke to some others even other states have some of these positions and it was recommended that the position be a district level administrative position and we talked to a few people so with that this that number does include salary infringes um but we looked at what is a range we typically would pay for a district administrator whether the um we did post it is either school district administration or civil service because
046many people who are interested in these positions don't necessarily have the school district certification but fall under the civil service qualifications so um we think based on the information we receive that that's a reasonable range to go out and obviously it will depend on level of experience as to where that range ends up but it's in line with other district positions and again it's i'm not questioning the money yeah i'm just want to make sure that we have going into it we have an idea of what we want to get out of it and a way to measure that so that if we're not getting it that we can go back and reassess what we want and how to get it right absolutely i mean with any new position it's always hard because you think
047you know where you're starting from and where you want to go but sometimes that doesn't always work out we all know that thank you i also i had asked and immediately forgot the answer so i'm sorry i'm asking the exact same question again which is um making sure that that person arrives with a budget to spend on all of the great work that they need to do does that is that reflected in the administrative budget or in no day if you look at the baseline pd budget it was increased by twenty five thousand dollars um which the budget already included some dei work but we increased it by an additional 20 that's right thanks set them up for success so oh nope sorry i was popping up with a question if that's okay okay cool
048can you just i'm i'm so sorry you're so um you are so well versed in this you explained very clearly how we were going to be addressing the shortfall in the out years and i followed the first half and then i i'm going to admit to have gotten lost along the way so i think it's on maybe page 16. would you mind just going through that just one more time okay yes so we have our projections on our revenues going slow and steady on the tax levy part of the offset for the loss of the pilots i talked about how we would take any surplus and we would appropriate that within the fund balance i didn't specifically point that out but that's the line that's in red text so in the first year that we
049have a surplus we would not obviously need to draw down on the fund balance but we would earmark those monies in the subsequent year's budget so in the first year where we have the reduction down to 0.5 or 500 thousand dollars we would be using around 2 million out of that fund balance so that we would still need a tax levy presumably it would be around two percent and um it would be also funded by drawing out of that fund balance amount you would need to do that for several years so again because we do typically we don't fully expend our budget you know we put expenditures in there that we think are reasonable and necessary for operating the school but we have never held our staff to you have to spend this or you're
050going to lose it you'll never get it again so we do tend to come in under our budget amount and it's that amount which drives the surplus and that's what we would use to go into our fund balance to offset that reduced pilot amount so right now those amounts have been going into the capital reserves so you would likely see a lesser amount going into the capital reserve and more going into appropriated fund balance beautiful thank you for walking that back and then just one more time you were also referencing how um if you are not if i understood you correctly if we're not using perhaps i misunderstood it if we're not taxing at a certain rate then we are compounding problems in the out years and i just i caught you i just was
051wondering if you would explain that as well so because the tax cap calculations are based upon your levy from the prior year if you levy a lower amount you're you're never going to be able to recoup that amount so you're going to get an increase on that lower base thank you and that's what i meant when if you don't levy you can use it beautiful and not loving for the sake of levying this year we're going with the zero not that it wouldn't be nice to put some money into these future shortfalls but because we didn't need it based on the inflow from the state aid wonderful okay thank you so much for for walking that through and my last question on this slide is i'm guessing you know you you've referenced and we've discussed
052a number of times that we've had um a a healthy amount of state aid um and foundation aid and and federal aid this year we're not that's not we're not building that in those assumptions in in the out years right no we have one more year of about 1.5 million additional coming in in foundation aid for the purposes of these out year projections i assumed only a one percent increase in state aid because that typically has been around where we've landed in a normal year the last few years have been extraordinary only because there was a commitment from the state to fully fund our foundation aid in accordance with the formulas that we're supposed to be running from the campaign for fiscal equity beautiful thank you we finally almost caught up as of next year's
053budget with that fully funded amount that's awesome and then my very last question um and again thanks for slowing it down for for those of us in the back um on the um when you go to slide 20 on the budget development when we're looking at the capital reserve um that we're establishing this year i think it's awesome to put aside as much as we can and i think it's great to i'm just wondering what's the why go from 10 to 20 million just be like just because we can or is there some projection of need or if you could just mention that we rather quickly funded up to the 10 million amounts and because of the process that we go through in order to establish that i thought it made more sense to recommend
054that we increase that dollar amount great cool thank you since you know at this timing where we are with this capital project i mean we haven't fully spent down the two existing reserves so i just wanted to build in a little bit more uh buffer thank you in the dollar amount yep there's never a limit on questions on budget because i could talk about it all night i appreciate it when it was originally created we we were in a budget lull we weren't able to fund it as quickly and then once we kind of caught up and we were out of that lull it made sense to do like the higher amount right yes because we've done like three of these now right this is the third one yes yeah the question i have i
055couldn't remember did the percentage cap for the fund balance go up no it's still still at four percent okay for some reason i thought we had a conversation it might be going up or they're looking at it it's been requested by the council of superintendents by the new york state school boards association by the association of school business officials every other lo here goes the soapbox indulge me every other local government can set a reasonable fund balance and school districts are the only local government that are subject to this very low fund balance amount when the state comptroller does audits they seek to have more reserves so that you have some flexibility if your funding levels drop off or your expenditures drastically increase unexpectedly the ratings agencies whenever we're issuing debt usually have a common
056and a whole section of their report relating to fund balance so four percent is a very low amount the reasonable standard that the state comptroller's office tends to put out is between 10 and 15 percent of your budget so in my opinion and i'm joined by others that the four percent is woefully low for school districts arbitrarily low so we would love to see that increase um i haven't started holding my breath yet though thank you and we're putting aside that full four percent under what is yes projected here thank you yes okay if that number is is low how um let me go back to the chart regarding the pilots um we have two million in 24 25 and two point yeah uh no the the next one the next one yeah and 2.5
057and 25 to 26. do we anticipate being able to continue to do that in 26 to 27 until those other pilots come in or you have higher than expected state aid amounts yes you would need to will our fund balance cover that assuming we continue to generate surpluses each year by under expending the total budget yes so we have multiple tools that help us manage our finances we never look at it one year at a time so between the use of reserves we could of all those reserves that we have remember we have reserves for pension costs we have workers comp accrued the employee benefits the crude liability fund we have other places that we can tap into if we hit a bad year so multiple tools available to make sure that we maintain good
058financial position and not that we won't have challenges but we do have tools to address it and it helps that you are very conservative in what you put in the budget uh for expenditures so that we have a more likelihood that we are going to have money to put into the fund balance our independent auditors have typically recommended that you come in between three and five percent under on your budget so that's deemed to be the reasonable amount so coming in usually close to three percent we're well within that recommended range i am nothing if not conservative right so so the very last slide is just our future meeting so the public hearing on the budget itself will be on may 4th the meet the candidates night will be on may 11th and then on
059the 17th is the budget vote when the community will have a chance to decide on the budget and the various propositions so that concludes the budget presentation unless there are any other questions um thank you judy and i'd like to thank you and um all of the different budget areas uh for putting together what i think is a well-crafted thoughtful and financially responsible budget this year i don't know if others have questions or any discussion they'd like to have about different elements of the budget now would be a good time thank you for putting it together and don't be too happy that it's your last one it brings me sadness that it's my last one maybe not maybe maybe not um to meet the candidates night is on a monday night is that correct i
060think oh wait wait i'm looking at the wrong one i'm looking at the wrong one never mind 11 wednesday okay and never mind i got it thank you and judy is there information on our website for anyone who needs an absentee ballot yes that whole process on how to get a ballot essentially you contact the district clerk and she'll make sure that you get your application and then once that's received the ballot goes out and the same exception that we've had all through covet is still in place so if somebody is not comfortable coming out in a public venue like that they can get an absentee ballot as well and that's the same the same process they just reach out to the clerk yep you just request it from the clerk and once you document
061why you need it it's mailed out to you it's marked in our books so that you can't change your mind and come out and vote in person in addition to the absentee ballot okay even if you love the budget as much as even even if you love it you still only get one account once next is our recognition of public comment on an agenda item if we have anyone in the audience tonight who would like to address the board on an agenda item now is the time to come to the microphone next item six action items a finance action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approved the following finance action items one through five so moved second any discussion can holly um the sidewalk easement can someone just talk
062to me about it because i couldn't open whatever the attachment was and i'm not sure what we're doing do you want me to take that one yeah middle school so at the middle school the town when they were doing repairs in the sewer mains in front of the school while they had their contracting crews there they move the sidewalk that's on the same side of the street as the middle school in by about a foot so because that was district property and easement was required for that so that is what they're presenting to us tonight they did it as emergency work so we weren't able to grant the easement ahead of time but tonight um all the paperwork is ready and it's recommended for approval okay but they're not making them bigger no they just
063moved the location shifted it away from kenwood avenue okay it is in a little bit if that helps yeah it's in about a foot from where it was oh good thank you any other comments all in favor aye aye aye any opposed any abstentions that passes um b is the 2022-2023 budget adoption it is recommended that the board of education the following finance action items one and two show move second any additional discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that passes c professional personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the board of education approve the following professional personnel action items 1 through 10 so moved second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that passes d support personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the
064board of education approved the following support staff action items 1 through 16. so move second second any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that passes e other action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the board of education approved the following action items one and two actually hold on also three three any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that passes item seven uh recognition a public comment on a non-agenda item we have any visitors who'd like to address the board on a non-agenda item now is the time to come to the microphone item eight future meetings and events our next board meeting because it is april 6. our next um our next board meeting is on april 20 sorry i was just going to say after the break 27th after
065the break yeah on april 27th that wednesday um anticipating executive session at six um and meeting reconvening at seven um and then on wednesday may 4th we have our next meeting after that at 7 o'clock anticipating executive session at 6. seeing no need to go back into executive session can i have a motion to adjourn the meeting second all in favor aye aye aye any opposed meeting adjourned and if we have any pig students in the audience if you guys need a signature just come on up and see any member of the board thank you