Canastota Central School Regular Board Of Education Meeting and Budget Hearing - May 13th 2025

001Today is May 13th, 2025. I'd like to call this meeting order. And if I could have you join me for the pledge of allegiance, [Music] please. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First item up tonight on tonight's agenda is our budget hearing. I will turn the floor over to Miss Leon for our budget hearing presentation. Awesome. Thank you. Um actually, Mr. Betta is going to start and then I will jump in behind him. All right. Thank you. I'll move over. Good evening. Good to see everybody. Um it's hard to believe that we're already at the budget hearing time, but uh the year is going fast, but uh we look forward to

002uh hitting some of the highlights. Some of the things are are we're going to talk about tonight are things we've been talking about all along. Some things are newer developments. Um, as you know, and I know uh Tracy's going to be talking about this as well, un a little bit of an unusual year, especially because we had a run of years that we had pretty much on time budgets. So, that part of the equation um was known and if it's on time, that means we know really by April 1st, you know, what our aid allocation is for the year. For example, this year it just was finalized literally a few days ago. So that was a wild card that you know made things a little more difficult. So the last time we've talked we do

003have updated information since the last meeting that we had. So we'll dive into this. Um we'll always start and for years we've done this. We'll always start our presentations by saying um this isn't just about doing the math and putting together uh account codes and and budget lines, right? This is about how do we balance the needs of our students um and and provide good opportunities for our students uh and still be respectful to the taxpayers. That's always um that's always the the biggest challenge. Okay. You could sp you could double the budget and have a billion other things that potentially could be accessible is so what is practical, what is defendable. Um and that's always where we try to land um in in a good spot. Um the process is a continuing process. While

004we're publicly talking a lot more about it over the last couple of months, um really it's a year- round process, just different stages and phases of the same conversations. Um in order to be able to put together a responsible budget, you have to do that. It can't be something that you put together once the you know state budget comes out and you have a couple of weeks to put together. So we're constantly for example looking at when we're looking at programs what is the need and the interest in our in the programs that we offer. Um we're pleased to say that um the programs that are uh well attended or supported those things will run. We're not cutting and really want to emphasize this nothing is being cut where there had been adequate participation. Same

005thing for our classes. We'd love to be able to offer, you know, endless amounts of classes, but it's not feasible or practical. Or going back to that first slide, responsible to our taxpayers to say, "Yeah, we're going to have a class, but there's going to be one or two kids in that class." So, um, having said that, there's some examples that we'll talk about of how can we be more creative and flexible so that kids still get personalized experiences, um, and we're still financially responsible in how we we have that happen. So the process is continuous. It's a continuous review of of programmatic changes, state requirements, um things that that the the state sometimes imposes on districts as it has done again in the most recent round of uh of their budget. Um so our

006process because um our budget reflects everything that we do from our core academic program right there are things that we have to every school has to do certain things and then there are places where we have some choice we have some ability to differentiate or say this is a priority or that's a priority. For example, one of the things in the last few years that has become a priority is to uh to support students um in a in a more broad sense. Not just about what happens in the classroom, but how do we support um through uh additional guidance or mental health resources so that students when they come into the classroom are more prepared to do well. And so our track record has been you can see that we've increased for example our staffing

007in some of those areas where the in terms of like guidance counseling services or our mental health um on-site clinic that was new this year. So that's sort of where uh we've invested uh thinking that we're going to have more prepared students in a better position to learn. Um so that only happens by having continuous u conversations both internally and externally. So we have multiple layers of interaction meeting from grade levels, departments in each of the buildings. Um that's an ongoing conversation. Those conversations are reflected in discussions that staff members for example have with their principles or directors. Um and that goes on throughout the year. We also have a number of district level committees. Um so we have had one just a little while ago. at our um advisory uh cabinet meeting um where

008we talk about things that broadly impact the district K12. Um and so we we have a number of mechanisms to make sure that those things that we talk about and say are priorities or concerns or things that need to be addressed, there's a way in which or vehicle for those those to be addressed and eventually reflected in our budget. And this one is a big one for us this year. our strategic planning initiative because and there are a number of people in the room who participated in that process. We've had two meetings already. Certainly there are a lot of things that have been talked about at those meetings that are going to be reflected in this budget and probably in subsequent budgets. Okay. Um but that is helpful and that we've asked for broad participation

009from the Canesa school community. Uh what is important? We just asked a few days ago again put out another layer to have interaction through a survey uh which we hope people will participate in so that we can when we go back to our next strategic planning meeting next Thursday, our conversation will be informed by uh some of those thoughts and reactions and opinions that people have. So lots of layers to the process. Um, and again, a lot of these things we've talked about a lot. I'm not going to read these things to you, but our our our core instruction program, our curriculum has got to be a priority. And so in some cases um we've had to invest uh this past year for example we had to invest in materials to support our social studies

010curriculum because we we through these different conversations we've have identified that as an area where we didn't have coordination from grade to grade or building to building. We've done that with our ELA program and math programs previously. So to be able to to deliver the type of quality instruction, consistent research-based uh instruction um we have to invest in materials to reflect that and so uh there's more to come in that area and that we're still uh working in uh implementation of social studies but science is an area that I look at Mr. liar. He can attest to that. There's a lot of things that have happened in the world of science that need to be addressed and we need to invest in. Um so our curriculum is a huge priority. I already mentioned this our

011commitment to uh in in sustaining in this budget what we've committed to uh in last year's budget which was um a commitment to um continue to support community schools. Community schools uh not only benefits the student, it benefits the whole family, which makes it more likely that the student is going to come to school ready to learn and be in a good position. um look forward to our continued interaction with our through our pack uh group and a lot of the ideas that we've invested in have come from again from that group. I already mentioned our satellite mental health office. We're looking forward to having a second year under that. Very um that that was a program that we has been tremendously well received and um and and been a great investment. And over the

012years we have over the last several years have have increased by a couple of uh counselor positions in the district. Priority was how do we maintain that? As everyone knows, we've stepped away from the federal funds for example that were in the co era. So part of a strategic planning process was to say how can we still continue to support some of the things that initially might have been brought in when funding was a little bigger or broader or certainly on the federal side was. Um so we've committed to being able to maintain that level of guidance support in the district. Um, you also know or many of you know, um, we in partnership with Madison County, we now have two school patrol officers very visible all around the the building. See a lot of

013heads nodding. You see them all the time. Um, at any point during a meeting, they're going to check it out. That's what we want. We want um them to be very engaged and active throughout the building. It was a good financial investment because uh we leveraged the partnership with Madison County Sheriff's Office and so it was a cost-effective strategy um for us to actually increase our our uh in our our actual access to I guess safety support. Um and again we already mentioned some of these things and what we've invested in. um we need to make sure that we're supporting the core academic program. We've expanded in a number of ways our career and technical education programs and that is couple of forms. We host some here but we also have a lot of our

014students who uh go to Boseies who've had great success um in in Bosey's uh career technical programs as well. Um so this budget continues that. Um we had talked a lot about the challenges in school that when kids come to school they want to have a calm peaceful environment that's conducive to to learning. So part of the commitment moving forward and looking at um just a variety of changing factors that impact schools where the budget reflects the u addition of an assistant principal. So, a person who's going to be on the floor working directly with teachers and students so that we can immediately u and effectively address whether it's behavior concerns or corresponding with parents or addressing just addressing things that come up in the course of uh the day when you have hundreds of

015people together in in a room and hundreds of other people outside of the room who are attached in some way to what's to what's going on. Um we've also on on the uh the other side of the uh checklist there early learning the budget reflects we we clarified this in earlier meetings but just to be perfectly clear the budget calls for the sustaining of the uh partnership with both Madison and Boseis for our prek early learning services. Um there is no variation and as far as what we've uh what we've you know designated is is uh effective or acceptable class size. We'll have the number of sections consist and number of kids in sections consistent with what our our practice has been um really focusing on intervention and being as pinpointed as possible. to support

016the core academic program, we also need to be able to work individually or in smaller groups with students who need additional support. And so this this budget uh still is committed to uh to that process down towards the bottom and you'll see some of these things. Actually, if you stay around for the full uh meeting tonight, you'll see some examples of what we mean by this. But better than listening to me talk about it, it's good to hear some of our students talk about what some of these these flexible career opportunities look like and what it means to them. So, I won't talk a lot about that, but suffice it to say, we need to evolve. The world evolves around schools. We need to be flexible. We need to say how else can we help

017support student learning outside of the the the traditional classroom environment with a teacher in front of kids in rows, right? Learning can look different. And so we've created a mechanism by which students can personalize their learning and then see where it intersects with what our local and regional business partners, community organizations say is needed or necessary for community sustainability. Um and again we're fortunate when we look at the number of activities whether it's co-curricular activities or athletics or uh music opportunities. We have a large number of kids who participate in our programs. Especially when you look sometimes and you see what would a school how many kids would a school of our size typically have involved. We we're fortunate that we have a lot of kids who are involved. We want to continue to maintain

018that access to those things that get kids excited about learning um new offerings. I think we're always again looking when we do things like have a strategic planning session. that's an invitation for ideas to come in. If there's something that we're missing, something that we would benefit from, that's that's a good place to to sort of plant a seed and and um and then we can look to see if that's something that makes sense for the district. U and then we will continue to invest in infrastructure. And if you look over the last several years, the building is is looking quite a bit different. We had a a a pretty good faceelift in the last couple of years. Um and then we're having a really big project that we're is literally just starting. Um and

019we're going to be in it really for the next couple of years. So, but it's going to be uh really exciting to see if you again keep looking at those pictures around the school of what our auditoriums and gyms and all that will look like. Um so, it's exciting. Another part of it though, the capital project is annually. We have districts can do something called the capital outlay project. It's a $100,000 project that is built in annually into the budget. So it doesn't go to a referendum. It's part of uh this budget, right? So it's part of our proposed budget and districts can each year do a $100,000 project and then that keeps rolling every year. So they get the aid the following year and it keeps you want to keep that going. So it's

020important to us in this budget that we keep that going that we continue to do those small I call it's $100,000 sounds like a lot but for a capital project it's pretty small uh to keep that going. Um and then technology uh as we know so much of what we do now is based on technology. So continuing to maintain on a continuous cycle our camera replacements and technology replacements just like buses and and other things. We don't want everything to go at once. We need to have a lot you know spaced out so that we're logically replacing things that make sense. bus replacement. To be clear, and I know Tracy's going to talk about this as well, but in every conversation we've have had with people, we've emphasized be clear, our proposal is for three

021buses, 59 passenger bus and two 65 passenger bus, gas buses. They are not um electric buses. Want to be clear because that is a sort of a a big deal and we want people to know what they're they're voting on. Uh the most recent bud budget that was just approved pushed back the implementation timeline of of this electric bus mandate. So every district was supposed to could only purchase u uh the new types of buses starting in 2027. Now it's push pushed back to 2029. So a little more breathing room to see how things settle in. Um originally every district was supposed to completely turn their fleet over by 2035. Yeah. So you had like that eight year window where you're having to completely turn your fleet over so you wouldn't have any of the

022traditional gas buses. So push back. So we'll see what happens. U but we've been deliberate in not jumping in at that because we knew this was a distinct possibility. We knew that they were very costly initially and we knew that for our purposes they weren't very efficient. When you look at, you know, these buses weren't necessarily intended for hilly areas, cold areas, sending on trips. We we, as you know, we have a lot of students here who've been on long bus rides, right? When you go to Yeah. Uh long bus rides when you go to to play sports and and get involved with events. So, that is sort of pushed back. Okay. All right. It over to Tracy. Thank you. Um, thank you everybody for joining us tonight. Uh, I'm going to start diving into

023the budget. I know that this is a riveting topic and everybody is going to be very focused and entertained. Joking. So, we'll start with the big picture. When I talk about budget, oftentimes we simply talk about or or resate the expense budget um when we talk about the budget. But for a school district, we do need to look at the big picture. And over here on the side, I I outlined three different budgets because there really are three different budgets. There's the expense budget, right? That details out our expendit expenditures. There's the revenue budget. We need to have a plan. We need to have a long-term plan for revenue. And then there's a savings budget called our reserve plan. That reserve plan comes to the board of education every June for review. and that is

024all of our reserves and our appropriated and unappropriated fund balance which becomes part of our revenue. But tonight we're going to talk about the expense budget. What is the expense budget? Um why is it important and what happens with it? So our expense budget is a one-year plan. When we build out this budget, it's for one year only. Right? So, when we're talking about this, think about um think about your house budget or if you've started working, what are you doing with your money and how do you how do you um you know, put it in little buckets for things that you have to do, things that you want to do, and then some savings that you you're going to start so that you have all something for the long term, right? Um expense budget

025as as Sean had outlined. um what is in the budget academically? How is it supporting academics? How is it supporting our curriculum needs? Support the needs of students, staff, and the community again in this one-year term, but always looking into the future and what we want to build on. So, while we're building a one-year budget, we're not just building it for today. We're building it for next year and the following year and the year after. We're building momentum. the expense budget. The important piece here or the unique piece here, this is the budget that voters, all of us that are voters 18 years or older, living in a school district for more than 30 days, vote on the expense budget. Okay. Um so again little bit unique when we talk about budgets but but for

026my purposes for the board's purposes for the finance committee's purposes we look at these three pieces in tandem when we look at the expense budget. So kind of start to dive in a little bit here talk about 2526. What does it look like? Our expense budget for next year is 39,632 $455,000. um an increase of just under 1.5 million or 3.93%. So, we're going to talk about that. And as we're talking about those expenses and the dollars reflecting back at the academic pieces, um I always like to to start off and talk about when we're talking about a school budget. We are a service industry. We're not building widgets. We're not building bookshelves, right? We're a service industry. So the majority of our financing is um bent towards services. I am required as part of

027the budget process and the public hearing which is what we are in tonight to present this in the threepart series. We're going to talk about the budget and the specific components and then we're going to dive into some of the specific categories. Okay. So we're going to look at this budget in the program capital and administrative components and talk a little bit about what those are. First globally we'll look at last year to this year. You can see along the left hand side here the left hand side the uh three components the program component the capital and the administrative component gives the yeartoyear um expenditures in each of those components and the change more importantly um we'll we'll dive into each of those sections but when we look at this as uh percentages right what

028percentage of our entire budget broken into these categories are applicable to each of these areas. 72.4% of our budget supports program. Well, that's what we would expect to see. This is a school district or service industry. That's what we would expect. 17.1% of the total budget supports capital and infrastructure. We'll dive into that a little bit further as we go through. And 10.5% of the budget supports administrative and operations. So, what is the program budget? The program budget has a whole series of categories, line items, and expenditures that are grouped together to get us our program number inclusive of all of our regular education costs, our special education costs, alternative education, OEED, technology, library, nursing, guidance, mental health services, athletics, co-curricular, Boseies expenses, transportation. Sometimes this is a little unknown. People are what do you

029mean transportation is program? It's a studentf facing service. It's part of the program budget. Transportation and all of the related employee benefits. Those combined together total out our program portion of our expenditure. 28,711201 or an increase of about 3.65%. in our program budget. So, a bit of a breakdown of that. In the program budget, we support 85% of our personnel in the program budget. So, we can go line by line. We can take a look across. I'm going to point out just a few things here as um as they're up on the screen for for us to walk through. So, we have our first line is teaching regular ad. um teaching our special areas, our special needs areas, media, computer, pupil services, athletic and co-curricular. As we look at the changes across the board, a

030couple things I want to point out. Um one, I want to be clear that in the second line that says teaching special, we're not making reductions in that area. We have a couple things that transpired. We have some expenditures that have been moved up to the top line and we have some services that are not needed because they're not needed. Um either we may have had student or a group of students maybe age out or no longer be in a specific program. So we're meeting all of the needs and regulations although it is showing a decrease in that line item. Um again down the side there's a series of things that go into each one of these categories. Uh inner fund transfers I'm going to drop down to um interfservice and interf transfers two of

031them. I want to point something out here in in service again we see a deduct and while there is a deduct there in that line we have shifted again some costs because one of the things that we will do every single time that we're looking at costs and looking at programs and looking at resources is if there's a way to generate or maximize aid on an expense we'll we'll do that. So in that inservice it's inclusive that line when you look at all of the detail behind it is inclusive of um different things such as our our textbooks and some of our curriculum work. Some of those costs have shipped and uh we can moving forward purchase some of those items that we are using through a coser which means we can derive 80% back

032the next year. So we're not decreasing what um what we're using. We're just using it. We're spending it in a different way so we can generate some revenue. Okay. Inter fund transfer. We have an increase there of in inter fund transfer. This is a line item where in our budget we have historically had a $200,000 line item that supports our early learning program. So these are our prek programs. We do get grant money, but the grant money does not cover the cost of the program. The general fund supports $200,000 in that program. It's moved into the special aid fund because that's where we make the expenses. That's where the grant comes in. Um, and then there is an additional $90,000 in that inner fund transfer line. Um, and that is specifically reflective to this the

033general fund support starting next year for our food service program. While we are a C district community eligibility program, meaning all of our students eat free regardless of income or any other eligibility, which is wonderful. We're in year two. It's a four-year approval. So, we'll be moving into year three. With increased participation is increased food cost. So, we obtain our reimbursement based on the number of students that come through, but it doesn't adjust or reflect changes and increases in either the increased staffing cost or increased food costs. and food costs. I'm not going to tell anybody sitting here um what food costs have has, you know, uh are looking at or have looked like over the last several months. Um transportation. So again, this is where in the program budget where we account for all

034of our transportation costs. One of the moves that will be made in transportation this year is our buses. Regionally, all school districts in this region, Madison County, will move to GPS radios. So, our buses do not have GPS radios. They're analog. And we have several areas that are dead zones. Um, right. We we know as we're driving, you might have a dead zone on your cell phone. So, this does equip our buses with GPS radios. We actually Canonto is a pilot district. So, we piloted two of our buses in some of our um most difficult areas that have service. And while we were piloting them, we were spot on. We got service. We were able to connect to that bus. That bus was able to connect back to us. Um so, this has been a

035long time in the works. So, we're really excited that finally on a regional basis this has happened. But that is about a $45,000 increase in transportation that we don't normally see. Again, we'll be able to drive aid on it, but it comes back the following year. And then again, all of our employee benefits for all of our salaries in the program section are broken out. These are broken out um through an allocation process. So there is a detailed calculation behind it um and it's allocated to each of these sections. So again, our program budget is increased about just over a million dollars. Um, next we will move into the capital section of the budget. So what is included in the capital section of the budget? This is all of our facilities, all of our operating

036um pieces for maintenance, all of our facilities, grounds in and out of the building. Includes our staffing employee benefits. There's some um refund of taxes. That's where it goes. If we had um a refund of taxes that needed to be issued, it's reported here. Debt service and capital outlays like Mr. Banana was talking about. And I'll just pause for a minute. Capital outlay and why it's important to us. A capital outlay, $100,000. The work can be done in one building within a 12-month period up to $100,000. The following year, we get back our building aid ratio, currently 85%. So for a $100,000 project, it cost us $15,000. So very important to keep rolling that, right? The first year that you do it, and in this district, it's been done for many, many years. The first

037year is that first investment, the second year, and thereafter, the investment is really 15,000 because you get your aid back the following year. Okay. Um, so the portion of the capital budget totals out to 6,784 and change, an increase of 4.29%. As we look down the line items here, biggest contributor to that increase of 27279,000 is debt service. Debt service is on schedule. We have a schedule for all of our debt. We run that schedule out for 15 years. So we know what our costs are and we know what our costs will increase as we bring on a new debt. So again I'm going to give an example. We talk about budgets buses I'm sorry the cost of our buses become part of our debt service and get recorded here. When we keep uh replacement

038schedules and we maintain them consistently and with integrity, we should bring on debt and lose debt. So buses, we use a fiveyear schedule. We maintain them for seven, but we bond for them for five. So we will have right so on the sixth year we lose a payment. We bring a payment on each year. we lose a payment, we bring a payment on. So, it keeps our bus fleet up to date, keeps our schedule current. Um, when we start to vary from that, there could be ripple effects over, you know, over years because as we're not if we're not keeping those buses on that type of replacement schedule, we need to start another one. And when we start extending out past that seven years, what do you think happens to the vehicle? Our repair costs

039go up, right? So you you start weighing um where is it most appropriate and where is the best place for our resources to be. We then move into the administrative budget and the last of the three components. This is all other pieces of the district. Board of education, central administration, finance, auditing, legal, bosses, admin, curriculum development, um, and support, tax collection, personnel services, HR, supervision of our schools, and support of the supervision of our schools and all related employee benefits and salaries. 4.1 uh million or an increase of 5.3%. As we walk down through this, we'll jump right down to um the line item. As we said, we're bringing on to assist in the model in the Robert Street complex, an assistant principal. So, that certainly is an increase in this section of the budget

040because that is all of the supervision. and all of our supervision is included in the administrative portion of the Okay. Um again, you can read down the line items. I I don't need to read them to you. Um all employee benefits, all salaries within these categories for an increase budget to budget or yeartoyear of $210,000. So, I'd like to take a minute and just kind of dive into and talk through what that means because I think this is important when we hear numbers sometimes and these are big numbers. What does that mean? Right? $1.4 million, that's a lot of money. What does that mean and what are we doing differently and how did we get there? So, again, um we're now we're going to jump over. We're not talking about the components. We're talking about

041specific categories, right? So, if we read the chart from left to right and we look at the different categories, our biggest increase in our budget is in the salary and benefit line. Again, I started off by saying we are a service industry. We don't build widgets. Personnel is our business, right? We have personnel to support s support student services. Um so our biggest line item increase out of that 1 point five let's say is salary and benefit or in other words 68% of the increase is supporting salary equipment we have about a 2.3% of that 1.5 million is the increase in equipment um contractual got about a $211,000 increase out of the 1.5 materials and supplies supplies. We have a small decrease. Again, when I had said earlier, we made some shifts. Some of that

042money moved up into contractual, which is part of some of our curriculum purchasing so we can drive revenue back up. Um, and then our debt up 201,000 as we had seen on the previous uh previous slide. and then our transfer to other funds as I talked about supporting our uh early learning program which is prek and supporting uh some of our food service program. So again I thought that this was important. It's important for me because when I get to the when I get to the bottom line of building all of this information I need to rationalize it in my head to say okay here's our increase. What is it? Where did it go? What does it support? Um so I hope that this is helpful helpful for me to see it in this manner.

043Um and then again just not to be confused that very last column that percentage there is a percentage of each of these line items of the increase. Okay. So that's expenses, right? One piece of the big plan is the expense budget. Who gets to vote on the expense budget? voters. Voters, right? So, when you're 18, you're a voter. You get to vote on the expenses. So, we'll jump over to revenue because what we do need to do is we need to balance our budget. We need to have the resources to meet the expenses, right? Just like at home, we can't go out and buy pizza if we don't have cash or a debit card with cash on it. So we we have to have a corresponding revenue. State aid being our largest portion of our

044revenue um that supports our budget. Again, as Sean had said, we didn't receive the final state numbers until the end of last week. Uh might have been Thursday or Friday. This budget was approved on April 16th because there's a series of things that need to happen before May 20th. Uh so we have uh an anticipated 2.7% increase in state aid. Again, this number is driven by the New York state budget and the way that we use reimburseable expenses. So as I was saying, some of those things, if we spend money in this way, we get funds back. So we will always look at trying to do that if it can increase our state aid. Second largest portion of our budget is taxes. Our taxes um are looking at a 3.25% increase on the levy. That's

045not the same as the tax rate. We'll explore that in a minute. Um it is impacted by the tax cap calculation, which is also known as the tax cap or the tax levy limit. Multiple names for it. Canes Stoa has the legal authority to increase the levy by 4.8%. Without going to override um 3.25 was what finance uh as we've gone through this process felt was reasonable and allowed us to continue to to meet the obligations and the goals and the initiatives that have been put in place. Okay. Other revenue, we do have some other revenue sources, miscellaneous revenue, we have interest revenue of about $200,000. We have some revenues that come into the district because we're a self-funded insurance plan. Um, and we also have some different types of rebates and or insurance claims.

046So, up about $90,000 where our projection is. Those three items didn't balance our budget. So um we have some other items that we utilize to balance our budget unbalance and we're using some reserves. So when we talk about this again I'm going to go back to what I started in the beginning. When we look at budgeting for expenses we need to look at all of our budgets. Our expense budget our revenue budget and our reserve budget. Our reserves for lack of a better term are our savings. Okay. There are legally 14, maybe 15 um reserves by the state controllers's office that a school district can have. We have some reserves that can be used to offset annual expenses. So, we have an ERS reserve and a TRS reserve. Part of our reserve plan that we

047review annually and update is to use that money annually with the expectation if there is money at the end of the year left over, we will replenish it so that it's available again if we need it. And then appropriated fund balance. This is our undesated money. This is our money um that that we have available and can appropriate to a budget if necessary. Anesa here we appropriate money. We can never have more than 4% of undesated. So there's different types of fund balance, right? So undesated. The state says you have no restrictions. It's kind of your your little savings account over here. If you have an issue that comes up, you can go and you can use that money if you need to, but you can never get more than 4% of next year's budget.

048Okay? So they put a cap on. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what you have going on, but don't have more than 4%. We don't. We have 4%. And then we have funds that are available for appropriated fund balance. So there is a slight increase in the amount that we're using for 2526 budget of about 1.75%. That balances out our revenue. So there's our revenue pieces to cover our in anticipated expenses. So, just to recap, right, our budget tobudget change 3.93%. We talked, I think, in in detail of what those increases looked like and what they were representative of tax levy 3.25% increase from last year or $441,235. I do like to take a minute. We're not going to get real in depth here. We can have an entire um meeting or presentation on this very topic.

049But I do think that it is relevant to ensure people understand that the tax levy is not the same as the tax rate. So the levy is the pool of money that we need to collect, right? So we looked at that as part of our revenue. uh we get to increase it up to the tax cap if that is part of the budgeting process. The levy is increasing by 3.25% could increase by 4.8%. We're not going to the to the limit. The tax rate is a factor of three pieces of information. So the school district when we go and we calculate out the tax rate which happens in August the piece of information that we provide to the calculation is the levy. Okay. The remaining pieces of information are provided to us. So we obtain

050our valuations from the assessors. So all of the valuations of all of the property in the municipalities that are part of the school district boundaries, we need that number. I can't speculate what a tax rate is because I need that number. That number goes up, right? The distribution is different. If that number goes down, the distribution is different. And then New York State gives us equalization rates. So the state gives us equalization rates. the assessors from the municipalities within our district give us the valuation rates and then it is put into the calculation and we come up with a tax rate. Does that does it make sense? I have one piece of a three-part calculation. Okay. Um lastly, we're almost done. I promise you. Um want to take a minute and talk about the propositions

051uh and what is going to be on the ballots. If you're coming out to the polls next Tuesday, the first proposition will be approval of the appropriation budget or the expense budget which we just reviewed tonight at 30,632455. There will be a second proposition on the ballot which is a little bit different and not something that is historically on a uh on a on a ballot for a vote. the items that are in red or maroon, they kind of all look black looking this way. Um, these are my talking points that are not going to be on that. Okay. In essence, there will be a um authorization to increase the capital approval, the the capital um authorization for the project that we're in right now from $30 million to 31227. Why? Um, couple reasons why.

052We got very late SED approval. We were out at SED in December. Should have taken 12 to 14 weeks to get approval. We didn't get approval from SED until days before, five days because we had a five-day legal notice that we needed to put out five days before we went out and bid in April, which is just not a very good time to bid um in a school district. Okay. Um so uh late late approval from SED a lot of things happening out there in the uh economy. A lot of things happening out there in the world that you know may be causing some uncertainties and unknowns as folks are trying to put a bid together to say what it would cost to provide this service for them not knowing what things are going to

053look like. Um, so that certainly played a factor. Tariffs, the landscape on, off played a factor and our bids came in high. Bottom line, bits came in high. Um, so we came back to the table and said, "All right, we kind of um had some indicators, but we didn't have bids, so we didn't know what that was going to look like." sitting with legal, um, sitting with our attorneys, sitting with our construction management team, calling out to SED, talking this through. Do we have any options? Do we have any opportunities to get the intended work done that was in the original scope when we are over, right? So, the voters get to approve a capital project and tell us the amount of money. Once that amount of money is there, we can't spend another dollar.

054$30 million. Our bids came in at 312. Um, so there is an opportunity for us to move money out of our debt service reserve. Debt debt service is a mandatory reserve that we must have on the books. Um, it does have funds in it and it can be used for two purposes. It can be used to offset debt or it can be used for a one-time project. So through collaboration with again legal and controllers's office and SED our option as a school district is to put up a proposition and ask the voters to increase the authorization. So if we got approval to increase the authorization we would maintain the current scope that we expected to maintain and we would move the money from debt service to pay for the increase. So that means there would

055be no increase. This doesn't impact taxes. There's no increase to taxes. We're taking the money from this debt savings account and moving it over now to pay for the additional authorization in capital. Okay. So again, not common. Um and that is that is something that will be on the ballot as proposition number two. Proposition number three, very common. We have this practically every every year um that I've been doing this in this district and not in this district approve the authorization to purchase and finance traditional gas buses. So the proposition goes up for $590,000 meaning that we have the authority as a school district to finance for $590,000 purchase the buses and then we drive aid on that over the next five years. 90% is our aid ratio. So the annual local share of buses

056is $11,800 as we go forward. Um if we have approval on the bus proposition, you tried asking it nicely. be Siri. You have the rest of us memorized though. Turn it off. Turn it back on. Is the computer behind it or my battery clicker? Blink me over. One backward, one forward. Okay, there you go. There you go. Okay. Um, again, what you will see on the ballot is we have three board seats open. There are four people running for the board. Their names are listed there. Um, three board seats. So, voters will will uh vote for three of the four folks that are listed up there. click me over. And then lastly, uh very important, the vote location has changed. Okay, so as we started early and we've touched upon multiple times, um our project

057is underway and there are pieces of of our facility that is being taken offline. So voting this year will be in the tunnel, right? Um we'll continue to push that information out. it will be, you know, plastered everywhere that we can plaster that. But, uh, please take that home and make sure that you you talk to people. Voting will be in the tunnel this year. Um, one to eight and we do have access to voting machines. Uh, we didn't last year because Madison had held the voting mach machines due to um the election. So, we do have voting machines this year. And again, 1 to 8 in the high school tunnel will be the location that we're voting this year. Okay. And the last thing that um I just want to point out as we've

058gone through this presentation, uh all of the artwork that is in here is from our 12th grade students. So, we obtained artwork from um our art teachers to embed into the presentation. comments questions. [Applause] I'll open the floor because this is um part of the budget hearing tonight. Um there's any comments or questions for the board or Miss Milone or Mr. Bett regarding the budget this evening? Now it's your chance. We'll have another public comment period for the board. But anything else? Any good up here? Okay. All right. Moving on to routine matters. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the following routine matters. The minutes for the April 16th, 2025 meeting, CSE recommendations listed here in your packet as well as the treasures report dated March

059of 2025. Do I have a motion? Some moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Uh, next on the agenda is presentations. Uh, I have first our innovative programs, Miss Goff, Mrs. Gaf and uh, Cara. The hope here was to give you an update on there's a lot of things that we've talked about over the course of the year. So, we thought it would be nice to hear from some of the students where possible of what they've been up to and what these programs look like and how they the students have been impacted. So, thank you for doing this. So, we're presenting on the Center for Innovative Learning Partnership Programs. So, I'm here with a bunch of other students and we're going to talk about all of these different programs that

060we're doing with the Miss G and many other adviserss. To start, we have Greater Linux Ambulance Service. So, our partnership with Glass has about 13 active junior members right now. So what that means is starting at 14 years old, you can join Glass and you start training. You get all your mandatory training done that involves CPR, HIPPA, bloodborne pathogens. And then you go and you learn where stuff is on the ambulance, how to operate the heart monitor, the stretcher, and some skills. And then when you're 16, you can ride the ambulance and respond on emergency calls and assist the EMTs and paramedics and a bunch of stuff. Um, when you're 17, you can go on to become an EMT if you want. That's what I do. And then you can actually be the one independently

061like caring for patients in the back of the ambulance. And Cara's the student uh leader for the group right now. And she helps to keep track which students are volunteering. Can you go to that next slide? Yeah. Over 624 volunteer hours since June of last year. A lot of most of them were Carol but but al together I a lot of volunteer hours chamber of commerce. [Music] Um so this we have taken um we've created by laws and a constitution. Uh we've at the beginning elected officers um Elena Chuchi as our president um myself car kitchen as the vice president's um Brelin as orderer. Um and Ivory as secretary. Um and we have established committees. Um we volunteered for the holiday parade of lights. Uh we recently today had gone to the bench day dedication

062for Jim Cwell. And um while we were there, we also took a tour of the fire department in village hall. Um and we also participated in the alumni day um and the business expo and we are currently doing a nonp perishable food drive for community cupboards. Um and we also attended lunch meetings with greater caniston chamber of commerce. What what type of skills do you think you've learned by being part of the group? how to like um definitely volunteer in your community more and like how the community works. [Applause] [Laughter] Okay. So, I've also lived in the municipal government program. Um, we have taken a field trip to the village court and we got a tour and we were also able to sit and um where they had all their Yeah, heard cases. Yeah, the

063court cases. Uh, and we also had a presentation about voluntary procedure. Um, and Jeremy Ryan, the village of Canotaa administrator, was a guest speaker for us. And we also learned about career in government. And we also attended Jim Caldwell bench dedication, which was kind of a multiple group effort. And we also did the tour of the fire department and village hospital. Next week we have uh two lawyers and uh a student who's going into public government coming in to talk to the kids about their pathway into the legal field. Thank you. [Applause] So, this is a program I'm currently we're currently uh attending. Uh we will add the International Boxing Hall of Fame um at the beginning of June. Uh this program was great. Uh we learned um a lot of skills uh from public

064uh speaking to um gift shops. So selling uh we also learned about the history of uh the boxing hall of fame um and also about uh the history of uh boxers and uh a couple of um boxers that made uh create the name of uh Cantoa during During the uh boxing hall of fame, we will uh meet uh the inductees. Um for example, we will meet um Vinnie Pass, but also other celebrities like uh Sydney Sweeney. Um and we will work uh side by side with the other volunteers of the uh boxing hall of fame. Uh so I think uh personally it's a great opportunity to uh network and build connections um at uh an international uh level because a lot of people are attending this international event. Chloe, do you want to talk about

065the stable badges on the left? Those are the lessons. Um the badges are those different topics on the left side. Those are the badges you earn. You want to read those off? Uh things like uh public speaking hospitality are really useful when working and okay they did they most of the kids have earned uh multiple badges so far uh we do a lot of repeat lessons some of the lessons they meet Wednesday during or Tuesday during after school Wednesday during advisory so they're getting an hour it's just not a consistent hour um but We we've done we're starting to do some makeup lessons for the kids, but they've learned the ins and outs of Boxing Hall of Fame, how it started, how it runs, and uh next week they're going to have a field trip

066over to the Boxing Hall of Fame to learn their duties firsthand and then over to the Turning Stone Event Center to see where they'll be working during the Boxing Hall of Fame weekend. [Applause] So, the Rosman Gford Zoo partnership is a partnership with the Roseman Gford Zoo and um we're going to be doing a big field trip at the end of the year for the second graders. We're going to be taking them to the zoo and kind of explaining like what's so important about zoos, why do we have them, how do the animals benefit from having zoos. Um, we go on lots of video calls with zoo personnel and we talk about different career paths that you can take in the zoo like like working as like a vet or business planning or like event

067planning at the zoo. Yeah. Um right now we're in the process of planning a field trip with the second graders and we're actually creating um badges that we just made and we're very excited to do that. Um, yeah, we actually just got done filming a reading project for second graders. And yeah, we we got to read books and film ourselves reading books to give them. And yeah, and then we're going to do an Inerson trip and we'll be guiding the second graders while we're at the zoo. So, I'm very excited for that. Yeah, we're trying to get them like excited to learn about the zoo and like the different things that the zoo offers career-wise and also the different animals there. I think it was nice that the girls actually designed the micro credential themselves.

068So, we're going each student that attends second grader will get a a button with their design on it. So, it's pretty cool. Thank you. [Applause] So, once again, this is a was a program in collaboration with the boxing hall of fame. Um it was at the beginning of the year and we learned step by step how does the business of the boxing hall of fame uh works. Um we uh did four uh rounds of entrepreneurs entrepreneur uh lessons. Uh, we explained, as I said, how the the entrepreneurship part of the business um entrepreneurship part of the boxing hall of fame um works. And um the the the boxing hall of fame uh people explain us how they they took an idea to to reality. [Applause] So, unfortunately, our student couldn't make it tonight, so you

069guys get stuck with me instead. So, I just wanted to say thank you to the people who helped bring this to life before I got started on our piece. I just wanted to say thank you to Mr. Rosetta and Mr. Schultz for actually believing in something like this and actually having the ability to back it up. And thank you to Mrs. GOP and Otis Jennings for being able to get it off the ground with me to get to where it is today. So, Connect 4 has really taken off to the point of a lot of success stories coming out of it. We had multiple students actually get honored with a jump shot award for the high school in this last marking period. For those of you who aren't familiar, that means they raised their grade

070by a certain amount of points through this program. Being able to work with students who are on honor society and have been able to volunteer through this to be able to work one-on-one in certain capacities to be able to boost their grades is something that's really exciting. We have also worked with Mrs. Carneahan I don't see her tonight but we have actually brought it over to Peterborough as well with multiple students. So we have high school students now working with Peterborough students. that's more of a social capacity being able to build those friendships and have positive interactions with other students. That's been really exciting. The biggest success that we had from that is we actually had one student who was working with the mentor there which is a mirror and they were having so much

071fun that they were like can I bring some friends to this? So being able to have now a group of three to five on those Thursdays where we go over there and also thank you to Mrs. Bonio for working with us on that scheduling to be able to have air be able to do that. So, I just wanted to make sure everybody got their dues and I look forward to seeing it take off. Both of the students who are in the um Madison County Sheriff's Department program are at track meet tonight. They're both eighth graders, Isaac Melton and Cooper Calvin, and they've been doing some training in Wsville. They have had some public speaking lessons, radio communication, they're assisting at the bike rodeo. They're supposed to get uh uniforms pretty soon. Uh so, but uh

072they're doing well. I checked in with our resource officers. They they kind of spearheaded it and uh kids are doing good. It's just another good opportunity for our kids going into that type of field. Chick-fil-A [Music] All right. Hello everyone. My name is Carter Crosby and I wanted to highlight some things that we have done with Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy. As a group, we wanted to focus on the elementary students in our community in a way to give back. In November, we participated in a million books giveaway where we went to all the elementary rooms and we read stories to each classroom. We then handed each student their own personal book. In due Good December, we made encouraging cards for the elementary students with candy canes attached. Each student got an encouraging message from us. Potentially

073in a few weeks, we are planning a lunch with the elementary students where we will um have coupon bonds for ice cream for them. Call it mentor with ice cream. Some of the best things during this leadership academy is seeing the impact of excitement on each student's face. How many mentors are there in there? Um about like 15. [Applause] Esports originally started last year and it was really late into the season. We didn't really have an opportunity to do anything with that, but it still brought together community last year. And lastly, we had our seniors leave, which had really started to bring that art part into our like esports, which they ended up leaving. So that kind of sucked. This year we started and we started at the beginning. We originally started in the fall

074season like a normal sport would. And we competed. We ended up placing second for Rocket League. I was not there in the winter cuz I was at a volleyball tournament. But overall throughout the entire experience, there's a lot of community being made and there's a lot of practice being put in communications which really worked on teamwork and overall people were able to meet people who had the same similarities as them and get new friends. Now, to win the Rocket League tournament that we participated in, it took a lot of work in sessions that we did, it was two-hour sessions about of putting in work and playing against other teams. And it was at the same time sportsmanship, being nice to other team, not doing anything that you really weren't supposed to, just like a normal

075sport. And then we communicated with each other and we all practiced and learned new skills and we had a coach and he helped us just like a normal sport would. And it really should be included and expanded upon and should really be more advertised to students because I think it's a great opportunity. [Applause] Got a question for you. How would you compare your time in the fall and spring with your uh with the esports team with your time in the winter with volleyball? Um, so originally in the fall I was there almost every day and then as the winter came in I had to pick and choose. And so I think a better understanding would be you could choose to go for a game for volleyball or a tournament for volleyball like I did compared

076to the practice. So, it's kind of your choice, but really it's got to be what do you want to push? What do you want to pursue? Because there's colleges and stuff for esports, just like the sports. So, it's a great opportunity either way, but it's up to you to choose. Yes. And what was your experience like doing the volleyball compared to your time on the esports team? That's what I that's what I was looking for. Um, I think I had more of a connection with the players and community um, playing esports and I think it was better overall, but volleyball is something that I enjoy more and it is something that's physically active and so that's why I did end up choosing that. Thank you. In closing, I just want to say how proud I

077am of each and every one of the students. Thank you all for coming. But each group has represented our school district uh in such a wonderful way today when they were at the Chamber of Commerce dedication. Um they all we had 13 students go. They all wore their shirts. They were noticed. Um I had received a lot of compliments and a lot of comments after the fact. I even had text messages. I just saw all of you walking. But just just that presence um I don't know if the kids realize that they are making an impression. So I'm very proud of them and thank you for the opportunity. [Applause] Yes. Thanks everybody. Thank you guys students. I know you guys are nervous about coming up here and speaking. So you all did did well. I

078know we're not the easiest group to speak to but uh appreciate you guys coming in like seeing all the opportunities out there. Uh, next up for presentations I have director reports. I just want to thank you though to the students that presented tonight because um in in a position such as mine, the director of instructional support services, I don't often times get to hear about all the good things that the students are doing. Uh we do a lot of the things behind the scenes and um have lately spent a lot of time in elementary buildings, so not so much in the high school where I spent all of my career previously. So, it's really great to hear about all the night nice things that we're doing. Um so sorry. Um so in my position I

079do um a little bit of a lot of things throughout the district. Right. So one of the really big things that I have been doing obviously these last several weeks is state testing. So could take one and pass that along. That's just something for you to reference. It has our updated participation numbers for ELA and math state testing and grades three through eight. Uh we're actually uh pro pretty pretty much holding our ground in terms of that participation rate. We're in the high 80s and 90s for the bulk of our grade levels, which is actually really good participation rate because that helps with our ESSA accountability um down the road. Um and the the graphic that they're all looking at right now actually shows the trend from last year to this year. So you can

080see the cohort as it's traveled from third grade to fourth grade this year or fourth graders to fifth graders. And you'll know there's a couple of grade levels where the participation rate you follow the color is exactly on the nose. Right? We had the same amount of kids participating last year as this year throughout the cohorts had kind of um I don't know some fluctuation in the number of students participating in ELA versus math and vice versa. Um the participation rates are not always dependent on refusals. Um depending you know uh we also have kids that are absent for the test or medically excused or have moved out of district. Um for eighth grade for instance I think probably the biggest factor that affects us there is that we have a significant amount of our

081students taking the algebra regents for math. And then in uh science, which we just completed today in fifth grade and eighth grade, we also had 13 students taking the biology regions down the road. Right? So they don't take the eighth grade math and they take the eighth grade science. So kind of, you know, proportionally as you you're increasing the number of refusals in eighth grade, which kind of happens with the autonomy that teenagers kind of have just naturally and the lower amount of students actually sitting for the test because of the population. I think that number in eighth grade and it just naturally goes down. I know Mr. Blanchard kind of asked about that last year like what happens in eighth grade, but wasn't it you in like math? Like it just I don't know.

082I think that's a lot of questions. Um, so you know, we've had a successful testing season. Uh, positive feedback from the teachers. Um, we've had some minor bumps and bruises through the process, but thankfully not sure what sun was shining on us the day we sat down to take our test, but we were able to log our students on, which um, many many districts, if not most districts throughout the state, were unable to do. Um, but we didn't start the very first day. So, I think that was helpful. Um, we have a handful of kids still finishing up to take, you know, as as as absences and then we'll be we'll be good to go. Um, another thing that I think a lot of people don't think about at this time is our students that

083um are studying English as a second language. Our ENL students, they actually start their state assessments this week. It's the nicest slat test. It's the New York State. I wrote the acronym down. Oh, English, right? English is a second language achievement test. So, it's a really long acronym. Um, we have our ENL teacher, Emily Excel. She travels to Boseis. She travels to Onida BVS and she's inhouse administering that test. It's a three-day test. So, the kids take session one, session two, session three, all on different days. And actually earlier on in the month, they um had to do a a speaking portion. So, it's a very indepth uh study of what they're learning. So, state testing season just kind of winding down for us at 38, but then turn around and we'll ramp it up

084for the high school students with the regent exams here shortly next month. Um, so, you know, always looking for ways to make the process better, but u I think we're we're in good shape. You know, we've we've streamlined it and we've had some good um some good feedback. Um, and then another little thing that I do that I'm looking forward to kind of coming up is and Mr. Vetta and I will meet with our mentees this week um for the last time this year, our new teacher group and our mentors that are um with those folks. We we meet with them separately. That'll be next week. And it's always a really great time spent. They you know, we get a lot of feedback. We get a lot of ideas to help improve our program and

085and improve our our new teacher orientation um each year. And I want to say a special thank you to um Katie New actually who came to us last year, first time in our district as a teacher. She started kind of an informal get together each month with the new teachers and she's kept it going this year. Um so she's extending that uh invitation, excuse me, invitation out to uh the teachers have new this year combined with the new teachers last year and it's really um serving to be a really good support group for for them. Um, so I really want to say thank you to her. Um, and looking forward to that and and we also need to replenish our mentor pool of teachers that will agree to be mentors for um, the next few

086years. So there's a training that goes along with it. So if you know any teachers, Mr. Crosseek, that would be fantastic mentors. Um, then you know, by all means apply. No. Okay. Um, but that's really I just I don't want to take too much of your time, but I guess Mr. Blanchard. Uh, first I just want to say congratulations and thank you for seeing us through the testing season. Uh, watching my buildings a facilitator do exactly that. It's just thankless work. Um, it kind of is. It's a lot of work for but it's great to see the balance of yep, we have state tests, we have state accountability measures. like that's one piece of school, but the this the presentations that the kids just gave us, that's really, you know, that is really why we

087do what we do, right? So, for sure, super glad to see that. I just want to make sure I'm looking at this chart, right? Sure. I maybe I'm showing my ignorance here, just being blind, but it's got enrollment marked, for example, grade uh grade three, if you want to look off there. Um 84 enrollment, one refusal, but then this year 99 for 2024, 2025. So that's 99% of our students. Percentage. I would Yes. I'm sorry that I did not put the percent there. I'm just looking. I'm like, where are we spawning students from? That's all right. I'm with you. That that would be the uh 83 out of 84 students. I'm sorry I didn't make that indication. No worries. I probably could have gathered that if it wasn't seven at night after a long day.

088And the budget presentation with that staging and invigorating the pay. That's not what I meant with all the percentages and the numbers and stuff. We'll look away for a minute. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Miss Hunter. Um, so in PPS, um, we have two more coaching sessions before we wrap up the school year. So we have uh Brandon Tisky, she works with the Central New York partnership, regional partnership through Emeris. Um so when you end up, you know, you you have an audit or or whatnot and the you know, the state audits you and says, you know, you could do this better, they then put some type of agency in place to help with that. So we've been super lucky to have Brandy um for last year and this year. who does coaching with our

089K8 uh special ed teachers. So there are two coaching sessions left. Last year it was once a month and this year um they are every other month. So we had a snow day situation. Um so hence why we have two left for the year. One is a makeup session, but um they're one-on-one or sometimes twoon-one dependent on the assignment of the the teachers and the data that they're looking at. Um and they last about 45 minutes. So, we've gotten some great feedback from the teachers about it. Um, and so we're really excited to wrap that up for the school year. Um, and then look at planning for next year. This special Olympics for our Boseis students will be on May 27th. BDS is hosting this year. Um, I know that Canota hosted for many years

090prior. Um, however, due to an increase of medical needs, there is more than one program that's housed at BBS. Um, and there was a lot of interest from other districts to kind of have a rotational schedule. So, it's going to be at the BBS Middle High School on May 27th with a rain date of May 28th. Um, and then, you know, annual season is coming to a close. We are wrapping up meetings for the year. Um, and then, you know, I'm meeting with teachers. We're reviewing case lists, making sure that any programming needs that might have changed um, in the past couple of months if they had an earlier meeting, we're making sure that everyone's ready to hit the ground running in September. Pretty much it for PCS. Any questions, comments? All right, moving on

091to new business. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the return of schools, the board does hereby approve the 2025 2026 pay, excuse me, pay schedule as per the attachment. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the 2025 2026 board of education meeting calendar as per the attachment. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the Spinner of Schools, the board does hereby accept the agreement with King and King Architect for the 2025 2026 capital outlay project scope of services. Do I have a motion? Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion

092carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the following following policy updates. Policy 8072. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon recommendation of the Sutter of Schools, the board does hereby approve the agreement with Christy Nolton for musical services. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed motion carried. Resolved that upon recommendation of return of schools, the board does hereby approve the senior class trip which will be June 5th and 6th, 2025 at Six Flags in Lake George. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Seniors enjoy yourselves. Behave. Resolved that upon the

093recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools, the board does hereby accept the Madison County public health contract for related services preschool program effective July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. Do I have a motion? So move. Second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Uh, student board member update. Miss Kitchen. Um, so not too much happened within the past month. I mean, we had spring break. Uh, before spring break, we had the pep rally. Uh, that was really great. Uh, last pep rally of the year. All the seniors got to give like their final announcement as to where they were going to college or if they were going in the workforce. Also had 10th grade fundraiser with that day where 10th graders or whoever won like the raffle got to pie a teacher in

094the face. Um, other than that, uh, the art show is coming up next week, May 20th, as along as well as the science expo. So, it's going to be some great things from students there. Cara, who are the lucky recipients of the pie in the face? Um, so there's a lot of people. Um, Mrs. Colchesky, uh, Mr. Bewire, um, Miss Martino, Mr. Graco, a lot more. All right, thank you. U moving on to committee reports. Uh first up, academic. So we met um actually Miss Gra already did her presentation. That's basically what our um meeting was about, meeting with her to learn about the different programs are being offered. So I don't really have much more to add. Our next meeting is on May 28th at 5:30. Okay. Uh facilities facilities has not met officially.

095Um but obviously lots of stuff starting to take place as you're looking around the school. Some black curtains things are going up. Work's being done behind the scenes now. Um so excited to get that rolling. Um there'll be more updates as we as we start to move along, but really just starting to lay the ground work um to get things off the ground with contractors and stuff on site. Um so apologies for any inconveniences, but uh a lot of big spaces being changed, turned over. Um so good things starting to move. So excited about that. uh policy. We met today full committee with uh Tracy and Sean. We reviewed a number of policies um regarding our student board member uh policy, some discussion over the phrasing of it. Uh we talked about doing up to

096two members um just to not lock ourselves in depending on the situation. Uh there are some changes to medical policies that we reviewed regarding student medication and adap anaphilaxis and immunization to take into account feedback from uh district nurses. Um replacing an old medical policy with the new anaphilaxis policy. Um we reviewed updates or an updated policy for uh special education and CSSE procedures to replace an old one which is uh just verbiage mainly recommended by uh legal. um an updated policy governing how we ensure that homeless students are protected and afforded the same services uh that other children receive. And uh we reviewed a new policy governing how we manage extreme heat conditions as well as uh some possible verbiage we might be using for a new field trip policy. So stuff coming down

097the pipe. Okay. Thank you. Uh safety uh safety has not met since our last meeting and our next meeting is June 12th. Okay. Uh finance. Anything else to add after our presentation? A riveting presentation for a half hour. Um I'm trying to help. Trying to help that seems awful backhanded. I don't know. But go ahead. Um I think the only thing I would highlight is that uh as we as Tracy talked about um the tax cap for this year is a 3.25% 25% they were putting up. We understand that we are in very trying financial times. Um knowing that we could have gone up to 4.8%, we wanted to make sure we we weren't burdening um the our our constituents any more than we really felt we had to to still make a reasonable budget

098to pay our expenses um without also killing our fund balance. Um, so there was a lot of consideration taking into how we built this budget. Um, knowing everybody's finances are being stretched, but also paying for the things we have to do without getting rid of any programs and keeping what we have currently. So, um, just stress that that that was a big thought to this budget was everybody's financial situations currently. Hey, am I missing anything? I think that's all of them. Correct. Think I got them all. Okay, moving on to board comment period. Anybody have anything this evening? I do. Okay. Yeah, I have something written for today. Folks, if you can everyone hear me okay over in the back row. Perfect. Perfect. So, folks, last week was teacher appreciation week. This was a time

099where teachers may receive flowers or candy or a kind note from students or a parent. Many of us on the board have family members who are teachers or educators themselves. I can speak for myself as someone who grew up with two teachers, one being one of the best of Canesa along with two sisters and many friends who are teachers. I think it's important to note that teacher appreciation week should be more about bagels and cream cheese in the teachers lounge from administration. It should be about support and action and true appreciation. Support for teachers and staff means upholding an environment where teachers and student safety isn't at risk. Support for teachers means having instructional specialists who guide and lead classes to model various instructional methods. Support for teachers and staff means upholding an environment where

100bullying of teachers should never be permitted. Support for teachers and staff means providing thoughtful and intentional professional development that will enhance their work with students. Support for teachers and staff is having administrators who will do the right thing even when it's hard or more time consuming. And for that leadership to set examples for the teachers to be supported to do the right thing. Support for teachers and staff is ensuring students are receiving the best education possible and providing the tools and resources for this to occur. Support for teachers and staff is establishing an environment where there is care, respect, and appreciation for our team who work tirelessly for our students. We often forget that teachers are human, too. And sometimes they aren't perfect, nor are any of us. but for the teachers who work tirelessly

101to support our students, to help them grow in their thinking and their mindset, and who provide life lessons inside and outside the classroom. I thank you. And since my favorite teacher can't be here tonight, I wanted to share some quotes from students, parents, and teachers that I've received over the past few days. A current seventh grader wrote, "This year, I felt more confident than I ever have before on the state test, and it is because of your teaching." A student who had him last year said, "I realized you didn't just teach me grammar rules and spelling, but you prepared me for the road ahead, high school." A ninth grader told me, "The first paper I handed into him, he wrote in red ink, do this over." I was so upset. But two years later, looking

102back on that, I realize that he taught me how to write and how to think about my work. I'm a much better student now because of this teacher. As the daughter to someone who's taught for over 50 years, many folks stop and ask me about him. Over the years, I've been part of countless conversations similar to, "I really struggled with your dad when I had him. He was so hard and I had to do so much work. But then I went to college and I realized that he prepared me more than any other teacher and that he was better than most of my professors. I wasn't able to appreciate him when I had him. Can you thank him for me? He really was the best. And lastly, a fellow teacher shared with me last week.

103He is the reason I write as well as I do today. He's never let me give up on being the absolute best I could be. He pushed me as my parents did and I knew it was because he loved all of us as he did my own kids, his own kids. I am the writer and thinker I am today because he believed in me and my abilities a lot more than I believed in myself. So again, teachers and staff, I appreciate you. I thank you for what you do. And a special thanks to the teachers in my life, in all of our lives, who have shown us time and time again the importance of education, the undeniable value of our teachers, and the importance of standing up for what is right, even when it isn't

104easy. Thank you. [Applause] Well said. Anything else? No. Okay, moving on to superintendent reports. All right. Well, to clarify, I think when people were talking about the entertainment value of the budget presentation, the boring part was my part. The entertaining part was Tracy. So, we'll get that out of the record. Um, I said a couple of things. Just capital project. There's going to continue to be now just constant information coming out regarding the capital project. So ask people to uh if there's something that seems out of out of place, out of whack, we prefer to, you know, let us know. Uh because there are a lot of moving pieces. Um certainly Nick Campbell and his team are are are very busy. We have a lot of new people who are going to be on our

105campus for the next couple of years and in different waves and shifts. So uh but exciting time but um a lot of in a chaotic time of the year it's going to be especially hectic uh now that the work is actually beginning on campus. So look forward to that though. Um want to make sure that we continue to give the invitation to participate in our strategic planning process which is again next um Thursday. Next session is next Thursday the 22nd u right here in the u in the library. Um and actually it's the start time is 6 or 6:30. I think I think it's in our it's in here. Can you clarify that please? We've had both times and so 6:30 this time. Um pack meetings. We continue to have pack meetings. We've had uh

106more uh people, some new uh people who hadn't been in our meetings before the last couple of times. So, nice to welcome new people. There's always room for more people to uh attend and and be a part of something that's positive and about trying to make the school the best it can be. Uh we have our next meeting this Thursday and that'll also be uh right here in this room and that's at 5:00. Um, we have a new feature that we've in our attempts to try to get more information out um, in different ways. We know that people um, sometimes like to listen to things if whether they're driving or uh, you know, just uh, you know, it's hard to always read everything. It's it's it's nice to be able to listen or hear or

107watch. Um and so we've had a couple of um budget related um short video or sorry audio clips um that uh Tracy and Brenda have been working on. I think those clips answer a lot of real basic information questions that people might have that there's going to continue. There's going to be a couple more uh episodes leading up to the vote. Um there will also be some episodes related to the things like the capital project. Um or as we get further into the strategic plan, for example, we'll be sharing pieces of information that might be helpful or updates on um different things. Um some I think are going to become video as well. Some things are more suited um and work better in in video form. And the goal is to keep creating this, you

108know, sort of library or archive offormational tools that will explain things that people are interested in. And so instead of necessarily having to talk to us or ask have to talk to a specific person, uh they can hear from different voices, different people who are involved with that um project or initiative or whatever it is um and get information. If it's the middle of the night or the weekend or whatever, they can still have access to that information. So, um, look forward to feedback and reaction to that because we're interested in topics that people would like to hear about. So, we know that budget and capital project are timely, but there may if there are other things that people are interested in, then we'd be glad to try to um put some some things together.

109And again, the intention is to have it coming from different voices depending on the topic, different um expert, you know, different layers of expertise or throughout the district. Um we heard a little bit about our esports team. Just want to congratulate them since our last meeting. Um we actually had I'm not an esports expert in the uh title, but it was the Rocket League. Uh we we were first place. Um it's a big deal especially because then we had a nice showing in the fall. It was the first year that we're actually in competition as was pointed out and then even within the same year to come and win um was a big deal. So congratulations to those students and trying something new and and sort of really making their team work well together and

110it was just a nice way to end their their season. Also some other congratulations to one of our juniors Balen Mancini was recognized pretty big deal and that um last week Thursday night um there was a regional school boards institute uh recognition ceremony so you know uh school boards and teachers administrators large pool from the onidita Herkimer Madison three Boseis region and so I believe there were only five students from that entire region. So, you're in the neighborhood of 30ish or so schools and um Balon was one of those students. And so, it was a nice real nice um recognition and honor for for her. So, congratulations to her. There are a million uh end of year events. I do injustice to listing some of them because we're in the height of of that. So,

111I continue to ask people to refer to the website, refer to information that comes out on our um our um district website or Facebook because a lot of things change quickly. Certainly, the sports season in the spring is incredibly changeable. So, um just to refer to that. Um but exciting time because kids are involved with so many uh great things. And I think to come full full circle with, you know, we talk about student activities and engagement and doing something meaningful. Um, you saw some connection. I saw some personally saw some connections today. Had the opportunity also to attend the um the bench um reveal for uh Jim, Mr. uh Jim Caldwell, who many of you know was just a a real important member of this school community. Um, I'll always be thankful to him

112because he was one of the first people I had a chance to to meet when I came to Canada and really work with and he was very involved and in fact some of the comments that were made today uh were about how important kids in the school and education. He was a former board member and you know so it meant a lot to him. It was pretty cool to see uh Cara and I don't know probably what a do a dozen or so other students who were part of our junior chamber of commerce attending and right sort of in the front of that. So you could see um and recognizing uh Mr. Caldwell, you could see sort of the impact still continues with the students that were there and and they're doing good things and

113things that would make him proud, I think. So, um just a nice uh nice event today and I think it's important to say thank you to to people like that who had done so much for the school. All right, moving on. Personnel recommendations. All appointments are pending clearance on fingerprinting. First up, retirement and resignations. Resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Zachary Loy's letter of resignation as a social studies teacher effective June 30th, 2025. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools, the board does hereby accept Tracy Malone's letter of retirement as a library media specialist effective June 30th, 2025. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second.

114Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Moving on to permanent appointments. Resolve that upon the recommendation of the schools, the board is hereby appoint Jeff Christensen on a probationary basis as a 712 social studies teacher in the tenure area of social studies with the understanding that the named individual does hold New York State certification appropriate to or required for that position. The probationary appointment shall commence on September 1st, 2025. that the probationary appointment shall expire on September 1st, 2029 and that for the named individual to be eligible for an appointment on tenure upon expiration of the probationary period, it shall be necessary but not sufficient that the individual has received an APR rating as either effective or highly effective in three of the four years of the probationary service and has not received

115an annual professional performance rating of ineffective in the final year of probationary appointment as based on ratings derived in compliance with education law section 3012. 2-D at step 12, I'm sorry, step 10, bachelor's plus masters plus 30 hours at $63,223. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Substitute appointments. Resolved upon the recommendation of superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the following substitutes. Heather Garrow as a substitute RPN school nurse at $32.25 25 cents an hour effective May 12th, 2025. Tracy Mimone as a retired CTA substitute teacher at $145 a day effective July 1st, 2025. Do I have a motion? Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Civil service appointments. Elizabeth Watson cleaner probationary ends April 14th, 2025. Permanent effective 15 April 15,

1162025. Ashley Blackburn, bus attendant and school monitor. Probationary ends April 14th, 2025. A permanent effective April 18th, 2025. Linda Emmens, a food service helper. Probationary ends May 2nd, 2025. Permanent effective May 20 May 5th, 2025. Brenda Eckleston, instructional computer specialist. Probationary ends May 9th, 2025. Permanent effective May 10th, 2025. Do I have a motion? Some moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Order. Can we do those all together? This I believe you believe so. Okay. It just wasn't it wasn't in the agenda like it was for the uh the substitute appointments with like its own thing. So only reason I was asking. Okay. Do we I think we can do those as Yeah, I think for I think social service we just make it like the substitute appointments if it looks easier. Okay.

117Other resolved upon the recommendation of the schools the board is hereby approve the termination of Jeremy Huffen as the boys JV basketball coach effective January 24th 2025. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor I opposed carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of school board does hereby discontinue Erica Galivati's probationary appointment as a teachers aid school monitor effective April 22nd 2025. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of Superintendent of Schools, the board does hereby revise the appointment of the science club adviser to co-advisors at $513 each for Shawn Dwer and Aaron Tui. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Carry. Resolved. Upon the recommendation, the

118superintendent of schools that Taylor Manor possesses a 712 special education certificate issued by the commissioner of education is perfect prospectively awarded tenure in the tenure area of special education effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon the compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So move. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed carried. Congratulations, Taylor. Resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools that Bonnie Barlo possesses a physical education certificate issued to the commissioner issued by the commissioner of education is protectively awarded tenure in the tenure area of physical education effective September 1st 2025 conditioned upon the compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? Second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed?

119Carried. You waited around. You're almost the last one on the agenda. You stuck around this whole time. Congratulations to Bonnie, by the way. Resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the Justin Corrosic possesses a 712 social studies certificate issued by the commissioner of education is protectedly awarded tenure in the tenure area of social studies effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon the compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? opposed. Motion carried. Congratulations. Congratulations. Resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The Cassandra Furnace possesses a B2 special education certificate issued by the commissioner of education is protectedly awarded tenure in the tenure area of special education effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon

120compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? Some moved. Second. Second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Congratulations, Senator. Resolved upon the recommendation superintendent schools that the Torosano possesses a school social worker certificate issued by the commissioner of education is perfectly awarded tenure in the ten area of school social worker effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? Approved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed carried. Congratulations. Resolved that upon the recommendation superintendent of schools that Katherine Fowler possesses a B6 elementary certificate issued by the commissioner of education is respectively awarded tenure in the tenary of elementary effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon compliance with

121the APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor. Opposed. Motion carried. Katherine. Congratulations. Resolved upon the recommendation superintendent of schools that Mary Laberty possesses a library media specialist certificate issued by the commissioner of education is prospectively awarded tenure and the tenary of library media specialist effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon the compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So moved a second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Congratulations. Congratulations. Do you guys want to check out books? Resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools that Rachel the George possesses a school guidance counselor certificate issued by the commissioner of education is respectively awarded

122tenure in the tenure area of school guidance counselor effective effect effective September 1st 2025 conditioned upon the compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. carried. She's not here, right? Okay. Congratulations, Rachel. Resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools that Lindseay Bazison possesses a one6 elementary certificate issued by the commissioner of education is respectively awarded tenure in the tenure area of elementary effective September 1st, 2025 conditioned upon compliance with APR requirements or waiver as determined by the state of New York. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. I'm abstaining. One abstension noted. Motion although I'm sorry and motion carry. Congratulations, Lindsay. Moving on to coaching.

123Resolve that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve Ricky Rutherford as an unpaid modified softball coach for the 2025 spring season. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carried. Resolved. Upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve Christopher Nihoff as the boy's JV basketball coach with a stipen of $1,4320 pro-rated effective January 24th, 2025 through February 15th, 2025. Do I have a motion? Move. A second. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Moving on to our public comment period. Does anybody have anything to address the board this evening? Once, twice, three times. You had something, right? What? I just want to congratulate all candidates for making tenure. Yes. Noted. Whether they're here

124or not. Likewise. Anybody else? here. Okay, moving on. Future dates. We've got a bunch of them here. Um May 20th, we have the budget vote from 1 to 8 as noted in the high school tunnel this year. Know that that's a different location than it has been in the past. Um also on the 20th, we have the district-wide science and art expo from 1 to 8. So while you're here voting, be sure to walk the halls and check out the science and art expo. May 22nd, again, the strategic planning meeting here in the high school media center at 6:30. May 26 is Memorial Day, no school quickly approaching. Hard to believe we're halfway through May. I know. May 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th are the Spanish 8 speaking exams. June 5th, high school final chorus

125concert at 7 p.m. June that's been changed. Correct. It's now the fourth. The the fourth. Okay. Conflicted with the senior trip. Senior trip is the fourth. Okay. So, correction. So, June 4th will be the high school final chorus concert. Still at 7 o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. And the band concert's on the 29th, I believe. He said it right. Okay. May 29th. May 29th for the band concert. Um June 10th will be our next regular board meeting here at 6:30. Um and then June 10th, Regent Exams, no school for grades 9 through 12. I'd like to entertain a motion for excuse me for executive session to discuss employment history as well as matters leading to the employment of individuals. So I have a motion move. A second. Second. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. We are now

126in executive session. We will not be returning for any additional matters of action this evening. Thank you for coming out. recover worse.