001Please stand for flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Um, if I could, could I get a motion to approve uh the meeting agenda? Motion. make second. Thanks, Randy. Any uh discussion? All those in favor? Okay. I will make a motion that we move into the public hearing portion of the board meeting. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Okay, I'll turn it over to Tom and Moren. Moren, go ahead. Okay, so tonight is our required annual bubb budget public hearing. We are moving down the timeline. We're getting closer to the end of the process.
002If you look um basically over here, this is next Tuesday, the vote the the mailings, the budget notice is gone out and this is um we're holding our public hearing right here between 17 7 and 14 days before the vote. There's a lot of New York State requirements that go with a public hearing. We have to present our budget to the voters for approval. Um we have to do it on the third Tuesday in May. Budgets must be prepared in three categories. We have to hold tonight's public hearing. Um, board of education vacancies are also also filled during this budget process and um, you can read the rest of the requirements as you go down through. All of these items are on the back table for anybody that does not have internet, but they're also
003available all on our website and you don't have to kill a tree printing them all out. This is the actual only piece that's required and they make it so complicated that we try to put um a budget newsletter around it to highlight some of the items that are really important because this actual district budget notice is really hard to comprehend. So I go through and try to give it a little more context. These are our budget revenues and the changes in each of the revenues. We only have two sources of revenues. We have state aid in the tax levy. We are applying three million of fund balance and we get about 5 million in other various little revenues. It's up 5.3 million from last year from the year that we're in right now. And these
004are the categories that we normally discuss our revenues in. And these are the categories that are prescribed by the controllers's office. And the same with the expenses. These are the six categories that we always discuss and we've been dealing with for the last year. Um it's a balanced budget that needs to be proposed. It's again going up 5.3 million and change and you can see the various increases and as I always say salary and benefits make up almost 75% of the totals and the increases. Now, this is the three category requirement that we have to put our budget notice out in. It's the same numbers, the same totals, the same dollar changes, but this is in program expenses, administrative expenses, and capital expenses. I try to divvy it up so you can kind of see
005where the money goes. Obviously, 75% of it is our program. The capital is 16% which is basically the um custodian grounds and our debt service and which is essentially like a mortgage for any capital projects that we've done and 9% of it is the admin budget. Just I like to revisit every year that we are now we have stopped declining in enrollment and we seem to be just holding our own. This is an enrollment trend that's based on birth rates. So there is no factor in here for the potential of what Micron could do to us in the future. And at this point, there isn't really any good idea of how to project anything yet. We'll be getting there, I'm sure, in the next couple years. Some highlights that I want to go over so
006that everybody understands this budget. The main what do you want to say? Our main goal is to keep the positions and the programs in place that we've added and upgraded over the last couple years. We've had COVID money, so it's been nice. We've been doing a lot of extras and we have extras going in. So, there are no additions and the goal is basically to maintain and hold on to the progress that we've made. The increase is 5.41%, the tax levy increase 6.86%. And remember, the tax levy is only one piece of a three-part tax rate computation. We'll get into that sooner in a little bit. It includes interfund transfer from debt service, which is a one-time revenue source, as well as health insurance is a one-time revenue source. Also, liquidation of our non-spendable fund
007is another oneot revenue source. So the these we're using along with going to the tax levy limit so that we can keep everything that we have in place. As you know, a lot of districts are cutting because the revenues are down. The the stimulus money is gone and state aid for the bulk of the districts is at 2%. Well, let me just jump in real quick. Right. This is your presentation, but the one thing that I want to be able to say is um there are districts that are making cuts. And again, kudos to conversations with a previous board, which many of these board members were on way back when we were a minimum premium, which is really close to being self-insured. The problem with being self-insured is it's really hard to do long-term planning.
008you could get some serious cases from some staff members that could then shift it and then all of a sudden it it's not a a 6% increase. Some districts are facing right now a 30% increase to their health costs. That's astronomical for everybody, right? So Moren did a wonderful job. It was right a year after I came to the district that we made that shift. So for long long range planning, that's big. The only other thing I want to touch on was that there was an article and I want to be able to say this right now because now they've done a complete 180. So um it was on NPR um out of New House at Syracuse. They've now rescended. So their original article was just full of misinformation. I was shocked. I've never seen
009the media do something like that, especially without a call or an email to check their stats. Now, if you click on it, it basically says correction w aer.org previously reported erroneous details of the central square school budget. So, I was I'm glad that they did that, but unfortunately there are community members that read stuff and then got posted to forums with misinformation. So, they want to make it right. They want me I'm going to do a live interview tomorrow. Um, and again, some of the things that she talks about, yes, a 6.86% increase for a $200,000 house, it equates to about $182. We went two straight years without raising taxes at all. And all the majority of the other times we only went half as far. Why were we able to do that? And all
010I want to be able to say and I want people if the one thing people can remember when they leave here, it's because we used to get anywhere between four and 5% in state aid. That equates to about $60 million. So when they say now Central Square is only getting a 2% because clearly you're not financially hurting because you went two straight years without raising taxes. It's like my grandfather used to always say, no good deed goes undone, right? So we we did not hit the taxpayers during COVID. We knew that there were people being furled and whatnot, but it did hurt us because we left about $5 million on the table. And so with the state not giving us that money, Moren's dead on right. There's only two ways districts have revenue and that's
011state aid and that's property tax. There are districts like Skinny Atlas, they don't need state aid because if you just look at the houses around Skinny Atlas Lake, it's $3 billion with a B. We don't have a Skinny Atlas Lake here with that generates that. So we rely on state aid. So when the aid comes back, we won't have to go to the cap again. But that's just a result of many years of not going to the cap. We want to keep police officers in our schools. We want to keep counselors in our schools. We want to keep the 26 plus college courses um and all the other things that Matteo has actually done a great job presenting on throughout the year. We want to be able to keep those things. They're so vitally important.
012Plus, we want to be able to be to continue to be competitive with the wages. We see a lot of people in transportation. I I put that contract ahead of any of the contracts that are out there. Some school districts are constantly cancelling after school activities because they don't have the drivers because those drivers have to work 29 hours a week to get the line share of health benefits when ours are at 22. So those are things behind the scenes. So again, Marine, I just want to just publicly thank you. I'm going to let you continue, but you've done an amazing job over the years with the budget, long before I even came here. Continue. Thank you. So I just want to highlight this is page two of our budget document that's on the table.
013These are those three oneshot onetime revenues that we are adding into this year's revenues so that we can keep everything that we have. And on the budget document the first page that's where the tax levy increase shows the 6.86%. And I want to talk about that for a moment. So, a tax rate, which is how we're build, is based on three parts. One is the tax levy, which is what the school district can control. And the other part is the town assessments, which is controlled by the town assessors. And then there's a New York state equalization rate that's controlled by real property tax of the state of New York. So, the tax levy is the total amount raised each year from the property district owners in our district. The rate is calculated by taking the
014total levy and dividing it across the total assessed value. So tax rates effectively change in all the municipalities based on the assessments. So when we put out our what could potentially be the tax rate increase, it's really only taking into effect one of those three factors. So if you look at this bas the line this side the April budget this is what we have been estimating based on the only piece we know we're assuming that town assessments and equalization rates remain the same. If you look over here this is what really happens in August. So you can see it's always much lower than what we project based on the fact that we don't know what the new assessments are. So there's no way we can go out and say it's any less because we have
015nothing else to base it on. But it truly does end up being less every year. Pretty substantial. Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. So on a $100,000 home, the 6.86% is essentially $92 per 100,000. The one thing I want to show is the full value tax rates across our county. This is us in the yellow. Oh, sorry. I go back. We're here in the yellow. So, one, two, three, four school districts are ahead of us and basically two are essentially with us. So, there's only two other school districts in the county that have a lower tax rate than we do. So, we get a good product for our money. And this I like is it's basically our our full value tax rate across the years. And I like this because I it shows that when you assess
016to the t the property tax cap, that's a formula that is supposed to keep your full value intact. It really does work because we've done the property tax cap these years, but then when we started doing the zeros and the halves, that's why we're losing tax rate and we're losing money as we go through and don't do the full tax tax property tax cap value. Also on the vote besides the the budget is proposition number one. We will have was transportation vehicle proposition number two. And we were very careful. They read diesel gas. Diesel gas. We want to make sure everybody understands that there is no electric buses on this package. Yes. And I mean I know a couple of you saw the presentation I made with the the EV buses. So that is still
017not happening with our district. There's a lot of reasons for that. That's another whole presentation. And then we have the library propos proposition number three. Essentially, there's laws that state that if the library wants to assess more taxes, they can quote kind of ride on the shirt tales of the school district vote. So, we always bring them on if they want to increase their taxes, but this is not money that's coming to the school district, nor are we levying this tax. There are three seats on the board of education that are up for election and we have three candidates. So, we essentially don't have any competition. So, thank you everybody who is running because it's kind of a thankless job and the pay is really bad. And so, we like to throw a little good
018news in here kind of like what are we getting and how good are we? What are we doing with our money? Just some achievements this year. Our seventh seven, eight grade team at the middle school came in third in the countywide battle of the books. They were team tactical readers. Our National Honors Society inducts another 34 members. That's a great great number. And these are basically juniors. And the the ceremony is great because the seniors that are in there introduce a junior. It's really nice to be a part of that. The DECA went to state competition. They really always do great in their competitions. Yep. Yeah, they have. Have they gone yet? They're going now. They just went. Okay. Um, drama club productions. We had all chime in. Shuffling and Hades Town. And these I
019mean a lot of community members come out for them. They're great productions. our middle school sixth graders brought to brought together like a live Greek museum. It was one of their ELA um what do you want to say? Activities. It was a really fun day over there. These kids are doing great. Our athletic departments have really notable achievements. Um Aubrey Green and Charlie Raymond are track state champions. The varsity flag football is the first time out this year. There's 35 girls that are having a I've heard they're having a great time and it's going really well. Music is another one of our big our big activities. Um the wind ensemble concert was great with music of the month school. And they always do a night at musical theater, the cabaret, which that's a night with
020that has all sorts of arts activities here. And they even the artists, the various of sculpture, jewelry, painting, they all sell like they auction their their items for a scholarship, which is really cool. The class of 25 senior has a national accommodation. Um it is Abigail Sundit and this is a huge accommodation recommended from the NA 25 national merit scholarship program. She also is our she is her mom. I didn't know if it's been announced yet or not. Okay. I didn't want to say anything. So remember every vote counts. Every vote counts. Next Tuesday. underscore that 25,000 eligible people and when I went around was I brought a lot of people I don't think I was I went to all participation classes and I I said you'll win a bag of can all broke up
021and uh I said 25,000 voters how many people you think vote in the last election 10,000 12,000 7,000 and when I told them 740 they couldn't believe it and then I told the year 430. They couldn't believe it. They're in it. Especially, you see, it's an easy sell to them because they're in the band. They're playing sports. They're in Boseies. When I came to the district, we were cap only 75 kids to Boseies. That's their job. That's their dream, right? They want to be electrician. They want to be a nurse. They want to be these are jobs that are now starting $85,000. When Mike comes to be a technician, we cap it. We're sent 175 there now, right? And so, we have 26 college courses. These kids are able to graduate with an associate degree
022from Central Square. So, it's an easy cell for them to say, "Oh my god, yes, I'm vote." It's so important that our community understands across the board in all school districts in New York State and we're not going to need Thank you. Is there any questions from anybody? Yeah. At this time, we'll open it up for the public. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak? Okay. Thank you. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion that we close the uh public hearing. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. on to our regular meeting. I got to make a motion for it. I'll make a motion to open the regular meeting. I get a second, Brian. Any discussion? All those in favor? Thank you. Okay.
023Okay. I will make a motion that the Central Square uh Central School District Oh, there's no Is there any Oh, is there any blue cards? No, no blue cards. All right. Sorry, I'm ahead of myself. Thanks. That's why I like having her by my side. The um again I'll make the motion that the central square central school district board of education hereby move into executive session the discussion matter leading to the tenure of three particular people and matters to leading to the appointment of two people with action to follow. Okay, I get a second. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? So this will be very quick. This Okay, I will make a motion to return to open session. Can I get a second? Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. I will make
024a motion for recommended resolution that the Central Square School District Board of Education approves to extend the time of Alexa Barlli probationary period to September 1st, 2026. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? And I will make a motion recommended resolution that the Central Square School District Board of Education approves the extend the time of Robert Elzalo Entco. Enzelco's probationary period to September 1st, 2026. Can I get a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Thank you very much for that. Um, can I get a motion for item E in its entirety? A motion. Sorry. A motion. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. So, if I can have Jason Fellows stand up. Jason Fellows, as of tomorrow, will take over the
025reigns as a director of transportation. He started here when he was 21 years old, rose through the ranks. We're extremely proud and we're thrilled for you to have this position, and I'm I love to see so many people from the transportation department here to cheer you on. So, congratulations. [Applause] And also, we would like uh Caitlyn Lensella to stand up. Caitlyn is going to be our new assistant director for special education or as we say pupil personnel services. She is coming to us from the Bowwinsville district with a a a a great background in special education and we're really excited for her to join the team. Congratulations. [Applause] Yep. Congratulations. Um could I get a motion for item F in its entirety? A motion. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Thank you
026for that. And on to reports. Matteo. All right. Congratulations to the following Junior Awards recipients on being hand selected by teachers to be recognized on their knowledge and skills in a certain subject. Hannah O'Neal in art. Avery Sheen in business, Alyssa Revanau in English, Abigail Fzino in math, Jocelyn Georgees in instrumental music, Eli Connor in vocal music, Ryan Flechman in boys PE, Mila Watowski in girls PE, Jacob Ram in science, Khloe Holland in social studies, Evan Peek in technology and Avery Ford in world languages. Congratulations to this year's graduating class's top five students on being acknowledged for their dedication and hard work in school. Abby Sundet is our valid Victorian. Zack Card is our saludiatoran. Autumn Quill and Ga Rabia are tied for our laurate and excuse me, Delena Humphrey is our superintendent's honor. Miss
027Bergman and 29 of her ceramic 2 students went to the Everson Museum of Art to compete in feats of clay. This was the 36th annual ceramic art competition with 33 local schools in attendance. The events were cylinder stack mug production, no hands throwing on the wheel, blindfolded throwing on the wheel, pot put in hand building using coils. We tied for 14th place, and senior Ga Robia was presented with the Syracuse Ceramic Guild Senior Award. This year, the music department is proud to be sending 21 students to NISMA's band auditions and 22 students to NISMA's vocal auditions at Mexico High School. NISMA solo festival provides students the opportunity to be judged and scored for how well they perform a solo stud excuse me site head and perform their scales or rudiments in the case of percussion.
028Depending on how well they scored, they may be able to earn a seat with an all area allstate ensemble, NYSBDA, or a conference allstate ensemble in the areas of vocal and instrumental music. Good luck to them all. Congratulations to Will and Zack Card on placing top 20 in their team event at the DECA International Career Development Conference. This is a huge accomplishment as this means that they place top 20 in the whole world. Congratulations to our school's esports team on making it to championships at Elite Gaming and to our Overwatch one team on taking the title of champion for the third season in a row. Congratulations to junior Avery Shien, our school's varsity girls lacrosse goalie on her 100th career save in her first game of the season and even more impressively, her 200th career
029save obtained in a game more recently. Congratulations to senior Hannah Riker, our school's varsity girls lacrosse midfielder, on her 300th career point. Congratulations to junior Charlie Raymond on setting a new varsity outdoor track and field school record in the 1600 meter with an impressive time of 4 minutes and 23 seconds. He beat Chuck Hackenheimimer's 27year-old 1600 meter record by three seconds. Student government's blood drive with the American Red Cross was successful and even exceeded the club's goal, collecting a total of 38 units. Because of senior Shelby Nickerson's efforts as the student blood drive coordinator, she will be receiving a $1,000 scholarship from the American Red Cross. And lastly, our school's annual talent show run by the student government will take place on Wednesday, May 28th. The talent show will display the unique gifts of students
030of all grades at Paul Vmore. And I am excited to announce that the theme this year will be wicked or excuse me wicked inspired by the hit 2024 movie. Oh, and then just a followup from when I met with you and uh Miss Phillips. Me and Abby Tetrol did work together to send out a message to those participating in Senior Assassin and just made them all aware to make wise decisions when playing. Thank you. And that's all for me. Well, again, because of uh our amazing student board rep, he just knocked mine in half right out, which is perfect. What I'll go I'll go ahead of you, Tom. So, go ahead. Just just uh anything for the board members to report. I did um I did sign the letter that I passed out to the
031governor, to Will Barkley, and to Chris Ryan voicing the displeasure of the 2% budget that was signed. So, I did sign that and Pearl was nice enough to send that out in the mail. Other than that, all right, here we go. Uh, great job to Moren Lad, our business manager, and Ted Love, our director of technology, for saving the district $152,000 by ordering the Chromebooks before the tariff prices went into effect. So, basically, there were only uh 5,000 of the Chromebooks that were on the bid nationwide, and we were able to get all the ones that we needed at the old cost. They It would have costed $152,000 more. So, that's just huge foresight and it was quick action and getting that in. I made sure I did not tell any of the other superintendent
032that they were doing this to make sure we got those. So again, uh, Moren is the best at what she does and and Ted Love is the best at what he does with technology. The blood drive, I don't need to go into that. I just want to give another shout out to Shelby Nickerson. Great job, Matteo. And that receiving the thousand scholarship for her efforts. It's fantastic. Um, good news for the music department. In April, the Central Square uh, Varsity Winter Guard and the Central Square High School winner drum line travel to Dayton, Ohio to perform and compete in the Guard Percussion World Championships. Both ensembles perfor outstanding in the uh in the finals. Congratulations to all of them. On Tuesday, April 22nd, the sounds of jazz were heard from Central Square Middle School as
033both middle school and high school instrumental and vocal jazz ensembles performed in their concert for entertainment for family and friends. The OCMA Coral Festival. Congratulations to the following uh high school students who earned a seat in the April 2526 OCMEA Coral Festival Senior High School Awards um that took place at April, sorry, at APW, Grace Meyers, Madigan Murphy, Marilyn P or Pulley, um Hannah Foster, Madison Helvy, Jackson my Dalton Bremer, um Landon Stevens and Dylan Wick. Congratulations to Eli Connor who represented Paul Vmore High School and the Central Square School District in the 2025 Eastern Division Conference and All Eastern Honors Ensembles Convention and Concert that took place on April 24. On April 25, Eli earned a seat among selected students from 13 Eastern States who were selected uh based on their NISMA auditions. Um
034on April 24, um the Paul Vmore High School Music Department performed um cabaret style at the high school gymnasium to assist in uh fundraising efforts for deserving senior instrumental and vocal music department seniors. The following awards will be presented at the end of the year concerts and the recipient recipients will be listed in the 2025 graduation program. Eight students from Paul Vmore High School DECA chapter attended the international DECA emerging leaders and entrepreneurs conference from April 26 to April 30th in Orlando, Florida. They competed against approximately 26,000 students from around the world. Um, again, huge shout out to these students. Zachary Card, William Card, Cadence Graham, Emma Lacy, um, Andrew Card, um, Andrew Lans, Khloe Sheen, and, um, Every Sheen. Zack Card and William Card were top 20 finalists in advance to the final round.
035Um, I was at Feats of Clay. The students were amazing. I was really happy. Three days after that, they came down to my office with a big frame picture uh that they had taken from the event. And again, again, we talk about the budget. We couldn't do all the things that we do. Whether it's what you see on the border there with DECA, whether you see all the students competing in feats of clay, all of the kids that are in band, it's over 500 of our students that are in band and music. Two years ago, it was an average GPA of a student that play in the high school that played an instrument that was in chorus or band was a 94.5. Right? So all of that plays a an equal role. Um again, congratulations
036to Susanna Hip, senior at Paul V. Moore High School. Susanna was chosen um in the um as the winner of this year's New York State Percussion Circuit um scholarship. Susanna has been involved in winter drum line for the three years and the Red Hawk Regiment Marching Band for five years. Congratulations, Susanna, on this amazing accomplishment. Again, it's just a testament to all the hard work our students put in, but also to all of our instructors and our teachers and what they do on a daily basis. That concludes my report. Great. Fantastic. Thanks. Um, can I get a motion to accept item H in its entirety? A motion. Get a a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Can I get a motion for adjournment? A motion. Second. Second. Lori. Any discussion? All those in favor?
037We're done. Thank you every everybody.