001okay good evening everybody um if we could we'll uh call the regular meeting to order and stand and say the Pledge 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 um everybody can hear me okay yes that's okay um oh no not that loud that that that was a lot louder um thank you um if I could uh get a motion to approve uh tonight's meeting agenda oh motion any discussion all those in favor thank you very much Pearl we have any blue cards okay okay uh Jessica go ahead if you want go and you turn that on so people can home can hear you hello can you hear me okay okay
002good evening everyone I am here this evening to to represent the students and families in our district that utilize busing to private and Catholic schools in our area I am here to kindly ask the board to consider providing bus transportation to Bishop Len Grimes beginning in September of 20125 on February 27th less than one month ago the Syracuse dicese officially announced the closure of Bishop Grimes Junior Senior High School the Das then announced their merging Bishop Grimes and Bishop Len Junior Senior High School the merger to Bishop Len poses a logistical issue to current and incoming students that reside in the Central Square District Bishop Len is located 17 and a half miles Southwest of Brewerton Elementary the southernmost school and pickup point in our district the current mileage radius alloted for private and Catholic
003schools in the Central Square district is 15 miles thank y Bishop Grimes met this need for our students and it is only 14 and a half miles Southeast of Brewerton Elementary there are current and incoming students to Bishop Grimes now Bishop Len Grimes that reside in our district that rely on the busing currently provided the parents of these children including myself are asking that due to the unexpected and very abrupt closure of Bishop Grimes that you will allow Bishop Len Grimes to to be included in the private and Catholic School busing radius and extend the current 15 M radius to 17 1 12 miles we are hoping not to disrupt our current and incoming students educational landscape that they have experienced at Bishop Grimes and other small Catholic elementary schools we accept and understand that
004a more substantial mileage radius such as 7 to 10 miles would likely not be acceptable would likely not be and acceptable ask of the district since the merger is only a three mile r a three mile difference between Bishop Grimes and Bishop bluten we are hoping to get approval for the proposed mileage adjustment also the other parents and I have discussed having one pickup point for all Bishop Len Grime students at Brewerton Elementary currently any students that reside within 15 miles of Bishop Grimes are eligible to be picked up from their home this one pickup Point proposal could actually reduce the total amount of miles driven for the current Bishop Grimes bus run in closing we understand that it is not required of the district to provide busing to private and Catholic schools but we
005want the board the taxpayers and residents of the Central Square School District to know that we are all extremely extremely grateful and appreciative that our district does offer our students busing we also want to note that if our initial requests cannot be accommodated that we are willing to pay a transportation stien or something along those lines for the added two and a half miles each way for busing costs thank you everyone so typically we don't it we don't respond when some but what I can do is so you know that you've been heard is that I can ask legal because there are some things that the board doesn't even have the perview to make a decision on or it would be considered a gift of public funds if the board does when I hear from
006the attorney what we'll do is we'll put something out not only to you but we'll we'll put it out we'll put a message out to all of the students that attend Grimes okay so that they'll be able to know what the response is I had another parent speaking of Grimes ask me um Sports if the school is dissolved and they were to come here would they have to sit out a year so there's so many questions regarding the whole Grime situation that we're going to work through but I assure you in a very timely manner hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get that information out okay thank you yeah is is that a is that a policy 15 into okay all right perfect thank you so much um normally it's not this big of a
007crowd so you did well okay we have uh up next is a special presentation to the board our staff recognition for 10 and five years ready yep okay we win everybody ready okay so we yeah all right so we are going to congratulate all of our employees who have been with us for 10 years and we have a presentation so their pictures are up here on the screen and we are going to call them up for those of you who are new to this you're going to come up and you're going to make your loop around the board and with Tom and then go on back ready okay Colleen Avery 10 years yep all right thank you Laura gisi I can crank my head not here Susan Hammond okay Bonnie Jean Hardin Hans Hol I
008know he's here your team did a great job breaking all this down too they awesome and hans's crew had this room was filled with tables and chairs that ended at 3 o' today so they whipped [Laughter] it anley Kendall Beth [Applause] cring Michelle [Applause] minkler you're 10 yeah 10 [Laughter] Heather Monica Ellen [Applause] Paradise Deborah redhead Deborah Southworth [Applause] Jackie strob Tammy vaugh Chris Warford Lynn Whitney and Felicia Warlock and Mrs enr is going to read the fiveyear recipients okay I have a long crew here yes Anna adamsky [Applause] Melissa barcome congrats Heidi badenburg [Applause] James Burton Donald Khan [Applause] Sher [Applause] Duren Kristen Dolly Donald [Applause] year Elizabeth da Jacob Asel Stephanie feno Tracy George Juliana [Applause] gisi uh shaa Hing Matthew Klein Amanda lad Ruth lar Jason Lloyd ma Lucas Veronica [Applause] mvel
009Samantha Mariam Casey [Applause] mcmanis Kathleen morichelli [Applause] Gloria plants Katherine pushaw Susan rard it's only two years for your [Laughter] it's kid Jen [Applause] robar oh yeah pictur and everything you look good Andrea [Applause] Rudd congrats Sarah RAR Angela Stark Julia story Ryan ster Victoria [Applause] Taylor Jean Marie theer Jillian thei Pamela Thomas Matthew Wexler Alma widger and last but not least Chrissy Smith not congratulations to our 10 and fiveyear recipients at this time we're going to ask the 10 years to start with a picture right over here with Brandon wood and then the five years and then we'll celebrate with some cake cake makes everything better band band's doing something who's a present five your staff members I'll take not over the um February bre um just see I got brownie conc [Music] Happ
010[Music] that was a now you start think I mean I don't know if you can have food in your mouth or how would was want to know no right to announce know sopia went back yesterday she she takes the train every weekend or every other weekend whatever she feels uh she's think she's still trying to figure out what she wants to do it is I think I think by the end of this getting a little Focus usually usually hardest is the first one okay we could get started back again next up we have music presentation so if we can have Ron halman come to the podium the floor is [Applause] yours actually you know what before you go Ron one of the reasons why the Board of Education we are highlighting Athletics we're highlighting our
011amazing fine arts program that encompasses so many different bands and um Coral con um groups and whatnot is because it's super important that that everybody in the community knows that this District supports not only Athletics we support Fine Arts we support you know students can graduate from high school with literally an associate degree so why is it important to talk about this now we're coming up on budget season so I'm I was thrilled when the board had asked you know Ron to come in to give a you know a presentation about this this because there are so many students that go to Central Square that are involved in band um and in other parts of the fine arts program and I we had done this this board of education did uh forecast 5 did a
012study and a couple years back right before the pandemic hit we talked about the importance and it was something like students that play an instrument that are that are involved in chorus or play instrument their average GPA at the high school is 94.5 which just speaks volumes to the hard work that these students and instructors put in Ron now the floor is yours first thing I'll say is [Applause] I have the boarding part tonight so you know right I have the slides we do have some stud this ises basically day oper and El Elementary element level we have grade we have performance these Department concerts see there the elementary the end of May these are the extracurricular OPP okay 12 [Music] toes are we head assment GR so these are some considerations never right as
013that's just something teachers that's [Applause] ja and and I if I could I have a little insight scoop the the the gentleman that was running around with the camera during your award is my nephew oh my so he he has put your your whole story production it's all done and he's going to let me know when uh they're going to air it so it's all set he sent me a message last week that had nothing to do with her winning it she did that on her own absolutely but he was a Central schore grad so yeah I would beiss I want to show you [Applause] start Andre [Applause] iar and Elizabeth and jul they are going to Harmony so when we are singing spe to [Music] there is no way when I was your age
014that I would have the courage to stand up there in front of a a room full of people great job now [Applause] [Music] great job are students and [Music] what grade are they in what grade are you guys in four four all right when you're in high school you both of you have to do the exact same thing e e e well hold on for a second so before Ron leaves and it's been public knowledge because when someone when people retire the board approves that so I'm running out of time to publicly be able to do this I'm going to do do it a lot more Ron how many years you been in the district 23 23 years Casey's former teacher amazing so Ron is retiring at the end of this year here's the thing
015I I I came here 10 years ago I see Ron's passion whether it's in the dome everywhere he's everywhere there there's a concert that's there Ron is there Ron on behalf of the entire Board of Education the entire Administration it's kind of like the movie Mr Holland Opus this is you're like that you have impacted so many people and it's going to be impossible to replace you you're you're not replaceable and we want to thank you for everything that you've done for this District thank you [Applause] all right thank you everybody and you're more than welcome to stay for the budget presentation or you can just remind everybody to vote in this yes please please please please vote all three of them we'll talk about that today too that was awesome oh was fantastic so
016much h all right so before we get into the budget and the numbers and what tax cap the whole nine yards what you just saw is another perfect example on why communities need to support their school budgets so whether it's a kid that finds a niche in athletics whether that kid goes on to play college sports or or Beyond because we've had some amazing athletes here go on and play in the professional levels or are they just what they gain from playing sports same thing with with our fine arts program whether they go on and we've had many students that get scholarships to go on to colleges for Performing Arts and what they do after that we've had students go into Broadway just phenomenal things again even if they don't go to that next level
017it's the memories that they had it's the overall package it's not just the the courses that we provide here and and the amazing things that you can graduate you get a you know associate degree from CCC OCC pretty remarkable things if you haven't seen our course catalog and again huge shout out to our high school administration under the supervision of Dr Sweeney what Aaron Phillips and Kristen en right have done uh instructionally as well looking at the courses that we have to make sure that they're very rigorous and if you put our course catalog next to other districts you would be very pleased to see what they've been able to accomplish one of the best business programs again Deca is shining currently they we've had several students that not only wanted Decker that are now
018going on to Orlando doing wonderful things so that's one part of the why when we talk about a budget the next part I I believe I sent this to the board uh a link I'm going to email that to you uh all as well and I actually want to put on the website because more people need to see this when you look at AO County now that's 35 slides into to where Pearl has it right now you're going to see some some pretty tragic stats that lead into the fact that if it's not happening at the school district level unfortunately we can't we can't ask the county to do it I would love for the county to you know be able to play a more active role I I would hope that the state that
019the governor could look at what Upstate New York has been struggling with and provide and allocate us with more resources um with that slide right there is severe depression they were able to say and as you can see where um aigo is sky rocketed to the top of that Pearl if you can go down to the next what I wanted you to look at so again as you scroll you see food insecurity we know that's a it's that's an um that is a true pandemic that areas have been hit hard again Central Square when we hit the pandemic we not only had the food that for food distribution that they would have received when they were at school during the closure but we had a separate day and we put it out there and literally
020our middle school because everything was closed the cafeteria tables were full stacked 3 4 feet high with food that we then went and had different locations at different uh pickup spots I positioned myself at AA Cole back then and I just remember sitting in snowstorms with the administrators and we were Distributing that food to the families that were extremely appreciative it's a huge thing my wife runs where we live the backpack program we have an amazing backpack program here in District as well because food insecurity is a legitimate thing and when I have to look at snow days that's something that we do struggle with because we know that some kids the best meals unfortunately for some of the kids not all of course but some of the kids the best meals they get are
021here for some of the kids the best interactions they have with adults are the adults in our schools and when they're deprived of that over vacations snow days Summers it's very hard for them to adjust PE if you can go to the next one that I asked uh yep right here suicide so unfortunately when you look at this slide uh children age 10 to 19 if you look at um this Compares all of counties what Roseanne Bane from City BOS is just highlighted ones that are local AO County um is first in that overall suicide rates you see aigo County again 12.6 swo County was actually a couple years back number one in the state when it came to this so if you ask around there are a lot of families that have either been
022closely impacted or they know a family that this has been this has been happening to and so that's one of the reasons why we want to have as many opportunities for students to be able to feel engaged to their school Community some students again it could be through academics they have that teacher that they love and they and they make learning come alive for them but for other students it is that sports coach that they had that made a difference or the band instructor again when you look at these Health factors aigo ranked 61st so when you're looking at all the counties and why did I show this I showed this because so so far I've been able to meet with Senator uh Chris Ryan I've met with with a couple of our board members
023that were there as well we met with uh will Barkley we I've talked to Al stury about this because when the state put out their numers Central Square only got a 2% uh increase right so when you look at that people can say well at least it wasn't flat but when you look at the cost of living changes every year when you look at the massively uh high in uh inflation rates that 2% for us to offset the 6% increases every year for all of our bargaining units when it comes to health insurance we won't be able to sustain what you just saw from these amazing students today or the other the students maybe that you that weren't here today but with sports or the kids with Deca and doing those wonderful things because when
024it comes down to it we have to stay competitive when I came into the district our our unions most notably the largest Union is the teachers union was in the lower andchel on for sories in the county all all total packages now we're not we're at the top and the reason why that's so important is because we used to have um advertise a job opening let's say a math teacher at the high school we used to get 100 applicants or more now we get about six that are certified and why you go to the local colleges it's an e and flows it's a cyclic pattern so sometimes they pack the the colleges to be in educational programs and then other times it just changes for a number of different factors it changes but right now
025it's been it's been low and when you when I go to these colleges or Aaron and um and and Kristen enr we talk to these people we talk to students um and it's demoralizing unfortunately you've got coaches that don't want to coach and this is not just a Central Square problem you have uh teachers because of regulations that come out by New York state that on paper they may look good but when you actually apply them it causes more harm than good it's like a Rubik's Cube you think you've solved a problem but you really you don't know what's happening behind the scenes and in the long lasting effects so when we look at the school budget and you ask why are we only getting a 2% when other districts are getting 6% 8% 9%
026the reason for that one of the big factors is because many of those districts there's some there there's some variables like small cities got more money but overall what we've been told by experts is that this District like no good d goes undone rarely goes to the cap so we went two straight years without raising the taxes why did we do that we had the money from covid money we we felt that we did not want to pass the Hat when we already knew the families especially during the pandemic people were fur loed wages were were reduced dramatically out in the private sector so we chose not to do that then last year we went as high as we could half as high as we could have for the tax cap which hurt us with
027the formula uh even more so we had many uh administrative kind of cabinet budget discussions I was very happy that board president uh Steve patch and board vice president Christy Fishman sat in on one to really get an understanding of what this looks like and I hats off to Moren she can't be here today but we've had many many conversations during the school day after the school day I'll call her up and we're looking at everything but really what it comes down to with a 2% increase from the state we now need to go to our tax cap that is our recommendation to do because when you don't do that you're leaving the money on the table to fund these programs that we see right now there isn't a single student that is in our
028district that wants to take a dual credit College course that would be turned down for the college portion of that the the district pays for it to not do that we'd be Hypocrites because everybody sitting around this table believes that there shouldn't be the halves and the have knots that should not play a role when education should be The Equalizer so if this was a student that could afford to pay the the the college tuition part the parent was able to pay that um I don't want to put you on the spot but Kristen give me a number of what that since you've got colle you've got students your own children that are taking it what's that cost about I was going to say about 385 right around there so there were families that the
029kid would only be sitting in that college dual credit course for the high school credit that student can get an A so let's say this is student that got the A and family could afford that but my family couldn't so I got an A as well except when I was fortunate enough to go to college my family's now is paying $2500 to $3,000 or more depending on where going and I've spoken with many parents one of them I don't I know he wouldn't care me saying former board president Andy Martin had said hey thank you because I saved $47,000 because all of the credits went with my daughter I believe it's University of Buffalo she's doing Premed that's huge again it's investing here and then down the line you see that investment right I I
030firmly believe that and we're going to get in to the whole presentation but I just want to put some numbers out there if the district went out with a 3% increase that would be $40 for a $100,000 house $80 for a $200,000 house okay and that would bring in % be a different ball game if we were getting four or 5% like other districts but we're not when we got that money we went to the community and said we're not raising you at all for two straight years if it was a 4% it would be one M it would be $54 so it's $14 more so it' be $54 for $100,000 house okay if and that would bring in 1, $1 more for $100,000 house $28 more for $200,000 house now you want to look
031at 5% if we were out at 5% that would be $67 increase for $100,000 house which would bring in roughly $400,000 more than if we went out with 4% it would bring in 1,637 43 if we went out with a 6% increase it would be $81 on a $100,000 house and bring in 1,924 488 if we went to our limit which is the formula that the state believes we can afford it would be $92 increase on $100,000 house and it would bring in $2,200,000 so the levy is pretty much exactly where it was last year and it's pretty much close to where it was two years that we went with zero so if you think of those two years with zero we left $5 million on the table but we did it for the right
032reasons because at the time we were getting four four and a half% what we're not getting now so when you look at this and you look at the some of the things that I hear the most from frustrated parents we have no room in our facilities we have no room for Youth Sports we have no room our our our Sports practices can't start until 8:30 at night right that's late we understand that you know so uh band wants to be able to you know practice they want to be able to get on the turf we don't have an indoor facility like other districts that didn't go 13 years without a capital project they're now able to do those things but but one quick little caveat about that because I hear people all the time hey
033you know can we do a huge Capital project for an indoor facility that would cost a a a a citizen that wanted to do that anywhere between 10 and 12 million it would cost the district about $45 million because the process of capital project for schools and anything where the bureaucracy is in place you can quadruple that number and you get no state aid because there's no regular students that are in there so if we were to ever do something like that we would have to go to the community places like FM have done skel have done they get a minuscule amount from the state aid so they make they get their money on the assessments and their in the in the T property taxes but we don't so we would have to literally go
034out with an astronomical super majority vote and the super majority votes I see never pass so I'm going to go through this Moren help me put all obviously put this together she's a genius but I want you to think of everything that I just said to you for the past 9 minutes because that's really what it is I want you to remember the kids that were here playing you know their instruments and all the years that that went into that and the doors are going to open because of that confidence level that you saw all of them have so much more than just playing their instrument so now Pearl if we want to jump in oh I have it don't I okay fair enough oh sorry let me back up okay as you can see
035here one of the the make sure that's the first yes it was okay okay so one of the notable things here is the 5.4% increase to next year's budget is actually a smaller increase than from we went from the 23 24 to the 2425 budget which was 5.93 this year to remain competitive with the other school districts the last go around with all of our units including our teachers was a 4% raise so there was a time when people would look and go oh my God a 4% raise that you know that's unheard of they're usually like two or three but now with inflation you see other districts they're going out with 4.5 5% but some of them they're not where we are they're having other districts right now that you see going out with
036five five and a half they are where we were 10 years ago at the lower end but we still have to be competitive we still have to put the great teachers in front of those students in those classrooms right here this slide is just all of the details that you saw on the previous slide note that the foundation Aid at 2.07 uh originally it was two but what also plays into that is The Debt Service when we have you know our capital projects and whatnot moren's always talking about Debt Service and why you want to keep it you know uh keep those capital projects going year after year that's just financially smart to do so the current Year's uh foundation and increase is 3.74 4 which is 700,000 more than we got this current school
037year I'm sorry we got $700,000 more in this current school year than we're projected to get next year and that hurts that's 700,000 less than what we got in this school year after this uh board meeting what's going to be posted is all of the details a very thick um packet that all the board members have and it goes on the website that literally breaks every single line item down so fringe benefits we are doing very well Mor and again I give Morin all the credit in the world when um when we negotiated all of the health benefits we're starting to see that that was a really wise move so the um the actual health benefits again Insurance always goes up it's projected to go up 6% Debt Service that's what we we you often
038hear Morin talk about it's uh increasing significantly because it correlates to the building Aid increase um both due to the capital project phase one finally being completed also you see City Bose's Services increase of 6.54 % that's related to all of the CTE programs that we send our students to um when I had come into this District it was capped I want to say it like 75 we have 175 students that's a really difficult thing to say no when a student knows that their family were in that line of business maybe they were heavy equipment or maybe it was you know engineering or maybe it was electrician or maybe it what right now industrial electrical or maybe it's nursing and we have students children of board members that have benefited from going through the CTE
039route that are making decent money right now they're they're really doing a great job and again we get Aid back but you have to have that money built into your budget first you got to spend it to get it back all right this right here is the um um expenditure detail page but as I just alluded to after this board meeting it's going to be posted you're going to literally be able to see each line item in great detail and then the note that Moren wanted me to remind to say is if any of you have any questions at all please let Moren and I know sooner better than later so that we're ready to adopt the budget at the April board meeting 72 uh% or 75 M 394 um 105 of our budget it
040goes to salary and benefits so when you look at a hundred you know million dollar budget you you got to look at the fact that we are the biggest provider of jobs in the area you you have to look at the fact that salaries and benefits you you can nickel and dime like some districts do I must have uh been called I don't want to say the district but there's a certain District where I had five different teachers contact me today brl can ATT test to that um from the district because they want to get out of that District because their their health benefits and their overall salary Pals a comparison to what most districts doing these are great teachers the goal is and the most important person in any District it's not the superintendent
041it's not anyone sitting at the table over there it's the teacher that are literally sitting there in front of the students that make the dayto day they're on they're on the ground level they're the ones that we have to provide like we did today kudos to them amazing staff development today and talking to some of the teachers and and Tas in the hallway but it's preparing them because nothing is more important than the ones that are sitting directly connected to our students those are the teachers all right this is where they're at so when you look at this uh our Elementary staff I don't have to read it all to you but for um as you can see each of the uh Elementary buildings it totals enrollment for our elementary is 1,634 you see the
042breakdown right there and again this is on the website there is our secondary staff so the enrollment at the middle school is 800 students students and our enrollment at the high school is52 and we're in this weird area right now right because of Micron so I was just at the winter Institute nisus and this was a big topic and they actually said when you look at districts it's not just an County and they me the speaker mentioned Central Square because not only are we part of anoda County but we have the available land so we are going to see within the next 5 six years we are going to see some significant growth and we are lobbying right now so we're prepared I don't want to disrespect City bosis but the campus that's not that
043that's an eyesore I'll say it publicly I don't I don't want to say no fault to anybody but they've got those pods those mobile pods all over their campus right we want students like you saw that were in here today to take pride in their classroom not to have mobile units we know what's coming the superintendent I'm one of of them we're going to be going in May to Manasses Virginia because we need to see not only the site where Mike gr is but we need to be able to talk to the local school district to say what did you do to prepare for this not only what what are the courses that you provide for micr credentialing because they were saying for technicians those kids are walking right out and making $85,000 we don't
044have a starting teacher that makes $85,000 we don't have a teacher that's been here 10 years that makes $85,000 and so this idea that you had to go the college route or four years to be successful the game has changed dramatically and we want to be able to go down there so that we can see how they brace for that but the lobbying was so that we can be prepared instead of all of a sudden we have a thousand kids show up and then another thousand kids show up and what what would that look like we're already looking at what it would look like through our architects to have a very similar Wing built on to our elementary buildings because that may need it Down the Line special education so here's an interesting fact you
045hear people say all the time Tom I know the budget you $100 million you know uh 20 years ago there were 5,500 students now we're have 3500 3600 I know mic is coming but right now how are we spending so much if you look at the special education numbers compare it to 20 years ago we're way higher than now with even less students so why why is that well the state continues to and I'm not saying some of the things are bad right I don't want any parent of special needs kids saying oh my God they're they're referencing my kid is just dollars is that no but there are some there are some rooms people just need to understand where there could be eight adults in that room that room in itself could be half
046a million dollars of Staffing just right there or more depending what's on the students IEP which we're required to follow many of which come from other districts of the city of Syracuse and we are legally required to follow that and so that's a that is a very significant cost again we can stack it we get Aid back but you got to have that money up front total teaching staff it's a great slide total teachers we have 336 teachers in our district teaching assistance again this is all driven by IEPs so it could be a student that has a 2: one or a student that has a one: one right you could maybe go visit you know your kid and see in the cafeteria you see a bunch of adults that's in the IEP that they're
047there to be with those children building and grounds I got to work very closely with some of the custodians and maintenance staff they are great people um as you can see total we have uh custodians 48 grounds six uh maintenance five these are amazing people hard workers and you know what the majority of them they live in this District clerical has a breakdown as you can see Transportation um again hats off to Johnny Pierce he's done a wonderful job Johnny um similar to what I had said about Ryan halman Johnny has has given his heart and soul I'm up at 5 I'm sorry five I wish five 3:30 in the morning throughout the the winter I'm I'm texting and calling him and Paul brette starting at 3 at 3:30 he's talking to all the town
048supervisors who have profound appreciation for uh John Pierce so we we're in that process right now it's a civil service position um but we want to make sure that the person that we replace John with is going to be amazing that's something that I assure you that uh I take very seriously and we will do there's your non-instructional supervisors nurses monitors administrators and again for people to say some districts are topheavy administratively we're not we're not um we don't have mckin vental officer that's me uh we don't pay we don't Outsource at at $250 or $275 a pop for someone to do our superintendent hearings that's me if you look at that back table there they've all filled in covering for elementary buildings that's huge so there are some districts that are shocked like when
049I when I share that that's what we do they're like why don't you just hire sub administrators at $600 a day to sit there because we don't do that Grant supported salaries um I got to again give a shout out to Aaron and what she does and what Chrissy Smith does with DEA or DEA Dei it's pretty phenomenal uh or sorry Ida it's pretty third time's a try it's pretty phenomenal of of what they do and things get kicked back because I get an email every time and then I'll see Aron will go in at 7 o'clock at night and fix something because I get that email back and then he get kicked back and then 8:00 she fixes it Christy Smith same thing there's a hardest group of workers sitting right there budget highlights
050you just got to experience a big highlight this more uh this earlier today again during the pandemic the the problems were there right so when I I see this isn't supposed to be Doom and Gloom oh I'm scaring everybody you know past the budget I see every single um Child Protective Services report and during the pandemic they probably multiplied by five um that I that I would see weekly but some of our kids it's just what they go through it's it's not disgusting deplorable but what it does it it crushes their soul for some of these little ones and it's really hard it's hard when you see a second grader who was amazing um behavior in kindergarten in first grade no discipline problems and then all of a sudden it's like a totally different kid
051and it happens overnight we know we know what happened you know and then that that's when we seem like to be the bad guys CU then we have to CPS certain things and and make reports the Count's getting better but they're still underst staffed for a while there were four CPS workers that were tasked to see thousands of kids and so we would say no that kid can't be in that home there's a neighbor there's a an older relative they got to be out of there and it and it's it's it is sad but a lot of the jobs that we hired during the pandemic were not ready we we can't get rid of I would never be the superintendent that recommends that we don't have a special Patrol officer that's armed in in any
052of our buildings we can never go back to not having an elementary counselor again this isn't me throwing shade on the people the before me but we didn't have counselors at the elementary level and some of these kids have gone through so much stuff but the mindset was between the principal and the school psychologist they'll be able to handle those problems they can't right we have during the pandemic I think the divorce rate in the country went up to like 72% and it was really hard even though parents that did it amicably that did the right thing didn't argue in front of the kids it's still an adjustment that the kids have to go through and when you have the Banana Split groups and things like that that's huge the school psychologist day is testing
053for special education you can't spread them so thin but we also have social workers I saw I I saw some here today they are so connected to these families on what they need at a level that I mean I I could mention them all I'll mention one that's been with us the longest Joe moscal when I sat with her 10 years ago when I oversaw the elementary buildings her office it was I want to say it was it was in Brewerton there was a shower in there I think it was like renovation of the the thing and she said to me yeah she said Tom I don't know how long you're going to stay with us I don't know if you're going to move on to go be a superintendent in another District but my
054dream is to be a school social worker and make sustain change with families and she does that every day every day and she's not alone she's got an amazing team and what they're tasked with literally there are some days you want to go home and just cry there's things that like when I see the look on Chrissy and Aaron and Chris and um and um Kristen and right Aaron and Chrissy's face when they're they're talking about some of these things that the kids are going through it's hard but it makes me very happy knowing we got a great staff that doesn't give up on the kids and that goes right to their teachers our and our bus drivers who recognize the kid was a little off today and they'll make the phone call and it
055gets all the way up to us and then sometimes that reveals there's other stuff going on so it's having those eyes the goal is to maintain the progress that we have made not go backwards budget increase the actual budget increase 5.41 Which is less of an increase from a year ago to this year's budget tax levy increase 6.86 but it's not really right and why do I say that because Moren always has a slide and it shows what the actual and what the estimated is and that's going to be on our website too it's always about a dollar and a half or two almost $2 dollars less when it's the actual that's after you hear talk about the equalization rates and you talk about the three different buckets with assessments and whatnot but it's never
056never gone up it's always gone down Tom but um just because it may confuse some people the tax levy increases is also only a part of our budgetary increase correct so that can't that could be misleading in some senses we are not increasing the taxes um beyond what we need for the budget in fact because the piece from the state is only at 2% so when those all work out the budget increase becomes five 5% that's exactly exactly right well said and as you can see tax okay so um the interfund transfer from Debt Service that's 565,000 the health insurance 625,000 liquidation of nonspendable fund almost a million dollars and the one shot revenues that we're able to again that's where Morin gets very creative here's the thing I've been here 10 years and every
057year we talk about oh you can't go out with more than 4% of your foundation Aid you can't go out you can't your fund balance I'm sorry fun Bal you can't go out more than 4% you can't and then we did and the comproller was like we know that's not good you got to put a letter out but we just need to tell you that even though in the private sector they do it all the time I don't want to say probably wouldn't be appropriate for me to name the district although I have in other settings their reserves in this County that we're in for a district a quarter of our size is $80 million and yet they always go out and they tax at the cap they don't go beyond the cap remember our
058cap is 6.86 but they always go out at that they always go out at theirs theirs is probably like a 2.8 so if anyone says to you well we're going at 6.86 but the other districts are going out at four or going out at two ask them what their cap is their cap is that they go out at their cap and and if you don't go out at the cap that's what I started this on then the state says you're not fiscally strained because if you were you'd be going out of your cap no good deed goes undone so again just catch up 5.41 overall budget increase as Christy said the tax levy is just one piece of the puzzle the details from uh so this this page right here these are the details from
059the pie chart that was the second slide of the whole presentation but again you're going to have access and then everyone's going to have access when we post it to every single line item as you can see she highlighted the tax increase which is why I wanted to say when you look at our tax tax increase of 6.86 that's an increase of $92 for the whole year on $100,000 house when you look at a 5% increase that only brings in uh 1.6 million so going to the tax brings in 2.2 million if we were to go out at 5% that's $67 so instead of $92 per 100,000 house it's 67 thou $67 $100,000 house and that brings in 1,600 that is a lot of money that is left on the table when we're we're we're
060tasked and we're faced with those things that parents get frustrated about they want to know why is it that we don't have more uh Studio Art right why is it that we have kids starting practice at 8:30 why is it that red hawk basketb can't get in or Youth Lacrosse or other Youth Sports cuz we just don't have the space so we can try to Bare Bones it and and again Moren and and Paul Brett have done a wonderful job over the years to put out a high quality program for a very low price we were able to do that because the state recognized the fact that we we weren't getting 2% right and also the inflation inflationary costs were are nowhere near than they are right now so there's so many factors that make
061the perfect storm as chrisy said there's the three parts 6.86 Levy increase is only one of the three parts again but keep in mind this is this is what I was referring to earlier the trend is it's always less it's always gone down so when you look at 201819 it was the estimator was $928 and the actual was [Music] $18.91 and as you can see it continues to go [Music] down and this is what we said so on $100,000 home 6.86% increase that um $92 on a $100,000 home and again assuming that the town assessment and the equalization rate are unchanged so there are variables there's the total enrollment Trend we are leveling off for those of you that've been on the board for a while you probably remember that the cerski study that's still
062on our website somewhere and it had talked about exactly what you see right here again none of this has anything to do with Micron because it's going to in Trend and it's it's going to go up balance the budget long term can I've got hopefully five years left in the district the goal is that I I I I would plan to retire for after being superintend 14 years and then pass the Baton on I want to make sure that we're not depleting in our fund balance I I don't I I want to be fiscally sound I never want to put this District in Jeopardy I want to be able to have more performances like you saw here today continue to have our Sports meet the needs for participation numbers of our students and and I
063I want our course offerings to be strong and I never ever want to be in a situation where we have to tell the the kids that want to go to CTE I'm sorry we're going to go back to trying to f a square peg in a circle hole right we can never go back to that so then we see long-term uh CSI plan that's something that we've been looking at we have the idea of upk and we're still Aon done a wonderful job we are looking at that we're hitting pause for that for next year but that is a plan that is something and and one of the reasons was that we talked about before we we thought we'd have a lot more interest because we can't have it both ways right now now connects
064care this is very exciting I've mentioned this before but if anyone's watching this from home this is the school-based health care um that will be first at CSI the second one that they would love to open would be at AA coal um and it could even grow even more they said with Micron coming so that would be teeth cleaning that would be anything if the kids sick the parent doesn't need to have to then bring them to their pediatrician they would do it right there that's huge they' be able to then write prescriptions again this would be uh cost savings for families because for some families that don't have insurance doesn't matter it's paid for by the state it's a state program it's not by our district it's by the state the only cost of
065the district is to build out the rooms the way they need to and if any of you remember when a previous board decided it was a good idea which they were 100% correct to move our district office into the high school we can interact more with the students be another resource for the staff Paul and his crew did all that building Paul's a contractor and he when we went to Mexico he looked at it and was like I could do this I could do this I can make it this is great we don't have to contract that out so the goal is to get that up and running we're going to the process is a it's a it's a year-long process with the state but what they could start immediately is the hygien um the
066dental hygienic hygienic part where they have mobile units that can do teeth cleanings and things like that at setting up at the different schools that's going to be a huge resource for our families we still look at alternative educational programming often times bosei says we're full and we have the teachers that are very frustrated because there's a student let say their behavior what they're struggling with needs a much more restrictive environment this there's many Hoops that the that the state of uh State education part make us jump through and there has to be um you know bips Behavioral Improvement plans that are put in place there has to be time to be able to do this and then if the kid isn't coming to school regularly we can't do that because you can't do it
067from home so there's there's hurdles that we have to jump through but we did once look at what it would look like to build our own programs and um and that we could then bill we can get reimbursed for you know for having those so that's something that we're still looking at all of that is very fluid right now so then what's up next and this is a big announcement we are having three polling locations moren's probably in Cabo right now scratching her head going what did he do I left but we had numerous feedback from families in Brewerton because of the the the the planning the site work that's going to go into the temporary Bridge that's going to be there that's going to be some issues and so we looked at it and
068said all right Brewerton already has a location in the Brewerton fire department where they vote for their presidential elections that's what we're going to do so we're referring to that is polling place three everyone in anoda County will go there to vote there's also construction work that's going to be on Route 11 that it's going to be a nightmare this spring this is going to be able to alleviate that everyone on on do County votes there Bru and fire department but there was other confusion for instance one of the clerical in Aaron in Kristen's office she lives 3 minutes from the American Legion but she had to drive to Constanta to vote and we were hearing this and it was like well this street and then that street and they're like well you can't just
069do that that's Jerry mandering the vote NTS said you can't do that they had a great idea and that's what we're going to do everybody in the town votes in the same location so everybody in as we just said anad County votes in Brewerton fire department everybody in Hastings West Monroe and Parish in Central Square vote in the American Legion everybody in Constantia Vienna Amboy um what am I Bernard's Bay Cleveland vote in the Constanta location um and again it eliminates the two bridge problem that we had because for some of the people if we didn't do that they'd have to cross the bridge tempor what's what's it going to be like in the spring you can't make a decision after you put out the legal notices so things could change and they could they
070could expedite the work at Brewerton this is going to solve all those problems the fire chief was thrilled the president of the fire department Mrs Patty Wix right pearl re oh redox um was on board waved all uh Hall charges not going to cost the district any of that there is a $7,000 cost to rent that machine we own the other machines which we feel given all of the construction work and all the other stuff it could can be an absolute nightmare so that is worth it we will have more uh polling people needed but one of the big things that we did last year is not making them get there at 6:00 a.m. I believe it started at 8 a.m. right and the one at 6 a.m. they actually had to get there earlier
071than that 5:00 and that was really hard for the polling workers so again why do I say all that because when it comes to vote May 20th we want to make sure that we have no confusion NTS will be sending the postcards out to everybody on where they're going to be able to go and vote all of the buses are diesel they are not electric and there'll be a sign that says that because there was some confusion before the people were saying they were going to vote it down because of the electric buses there's none of that right we will be putting out a referendum in December of next school year for two electric buses but we're going to be doing that in December we're not going to be doing that at the end of
072the year because some people are just voting no for everything because they're they're just so frustrated with the timeline rolled out by the state education department and the governor regarding electric buses so um anoda Central did this it got voted down but they did it in December so at least it will show the state that we've tried because if they continue to drag their heels and and not changing the deadline I said this to three politicians that had no idea how districts bond for buses that it's a 10-year plan replacement strategy we can't just say oh you know yeah we can do it in a year we're not a small District like West Hill we this would take planning any questions Moren Returns on Wednesday and you you promise you promised us not to go
073backwards you're backwards from Moren I'm just saying that don't just let you know I am 100% backwards from Moren I I will second that Steve thank you sir that's very smart Morin they said they're holding the question got it right here on my phone thanks no so again when when we looked at this no again no I just want to say Morin's great yes all right thank you everybody I'll make a motion okay all right so we're on to we're on to item e can I get a motion for item e in its entirety I'll make a mo I'll I'll second did you get that Pearl any discussion all those in favor okay can I get a a motion for item F in its entirety Casey's motion I'll second any discussion all those in favor
074item G matta's not here any uh board members have anything they like to discuss no you ready Tom yeah real quick I just got it real quick usually Mato reads all mine oh you're here ah there it is perfect okay the Central Square Middle School Math League had its final meet yesterday afternoon the top five finishers for our school that attended the meet were Thon Fawn uh Dario Marino Alex Fenton Kaden Gardner and Dylan Cox the first place finisher for Central Square Middle School was Don Fawn the team acred a total of 84 points over the season placing them in ninth place out of 22 schools congratulations to all the competitors you made our school Community very proud Central Square Middle School eighth grader Kendall Hanes um has been selected to attend the US Navy
075Academy summer stem program for Rising ninth graders this program will take place in Annapolis um at the US Naval Academy Kendall will get to live at the US Naval Academy for six days in June June 2nd to June 7 and work alongside usna midshipman and work toward her dream of becoming a medical uh sorry a mechanical engineer in the US Navy Kendall was one of 100 students selected from a pool of over 4,000 applicants we are so proud of her yeah that's awesome and what she brings to the Central Square Middle School amazing things congratulations to our winner scholar athlete teams again to be a winner scholar athlete 90% of 90 yeah 95% of the staff or the team the athlete I'm sorry had to have a 90 or above so the difference between scholar
076athlete and and a scholar athlete team girls and boys basketball teams girls and boys bowling rifle boys and girls indoor track and field and cheerleading that's amazing that really is how many teams have a averages the following students from pvm high school uh Deca chapter attended the New York State Deca competition from March 7 5 to March 7 2025 at the Rochester Convention Center they competed against approximately 3,500 students from across the state of New York we are so unbelievably proud of all of our students who attended the state champ the state competition and for those who qualified to attend the international Career Development conference in Orlando Florida in April third place Cadence Graham Emma Lacy fifth place Zachary card William card and Khloe Sheen top 10 overall finalists Jonah Martinez Abby tetrol Avery shien
077Connor p uh Peterson Andrew Lans and Andrew Card top 10 roleplay Owen Chapman uh C Gibbs Jack Mabel danana Humphrey uh Jonah Martinez Cadence Graham Emma Lacy Khloe Sheen Sarah Halbert Connor Peterson Andrew Lans and Andrew Carr top 10 test Zachary card William card Connor Peterson and Andrew Card Deca Honor Society and ducd Avery Sheen Summer feder and Jack Mabel now um I I also want to give a quick shout out to the all um District band that was amazing uh two nights ago right no I'm sorry it was uh Saturday it was on Saturday it was here a drum wait a minute now I'm confusing two things Thursday was the all district they all came in there were 220 students performing there Saturday I was at and many administrators at that table were there
078as well um watching our drum line home show and they did a wonderful job our Middle School also came in first place we're very proud of them at this point I will introduce Mr Ted love who wants to just really quickly talk about something called parents Square which many of the districts already use and the PTO presidents are very excited about Ted love awesome can you folks hear me I just want to give a quick update just so you're aware uh if you haven't heard we will be uh transitioning our communication parent engagement platform to an app called parent Square um you don't have to have the app so it it also works over text messaging and email um couple key pieces I just want the board to be aware of is that it will
079be replacing our Blackboard notification system in July okay so July we're we're taking the Blackboard system putting that out to pasture and the parent Square platform will be fully uh uh employed by everyone in the district however um beginning in April next month we have a couple departments in one building that are going to start using it as a pilot group so we've got Athletics transportation and Hastings mallerie uh Elementary School that are going to start using and we're doing that on purpose so that we can start to get our feet wet we can get some feedback on it we can support a smaller group um of Staff it's a little bit uh lighter on the training load and then we can use those Lessons Learned as we transition the entire District um I do
080want and will put uh information out to the parents and the community know that unfortunately there's no way to turn it on for just some people so everyone in the district next month will be getting information about setting up their parents Square account so even if your kid goes to a different uh school you're still going to get onboarded because the platform is set up for the entire District however um parents will still get notifications through whatever platform it is that their building's using right so students of Brewerton will still get Blackboard messages um the biggest thing is this is not just the blast system right so they that sends the text out it will still do that but it also is a teacher toome platform so each teacher can send messages to their students
081and one of the great things and I wanted to be sure to to mention that many of the staff members I've already talked to already use it there are many other districts in our area that are using the app and so the teachers are very familiar with it and one of the great things is you know for example I have it for my own children and when your kids in a secondary setting and they have all these different teachers right what's my who's my kids's chemistry teacher and Algebra 2 teacher I can go on the parents Square app and I see all my kids teachers and I can click one button and send them all a message or send a message so it really is an all-encompassing communication platform um everyone ra yep and that's
082all I've got for the parent Square update so just want to be aware next month people are start going to start getting those notifications that they're onboarding but the only people are going to be using in April are Transportation uh some of our Athletics uh coaches are going to start Jamie's going to start with some of his coaches using it and Hastings mallerie is going to go all in um since they have a new principal and a new secretary they were just like let's go let's give it a shot we're ready to go and then we're going to use what we've learned um to make sure it's successful for everybody and so if anyone asks why why you doing this that's another thing for us to learn Blackboard was discontinued at the end of this
083year the company it's shut down and so there's that but we also it's kind of of like a win-win and catchall because we didn't want coaches texting their players anymore we didn't want that and so as a result of that some of the coaches been using remind but then there's Ed 2D law that it's not supported anymore and so this we'll we'll check off all the boxes that we need my kids use parents Square it's really easy for me to communicate with their teachers using it it's simple thus concludes my superintendent report okay oh on to item H now we're got we've got a couple things that we're going to do and I'm going to break this down we're going to take H1 which is approval of the first reading of proposed District policies we're
084going to take these one at a time so if I could get an approval for 7420 Sports and athlete program all motion can I get a second second any discussion all those in favor all those opposed okay motion passed now can I get a motion for 7554 equal educational opportunities can I get a second any discussion all those in favor on to the third one can I get a motion for 7555 Educational Services for married pregnant students I get a second a second any discussion all those in favor okay on to H2 approval of Transportation proposal resolution this is a roll call vote so could I get a motion to I'm going to do a motion right pearl got to get a motion for this um proposal a motion second any discussion pear you want
085to do the roll call or sure Steve yes christe fish yes Ellison Douglas yes Randy yes Brian Casey yes kenman yes Dave tman yes Lorie yes okay thank you H3 approval of the resolution nomination candidate for City Bose's board uh We Have Allison Douglas got to get a motion for that a second Ken any discussion okay we'll do that a roll call vote Steve P yes fish yes yes Randy Brian M yes casy yes Ken Sherman yes Dave T yes yes congratulations thank you very much for do doing that um and then if I could get a motion for H4 and H5 uh together all motion okay get a second any discussion all those in favor and then on to item I adjournment get a motion Casey very enthusiastic had a good second any discussion
086all those in favor thank you so much thank you everybody look the clock caught up