001our informal budget hearing. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. I'll turn it over to Dr. Cox for informal budget hearing. Thank you, Mr. Hartman. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our April 3rd informal budget hearing presentation. So, just a quick reminder on tonight, we're going to go over the revenues as well as a budget overview. Just to bring you up to speed on what we've accomplished so far. March 6, we had our first budget workshop which predominantly covered our instructional plan for the district. And on March 27th, we conducted our second budget workshop, which included uh topics such as staffing, transportation, facilities, and security,
002and technology. Tonight is our informal budget hearing. We will uh be discussing the revenues, give you an overview of the budget. We will include um a number of the highlights, sort of a combination of what you saw in budget workshop number one and budget workshop number two. But we're going to start off with the numbers from Mrs. Newman and then I'll get into some of the instructional facilities tech um security highlights in the 20 526 budget. M. Thank you, Dr. Cox. There we go. All right. Well, thank you for everyone for coming this evening. As Dr. Cox had said, this is our informal budget hearing where we kind of give an overview of where we are, what we have reviewed, etc. Um, beginning with the budget for next year. And the budget that we are
003presenting is a $5.9 million increase. It it has an associated tax levy increase of 2.29% which represents approximately $3.5 million increase from the current school year. Uh property taxes is the largest uh revenue source for school districts. Um that is typically the case for most of Long Island. The second largest uh item revenue source is New York State aid. Uh right now, unfortunately, the state has not approved their budget. Uh legally, they were supposed to do that by April 1st. Uh so, currently, we are keeping our revenue projections with the only budget that we currently have, and that will be the governor's proposed budget. Excuse me. According to the governor's budget, Comarmac would approximately a one point, excuse me, $1.9 million increase. We do have increase in other areas. Most of that is generated from
004tuition, interested income, and then also leases for some of the district buildings that we no longer operate as school buildings. I'm happy to report they are all fully rented and generate rental income. One of the items that we have been um purposeful on our multi-year fiscal planning is to offset and decrease the reliance on our use of reserves and fund balance. Here you can see when it comes to the reserves, we're keeping those items flat. Those reserves can only be utilized for the expenditures that they are legally saved for. Then we also have our applied fund balance which represents the portion of the district savings account which we will apply towards the budget should it be fully expended. That has not been the case in the past number of years. And you can see there
005we are reducing some of that reliance by about $250,000. Should we get additional state aid once the state approves the budget, that would be an area that we would look to further reduce as well. All districts in New York State have to present their entire budget in a three-part format so that every school district can be compared uh for residents as well as uh any interested party. The largest portion of our budget as it should be is the program or what I like to call the wallsin expenditures. All those expenditures that happen classroom walls in so the teacher salary any support staff textbooks supplies things of that nature followed by the capital or cost of operations area which is that the infrastructure what it takes to operate the school district. And then lastly, the administrative
006component uh which is really the general operations and management of the school district. When we see here the budget to budget increase is 2.62%. It represents about a $5.9 million increase overall. You'll see the largest increase is again to the program portion of the budget. that would have been a higher increase, but the district is experiencing a significant amount of retirements. So, that number is certainly able to keep the budget manageable and that we're able to present a balanced budget. Again, just to recap, the uh tax cap increase presented would be a 2.29% and the budget budget increase is 2.62%. And I will hand it over to Dr. Cox to review the highlights. Thank you, Mrs. Newman. So, some of the highlights that you're going to see in this evening's presentation are going to be
007in terms of instructional facilities, security, and technology. Again, we took the two budget workshops um that we presented and we combined some of those highlights together. Whenever we go into the planning of our budget, it always starts with our vision. And our vision here in Comarmac is to transform the educational experience through project-based authentic learning. We really want to create opportunities for our students to be able to apply their knowledge in real world experiences and ultimately that prepares our students for what they want to do um with their life after they graduate here from COMAC. This is embedded through their entire 13-year experience here in com. And you're going to see some of that in some of our highlights because again, this is a big part of our guiding principles as well as the COMAC
008educational program continuum. kind of clearly lays it out. Um when you add these things together, which starts with the elementary um foundation, and then you add in some of the experiences they have through our middle years program at the middle school as well as enrichment and seventh and eighth grade opportunities such as that, clubs, extracurricular activities, athletics, um going on to grades nine and 10 and trying pre-ol and career level learning. and then in 11th and 12th grade um really starting to dive into how their interests connect to future professions which ultimately we added on that last box. We're a few years in now to which which says prepared to make the best decision for college and career. Again, this is our driving force if that's the endgame. if that's our desired outcome, which is
009to make sure that our students are prepared to make the best decision for what they want to do for college andor start a career. It really encompasses this entire educational continuum, which is not only the academic piece, which you see threaded throughout the middle of this um visual, but you also see the learner profile traits, inquirers, principled, balanced, thinkers, knowledgeable, open-minded, caring, risktakers, and reflective, which are really the social and emotional skills that students need to be successful. not only while they're here in COMAC, but even beyond COMAC. And we have lots of plans of um really turning those into authentic learning experiences where they be they're going to uh most likely become benchmarks at different levels. Our teachers do a phenomenal job. Our you constantly see through social media that our students are engaged
010in extracurriculars, charitable events. They they do incredible things. you can really tie a lot of those experiences that they're doing to a to any one of these learner profile traits. And we truly feel that those experiences, just like experiences in our lives over the course of our lives, shaped who we are. But when we have our children here for 13 years, there are experiences whether it's through arts and ed um or again these charitable or letterw writing to our veterans. Those experiences will allow them to really build those traits as they go through our system. And so we this year we um we branded it the COMAC champion and we've taken these learner profile traits what typically students would start to hear about them in uh sixth grade when they get to the middle school.
011It's now embedded K through 12. This is a slide that we really drive home in terms of the it really speaks to the relationship that our students have with their coursework. Um, when you look at how students are able to make meaning of their learning, number one, it starts with the teacher in the classroom. We've said time and time again, the teacher is the single greatest influence in student learning. That connection, that relationship that they have is so critically important. But if the relationship they have with the teacher is so critically important, I truly believe that the relationship they have with their coursework is just as is just as important. They have to be able to connect their coursework. It has to be relevant. They have to be able to apply what they're learning in
012the classroom to real life situations. And our staff have truly gone above and beyond to create those experiences through relevant coursework, through field trips, internships, vocational training. And one of the things we're really proud of is creating real life spaces at every level, K through 12. Um, giving our students this authentic learning experience here. Um, it really sticks when you can take what you're learning in the classroom and apply it in a real life situation. And you'll see some of the expressions on some of our students in the next couple pictures. But again, what better way for students to make meaning of their learning than to connect their interest to course work and career related fields. So some of the instructional highlights when you look at the top left, we talk about real life spaces.
013You can see students that are building tower gardens in our primaries. We put them in this year. We're going to continue to maintain that in all of our um primary buildings. We've we're also going to be expanding um the discovery dens. They're going to be put in all of our uh primary buildings. You see, in addition to real life spaces, we're building a real life apartment, real life life skills apartment in our in our high school currently that's being done inhouse from our by our current employees who are so incredibly talented. Um additional courses, you'll see students in the top right. They're in the Bloomberg lab at the high school. We're adding an investment course um that students have have uh started to sign up for. Um you can see the smile on the bottom
014right. And I think that I think that says it all. That experience of bringing our Marian Carl farm back to life where that student grew the largest cabbage. That's a lot of coleslaw um right there. Um a lot of corn beef and cabbage. Uh but the um students are really engaging in um so many different experiences where we're tapping into what our farm offers. And I have to give a lot of credit to our staff. Um Ryan McGrath, if you're listening, he's done so much work in terms of um coming down to our elementary schools and talking to our students about agricultural education. And again, the com champion really embedding that enhancement over the course of the next uh future years to come. Technology highlights. I kind of spoke a little bit about the discovery
015dens on the bottom, but you can see how we're transforming some old computer labs and we'll continue to do that next year into these amazing spaces um that students are you can see the green screen um Bbots, right, Miss Poleium. There's all sorts of different um activities that students are able to tap into and it's more of a lab where the teachers uh library media specialists will bring the students here um to engage in that type of learning, that authentic learning. You can see in the top left, we're going to continue to implement new PCs. We have a number of PCs in the district. And just like as you know at home with technology, it ages pretty quickly and we really need to stay on top of that to make sure that our staff have
016the latest and greatest PCs to be able to do what they need to do in the classroom. Incorporating uh touchscreen Chromebooks, you can see in the top left, and uh continued professional development um through with our staff in next year's budget. facilities highlights. Number of items in the facilities department. Um just so impressed with what they're capable of doing inhouse. You can see even on the bottom right. They replaced some of that older looking um paneling with and updated it in the high school auditorium. The Marian Carl farm, a lot of our in-house facilities, maintenance grounds workers have been there turning over the soil and setting up the garden beds and working with our staff to make sure that they have everything they need. You can see the cows in the background. And that's the
017partnership that we have with LU um which runs a veterary school and this is part of their production animal medicine. But just in front of that you can see our bee apiary that we have that generates a tremendous amount of honey. Students are participating in bee clubs. It's just a great experience for them again to take what they're learning and apply it outside the classroom in a real life situation. Two key enhancements that you see in the top pictures on the top left you'll see stadium lights. Um we presented that in the last in budget workshop number two. Um, it's a great visual because it really shows you the latest and greatest technology that and how far it's come with stadium lighting. You only have to go a few feet behind those lights before it
018goes pitch black because they're really spot lights for the field itself. Um, and that's important because, you know, we do have a field that's in our community um with residents and we want to be respectful of that. Um, but this will give us a chance to really allow our students to number one, not come out of the classroom during instructional time to get to a field so they can finish a game before it's dark. We could start at regular time. Um, sometimes the busing is not available till late in the day. Um, and so being able to have access to lights to make sure that we finish games on that field. We've done for three years soccer under the stars. It's been a huge hit. Um, I do want to put a little disclaimer in
019here that as much as I would love these items up as soon as possible, there is a process that through Office of Facilities Planning, there's a bit of a delay. Once uh should the budget be approved, these projects would then be sent up to the Office of Facilities Planning and some cases they take six months before they can approve and then there's a process after that. So, we're looking at um anticipated installation possibly the summer of 2026, but of course um if we have the ability to do it any sooner, we will. The top right, we're going to do intermediate awnings. You'll see here's an architectural rendering of an awning at Burr Intermediate School. Also looking to do same similar awning at Sawmill um intermediate school as well. And last, I think this is um
020so yeah, let's be the last slide. security highlights. Um we had uh shared in the last budget cycle that we approved primary and intermediate door jar systems. You can see the visual there which is a great visual that when you see you want to see all green. If you see the red that means that door is open. You'd like to see that turn green rather quickly. If it doesn't our security will report to that location to find out why um that door is not closed, whether it's chocked open, which um which they're able to uh respond immediately. But it's a great visual. We have it in our command centers. We have it. We will have that in our primary and intermediate buildings. Another enhancement is our security enhancement of armed security through covert investigations. We
021went through a very thorough process, interview process, RFP process. There were a number of vendors that put in it was narrowed down to two, then narrowed down to one. They came, they presented to the board, they spoke to the board about very specific items such as training and things that they might not be able to share in public. Um but they um definitely came out uh well ahead of everybody else in terms of uh training and making sure that the relationship that they have with our district. Also allowing our current guards should they want to pursue uh armed security that they created an avenue for them to be able to go through the process and qualify just like anybody else. But we that was a door that we wanted to make sure we had open
022for our for our guards. And on the bottom our Cedar Road we're going to be we have a number of students that are attending Cedar Road. So um big another upgrade that we need to look at is uh PA system. So that's included in the 2526 budget cycle. So a number of upgrades, number of enhancements, number of things that we're maintaining um from this year into next year, but we're really excited about the 2526 budget and some of the enhancements that you'll see. And at this point, I'm going to open it up to the board for any questions related to the informal budget hearing. I know you've seen this presentation a number of times um and you might see it a few more um before the budget vote. Two more. Yep. So on that note,
023in April is a regular board of education meeting and it's also budget adoption. So we'll present we're going to present it'll be a little bit more hyphenated but uh abbreviated version. But just a quick question for Miss Newman. in mind on your slide that discusses the the reserves and the fund balance. I know you have a little aster on there says will be higher once retirements are calculated paid out. What does that I mean I guess for the general public what does that mean that the number could be higher means is during the budget process uh we set aside some funds for the reserve fund um in order to cover the cost of any uh retirees that are due typically sick or vacation time we would utilize the reserve to pay for that. So, we
024do know it will not be exactly $300,000. Once the year end, and we know who the retirees are, what their final payouts are, there'll be an adjustment which will be discussed at another board meeting. Okay. That's what I want to make sure that that's where the that's where their PTO everything comes out of. Okay. Great. And you mentioned lastly that if we get additional state aid to the district, we'd be reducing our reliance on the appropriated fund balance. Is that where the money would be? Yes, that would be the intention to do so and that would be continuing with our multi-year planning to to do so. Right. Because as of again as everyone's mentioned before, we don't have a budget and they I think they have till Monday to pass it or they have to
025pass an extension again. Correct. Again. So, seems like old times. Seems like it's back to old times again. Correct. So, thank you. Any other things from the board? If not, I guess we'll see everybody in a week from today. Thank you all. Thank you. Have a good evening. Oh, wait a second. Hold on. Before I do that, does the does the uh audience have any questions? That's an import does anyone in the audience have questions before we adjourn for this evening? Come to the microphone. Absolutely. Mr. Huber, quick question. Is there a way to calculate in the past the cost per house for per average assessed house in the town of Huntington and Smithtown that this proposed budget would would incur on the average family. I think sometimes we included that or maybe I'm confusing
026my other district, but it it showed the dollar value of what your taxes would look like. So, we're able to do an estimate. The issue is that at this point in time we don't know all of the solidified numbers. Uh some of the uh pieces are the towns have not yet given us assessed valuations. The state has not assigned equalization rates yet. So we can do a calculation based on old information but we still do not have the new accurate information. Would that be possible before the budget vote? Uh the town will not give us a final assess ass assess valuation. We will not get until uh typically the end of September. Okay. Um we can certainly have estimates but we will not have actual numbers because the town and the state has not issued
027them yet. Any other questions from the audience? All right. We'll see everyone again next week. Thank you all. Have a good evening.