001Hello. Hi. Good evening, everybody. Uh I would like to call the meeting to order at 6:32 p.m. And we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. I am very excited about our uh recognitions this evening. Um on April 2nd our central office and Ms. Ross received this the following letter. Uh hello Kimberly and everyone at Duanesburg Central School. Our daughter bought a big random box of records from someone in Watertown. In that box, I found this album from your school. I never found a date on it. Curious what year it's from. I emailed you and I wanted to send send it back home to your school and you indeed would like it back. So, here it is. It belongs with all of you. I pray it makes it it makes it safely. I had
002to make a box, so don't look too hard at that. Sincerely, Joe Morrow. P.S. We are upstate about a 30-minute drive from Canada. Your album did some traveling. So, with that So, we have this cool this is a cool thing. Cover it's um says Duanesburg Central School the Robed Choir. Gordon Mason, director. And it has a list of the sopraners sopranos, tenors, altos, and bases. There are quite a large number of individuals in this choir. So, Yeah. Tony knows some people, so [laughter] Listen, you didn't hear what she was saying before. Anyway, I'm going to play it. [music] [singing] Okay, that's fine. All right. Uh so, ooh, I feel like I'm super loud today, Deck. No? Is that bad? Okay. All right. Something unpleasant for me. Um I also would like to uh this isn't
003on my list, but I'm just going to shout out to our transportation team and to the students um in the bus crash the other day, Monday. Yes, today? Oh my gosh, was yesterday? Time is not a thing. Um they responded um calmly and positively. I heard that students were wishing they could get off the bus to help the woman who had hit them uh or who had driven into their path. Um and I'm very grateful. I think we all are that no one was injured um more seriously. And um our driver was calm, cool, and collected is my understanding um in a in a pretty devastating crash. So, uh so, thank you. Who It is Phil? Who's Phil? Who's Phil? So, thank you. How's he doing? Good. I'm sure. Sore and a little shaken up,
004I would imagine. So, yeah. Did he come back to work today? Good for him. Okay. I was just saying cuz I would not have expected him to be here today. All right, very good. Um all right. Did I miss anything? Anybody else have anything? Okay. Uh Hold on one moment. Oh my goodness. I did that. Now it's too too big. Uh all right. Next we have board discussion of agenda. Do we have any questions? Um any changes? Oh, that's the next one. But uh any questions or concerns or comments on the agenda for this evening's meeting? Okay. Uh then Serena, we don't have any agenda changes since this came out, right? Okay. So, we'll start with the resolution. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the agenda
005for the regular meeting this evening. May I have a motion? I'll motion. Thank you, Francis. A second? I'll second. Thank you, Tony. Comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? I should have mentioned, but I'll mention now that we are down one board member um this evening. He is unwell. Um maybe he's watching at home. If you are, hi Ray. Okay. Uh Serena, do you have the list for public comment? Anybody? Oh, nobody. Okay. All right. All right. So, uh next on our agenda is public comment, which is the section of our meeting that allows residents of Duanesburg to make comments if they would like. Um no one has indicated a an and desire to do so, but um some folks came in maybe after we grabbed this, so anyone in
006the audience that would like to make a comment before we move on to the next part of the agenda? People putting their fingers on their noses. Oh. Come on up. Yes. Uh I'm sure there's a Yacobler. Yes. We will find out. I bet that's Ben's someone. [laughter] There's a Yacobler everywhere. Yes. Very true. Uh okay. So, next then um Board of Education minutes from our last meeting. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approve the minutes of the regular meeting on April 8th, 2025. May I have a motion? I'll motion. Thank you, Alyssa. And second? I'll second. Thank you, Tony. Comments or questions? All in favor? I. I. I. Any abstentions? Okay. Next up, we have our presentations and reports beginning with our elementary yearbook with Mrs. Vegliante. All
007right. Can you hear me? Good. Okay. So, you're probably wondering why I gathered you all here today. Sorry. Um so, other than reading intervention, I'm also the yearbook editor for the elementary school. There's not a whole lot to it, um but we did have a new addition this year I thought you might like to hear about. Um so, my job being in the building is to just during the year attend events and things happening. I often uh just pop into classrooms, which uh some of these are like that bottom picture with all the children who grew mustaches. I just happened to notice a lot of mustaches in the hallway and I inquired. And they were playing a prank on their teacher Bob Lane, who teaches fourth grade. Um so, I wouldn't let them go in
008the room until I grab the camera. I said, "Well, you have to wait." Um got some field trips and I try to get a range of, you know, holidays and grade levels. Um learning activities. That one in the the top left corner was a a vocabulary activity I thought was extra neat. So, sometimes I walk around just take pictures of learning opportunities. Um so, anything and everything and I try my best to get, you know, good candids of as many uh different grade levels as I can. But some kids are uh running away from me and others are approaching me, jumping in front of the lens. Um which is kind of the nice piece about working in the building and having this job. I know a lot of the kids. Most of them and they're
009pretty comfortable with me, so I do get a lot of "Over here! Take my picture." Um so, there's always an abundance to work with. Um Yeah, yes. It was go pink. It was very appropriate for the day. Uh she won. Yeah. She won the the pink contest. [laughter] Um and it turns into a yearbook. We use a software called Tree Ring. Not a lot to it. I upload pictures. I play with it. It's It's basically I get to play uh picture collage making during my prep time once in a while. And it's a It's fun. Um but this is the part that's new this year and I think we are going to begin uh making it an annual event uh with the help of the art teacher, Amanda Chovan. Uh I thought it might be
010fun to have the kids create the cover. So, they are having a a blind contest. They submitted cover pieces. Uh no names. No uh I think it was available to grades 3 through 6. And the kids and the staff and you, that's what the sticky notes for, are voting for your favorite cover. Um we still don't have a winner because we're still waiting for uh staff votes that went out today. But all the kids have voted, so boy, are they knocking on my door. Um really frustrated that I won't give them an answer. So, uh the winner will get their artwork on the cover. They get 50 bucks uh and lots of bragging rights. So, uh a lot of kids were very very excited about this. So, if you could be so kind as to
011take a minute, there's a I know there's a lot of choices here, but the the bulletin board itself has a bunch of them, but don't forget to look at 20 and 21 on the outside. Those were later submissions that we couldn't say no to. Take a peek. Uh write down your favorite number and I'll add it to the list. What's up? Let me I can zoom on my my beautiful touchscreen computer that the school provided. Let me try. That's what I was thinking. but oh, here we go. Go here. So, they also had the opportunity to create digital art. So, some students chose that route. Yep. Sorry. One, two has Yep, it's a bunch of uh like inspirational quotes. Um they did a very nice job. That's I want to say it's one of my
012favorites. I got a handful here. This one is the uh the tree, and they've got the eagle there, 2025. I I believe this says Duanesburg, New York right there. Number four. Five. I know it's hard. Yes, I actually have a a blank page in the front for you know, honorable mentions. So, I've I've saved space for that, but I can't fill it out cuz I don't know who's going where. So. Nine and 10. Here's 11. I'm trying to go in order so you remember which ones you're looking at. And no pressure. If you don't want to vote, you don't have to, but Yes. Yeah, it's a bunch of kids looking out into the universe. That was uh So, Amanda helped come up with the requirements for the actual job. And uh having an eagle on
013there was part of the requirements. So, sorry. 19. 20 and 21. Yep. Here's 21. Uh welcome to our memories. Yep. Thought that was sweet. I like the little baby eagle we got going on. And then 21. You can't tell too well the DES is made up of like school materials. The little baby in his nest. So if if you can bear to pick one, write it down and I'll I'll take the votes. How do they get them? The yearbooks? Oh, uh I've sent out Parent Square uh links and they're available um through the Tree Ring website. Uh when I send out the link it provides like a a QR code or a link with a code to the uh the school. That's about all I've got for you. That's about all there is to it.
014But it's fun. I enjoy doing it. Yeah. It's just the cover. Nice. Looks good. You can design this last year? Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you, Jenna. I really appreciate it. Um all right, while the voting continues, uh we are heading to high school yearbook with Mr. Marco and a bunch of lovely ladies. Hey guys. Hello. Nice to see you so many familiar faces in the crowd. [laughter] All right, we're here with our yearbook hats on this time. Okay. So, um the yearbook, we meet every Wednesday after school. Um and it's a great experience. There's many benefits to it. Encouraging school involvement, social interaction, capturing memories, and it's a lasting record of Duanesburg school years. There's lots of opportunities for us to work on the yearbook, but also take pictures and organize like uh you know,
015moments for like photography events. We get to be the paparazzi. I I personally like that part. Um but yeah, it's a really great experience. So, Okay, I feel like yearbook also like inspires a passion in a Thank you. I can't get it down. Thank you. I feel like yearbook also inspires a passion in a lot of people because when we're taking pictures or like for our pep rallies, a lot of people like really want to take the camera and take their own pictures. So, I feel like it's a good opportunity for them to like get into photography and stuff and it's for like creative freedom freedom. But anyways, also we use TreeRing and it's a different um app than we've used like a couple years ago. What was the one that we used? Johnston's is
016the one that we used. I can't pronounce it. I'm sorry. But, the good thing about Tree Ring is that there's no minimum book orders, there's no contract, and it's way like cheaper. Like, there's free pages for seniors now instead of like back then when they had to pay. No strict deadline. Easy access and every student gets two free personalized pages. It actually is really easy to use. Like, I don't know. I joined yearbook in like like last year and like within like the first week like I was okay. Like, I I Tree Ring is a really good app for that. Um and so, we've also been working on our community give back for our club this year. And one of the main things that we're doing is we've been doing free advertising for local businesses.
017We sent out like, I think, yesterday or two or three days ago, we sent out a like Parent Square to everybody about free advertising. So, we're giving away free ads to any local businesses who want to be featured in the yearbook. And we already have, I think, six businesses who have submitted their ads for the yearbook. So, we're doing that and we're also donating yearbooks to the Duanesburg Historical Society and the Quaker Street Library. And we're finally donating yearbooks to the library again because apparently the library is missing a bunch of yearbooks. So, we're we're trying to get back on that. And these are the yearbooks for the past 2 years cuz this is when we started using um Tree Ring. So, the one from 2022-2023, our theme was like retro. So, like we had
018like records and like stuff like that and we were trying to going for like '80s or '90s type thing. And then last year, we did the theme and it was like the photo reel. So, we had like Polaroids and like the photo strips like the cover. And it was a lot of fun and then this year our theme is Spotify wrapped. So if you don't know Spotify is like a like app to play music. So like we have like the format of like the music and like album covers and stuff like that. And we're also adding like the Spotify code so you can scan it and it'll play a song on Spotify. So like all the sports teams got to pick songs and yeah it's a lot of fun. And then these are just some
019of the events that we've covered. Pep rallies of course. We have people go to sporting events and take photos. And then all our spirit weeks get covered. And it's just a lot of fun. I feel like it builds a lot of like camaraderie within the school. Like everyone wants to be featured. Like it's just a lot of fun and we hope in the future to just bring more like camaraderie and like bring everybody together. It's a hard cover. Yep. It's about 178 pages. Mainly sports, clubs, um pep rally. Seniors. Yes. Seniors each get their own page. Um it used to cost them like three to four hundred dollars just for a page. Um now it's free for them so they can create their own. And then parents can also put in like um recognition ads.
020So they can recognize their their seniors. Um yeah. What's that? I know that's the thing is you get into it and you have all these cute pictures you want to put in. Yeah it's it's I have a senior this year also so that's what I've been doing too is creating her page. Any other questions? We're hoping for somebody We haven't decided on the cover this year. But there's nobody nobody really gets We tried to do the the contest thing, but nobody there were two people. And each time Brooke has won. And so she got a free yearbook. So yeah. Thank you. All right, thank you to both of our yearbook clubs and advisers. Um next we have Mr. Goodwin, right? Up for our capital project update. This is CJ Goodwin from Schoolhouse, right? All right,
021I had the right company. That's good. How was everybody? Good. So we're going to talk resolutions as well, or do you want to do that with your vote? We can do that. Okay, so um we've been steadily working towards bidding the next phase of the project that was voted on several years ago. We finished phase one, which was the playground and then doing the roof at the elementary school. And now we're on to phase two, which is renovations at both the elementary school, the high school, and the bus garage. We accepted bids earlier in April. We've vetted the contractors, we've interviewed them, talked through their bids, and a lot of that is summarized if you guys have our award letter, sorry, our award letter in your board docs there, you'll see all those interview processes
022attached to that as well. Uh the important piece is you'll see our budget summary that's in there, which basically is a long-winded way to say as you get to the bottom of that, your contract value is about 18 million, which is on budget. Um so we have four contractors plus Day Automation who's doing some PA work through the through the building at the elementary school. Those items on budget, you're going to have a resolution there to award these contracts. You're going to have another resolution in there for what we call third-party testing, which is basically third-party items that we do in support of the construction process. So, they're things like structural testing, uh HVAC monitoring, commissioning, and things like that. As well as because the buildings are old, you guys still have asbestos in the
023buildings. We have air and air monitor whenever we abate those items. They're an independent person, basically, that makes sure that the work that's being done is being done safely, whether school's in session or not. And then they run air tests before and after to make sure the air that was in the building was just the same as the air now that things have been abated. So, you'll see those in there. That's a separate resolution you guys will approve today as well. The last two things you'll see today, there are two change orders for this. So, we worked with the contractors trying to pull some value out of the bids that were there for items that we wanted to do it to make sure we could support some roof work. And so, you're going to see
024those two things on there. They total about $200,000. So, there's two separate resolutions, I believe, from my conversations earlier that you guys would approve those independently. Um and then that'll really be the last of your pieces for this project. The next steps after that is I'm going to stay. I'm going to assume right this second everybody will vote yes because it's fantastic for everybody. The next step after that is we'll put letters out to all these contractors, basically telling them it's you can proceed with your work. We can start the process while contracts are being written. And the architect, who's Ashley McGraw, will start writing those contracts. We'll start scheduling meetings for scheduling, ordering materials, and things like that. So, that come end of June, when everybody's starting to filter out of the buildings, we
025can get going. So, any questions? I have one comment, and that is that every child I have spoken to is thrilled about the new playground. I'm happy that they're finally on it myself. [snorts] Very very excited about it. Yes. And next is a time capsule, I believe, and we need somebody to dig a hole. I'm sure there'll be somebody here that can do it now. It's always the easiest part. He's good at it. Any other questions? Yeah, CJ, I don't know if this is appropriate to ask at this point, but do we know with the contracts you're talking about going out to bid for in this next phase? Um do we know relatively how close we are from when we did vote on this project and our numbers to what we're seeing? You're a little
026higher. Um so, we you give me an idea percentage-wise where you think we're landing now? percent. And so, you guys hit a really good spot, uh uh maybe a lucky spot. We kind of squeaked in at the beginning of the whole tariff fear and all of that, which was really what has been driving a lot of pricing now. Nobody knew what was going to happen while that was going down. So, we hit a window where we had projects before this that were seeing 20 or 25% more. As we were bidding, we luckily hit the as the sort of the tail end of that, where everybody was starting to understand a little bit better what that was looking like. So, it still went up, but it didn't shoot like a lot of the other ones. We've
027also been lucky to have some projects locally that have sort of been lower than what we were estimating, but that wasn't because of tariffs, that was because it was paving track work, it's sort of one summer things. Once you hit a multi-summer, it gets a little more complicated. Fair enough. Okay, thank you. Yep. Anyone else? I think so. Thank you so much for coming coming to update us like this. It's very helpful. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, next up we have our superintendent's report. Well, good evening. Um very brief. Um at 6:00 we met with some community members regarding the elementary principal timeline um for interview teams. We got some great feedback. Um I will let Trisha know that we will adjust times. It makes sense for folks who are working so that they can
028participate in those interview panels. So, we'll look at that tomorrow. Trisha's in tomorrow and we'll get that out to the community. Right now we have about 17 people both internally and externally for interviewing. We'd like to see about 30. So, we have three panels of 10. As I've shared with the board, the board kind of bookends the process with me. I'm the I'm with the board. We We do the screening. Melissa and I do the screening and then at the end the board will have an opportunity to interview hopefully the selected candidate with a with a presentation. Um so that we can wrap up and they by June 1st. Um as we get closer we'll probably have to have a special meeting because if we wait till the first meeting in June and then they
029have to give notice it Most most folks who are working have to give 30 days. So, very pleased. We had 28 applicants total. And the leadership team narrowed down to 10 applicants looking at what the community feedback was about um longevity and instructional support and managerial support and engagement and communication. And um we're able to narrow down to the 10. Melissa and I hopefully next week are going to screen those 10 um those 10 applicants where we meet with them for 20 minutes to a half an hour. And then from there those 10 will go to six. And those six will go through um three each night. We'll go through the the rotation of of panels. Um hoping to shoot for the last week in May um, for the board to be able to interview
030that person. Um, and then we can get them appointed. So, other than that, I do want to just comment really quickly about the um Mose had mentioned the the accident that we that we experienced yesterday. Again, want to echo um how proud I am of our transportation crew, of the Scary County Sheriff's Department, of because it was right on the line, um as well as the state troopers, and then even our own SRO Dave Smith went, even though it wasn't his jurisdiction jurisdiction, he was incredibly helpful um, giving us guidance like, "Hey, make sure you ask for this, ask for that." They were wonderful. The kids um you know, we've watched the audio and I'll share the audio and the video with the board later tonight in executive, but immediately um, it it was after
031it happened, the first first words we heard were "fish sticks," which we thought was kind of cute. One of one of the kids shouted "fish sticks," and um and then the next um was them really concerned about whomever was in the car. We had one of our students who was following the bus to CTE and was the first one to go to that car and try and get the passenger out. So, I This is just a testament of our kids in the community, right? It was all about the person in that car and care for them. And luckily, everyone was safe and the driver, you know, even though he was a little sore today, um it could have been much worse and um the police have confirmed, just so that the community knows and it's
032on record, that the video is very, very clear that the person in that car ran the red light, didn't stop, and that's and that's how the accident happened. So, I know people were concerned about it, but unfortunately, sometimes if you're not familiar with 7 and 30, I mean, go down 7 a little bit a little bit further where it goes to 30A. That's why they made it a four-way stop because that bus with the pumpkin patch going to the pumpkin patch like 20 years ago. So, if you're not familiar with that, I could see how you would not realize that it's a it's a two-way stop and a two-way yellow. So, um again, we're very grateful for um for whatever was looking over our children to to protect them. And when I went and spoke
033to the passenger, she actually her her first thing, she was so apologetic. She said, "The children, the children." I said, "They're fine. They're okay. They're worried about you." So, So, um other than that, just want to and um I know Jeff's going to present more on the budget. We've asked CJ to come back to our next meeting. We actually have another bond that's maturing and as we do capital projects, if they all wrap around bonds maturing to keep keep financial stable. So, we're looking at another tax technically tax neutral bond to keep the second smaller bond. So, he's going to come back um in our May meeting. We Jeff and I met with the financial advisors today cuz they it's it takes a lot um to kind of wrap your head around and the simplest
034way I can say is that we actually have to start thinking about the next smaller project. And um CJ is going to kind of walk us through it. We know what we have to focus on is finishing the roofing and um electric you know, electricity to the bus garage and electricity for electrical uh electric vehicles in each building. So, like we we know what's coming. They might kick the can down a little bit, but we have to at least try and get that up and going. And as well as having service at each of the buildings cuz think about a bus is coming um visit for athletics and they need and they need to plug in when they come to the building. So, that'll kind of be the priority, but luckily CJ's free and he
035can walk us through about what's the best time to go out and and and educate the community about this next bond maturing. Any questions? [snorts] This is for you. oh, sorry. This is for you and Jeff, really. So, the sounds like the bus did its job, but it's totaled. Where insurance getting us new bus? They haven't come yet, have they? So, the insurance company hasn't come yet to um but Jeremy's initial take on the bus was that the frame is bent and in that case uh DOT is not going to pass it for transporting students. So, um it's likely that it's going to get uh labeled as totaled and um because it was involved in such a significant crash, yeah. The whole front end was just destroyed. Um in fact, Jeremy had mentioned that parts
036from the front engine compartment had jammed into where the behind the dashboard. So, there's a lot of moving parts there in that accident. So. And I mean, I know we're we run a relatively lean transportation department. How how big a deal is this sort of for scheduling things we until we get a new bus? We do have a spare bus um of that size, so I asked Jeremy yesterday if we had enough and he he was confident that he had one spare bus that was actually he was going to fix uh yesterday, but because of what happened, it didn't get done. So, he got it Unacceptable. got it done today. [laughter] Yeah. So, he did get it done today. Uh but I do know that uh I have enough friends in other districts that I
037would definitely call out. Mahanason was you know, they actually let us borrow a bus a few years ago, if you remember, um when we were short some buses and we even though we didn't have any diesel buses on the fleet, we did borrow one of the diesel buses from Monessen and uh we're very thankful for that and you know, I'm sure that I could probably try and figure something out like that again if it if it ever did occur. We have great neighbors and that's why you have insurance. Absolutely. Yeah. Sarah, did you have a question? Sorry. I I was just just for clarification for my own understanding. Can when you say the bond is maturing and then we have to go out again? Is it is it kind of like refinancing a mortgage that's
038due? Is that sort of what we're talking about? So Cuz I'm trying to wrap my head around you know what you're talking about. I'm I'm with you. Like I said to the finance and this isn't my first project. So you're you're you're kind of trying to wrap your head around a bond maturing and what that means. Right. So I the way I understand it and probably Jeff because you know, again it's not my first time at the rodeo and I still ask them a lot of questions. So what happens is you have you know, school districts or municipalities. It could be a library, it could be anything have bonds and then when bonds when you start paying off the bond, what happens is it messes up with your tax levy and your and so Jeff
039help me out and save me here cuz you're better at it. Yeah, I can Thank you. So but all I know is if it matures, you've got to keep it stable. That's all I know. So as as you have debt that starts to fall off cuz it's your complete you know, getting close to the point where you're paying it off. Uh the the bond is a loan. So if you think about it, it's a loan. So you have a loan that's falling off. So you you pay off a car and then you decide that you're going to buy another car. So you know, now you got two cars in your fleet, right? Or you you put on a porch in your house and then you decide that you want to put another for a porch
040in the front. So once you get done paying the back porch, then you're going to pay for the front. And you're going to pay for it in that same on that same amount that you were paying for the other porch. So, um Just basically trying to keep our debt stable, correct. just because if we were to pay it off, then it would look like we don't quite need as much money in the budget. Correct. Yeah. Well, we would probably need to Well, how would that work though? If we did do it that way and then when as things come up, we just put them in as budget line items. So, I think and correct me if I'm wrong. So, Sarah, I'm with you. So, I'm still learning even though I've done this before. If a
041bond matures and you don't do a project to keep that bond stable, then it almost becomes the cuz you get building aid. You get aid on it on projects. So, that's why we have to go through SED and get approval. If I'm Again, correct me if I'm wrong. CJ's here, too. If you don't keep that bond stable and do a project that keeps that bond stable, then it ends up the community has to make up the difference in that money to keep the uh Your So, so see what you're Your your tax Oh, because the bond would allow you to be like let's call it a $2 million loan, but then you're only servicing it at a smaller payment cuz the amortization No. I don't want to misinform I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm going to try
042maybe to go way lower elevation. Okay. You you guys have a loan, right, that you're paying off. Schools are in this weird spot now with the tax cap that they track you can only hit whatever that maximum is and there's a whole calculation that Jeff has to do to do that. What that had kind of created when that happened a decade ago, I think at this point, is when you retire that debt, we call it, and you stop paying that loan, you're in this position where your expenses have dropped and let's say you decide not to move forward with a new project or a new loan, to do that in the future means you're going to have to increase your spending probably more than that 2% 5 years from now, let's say if you decided
043to do that. So, let's say you spend $10 million with your budget every year this year. I don't remember what your budget is, forgive me, but now it's going to be 9,800,000 because of your debt and you've been paying 200,000 in your loans. And say your next project pushes you to 12 million. And that may be 5% on your tax cap instead of two. Then you would land in this spot where you have to I think vote supermajority to get that big of a tax impact pushed through your budget. So, what most schools have been doing as as they retire debt instead of taking that $200,000 and saying "Hey, our budget this year will be $200,000 less." They're leveraging that 200,000 to say we can do a $5 million project at no tax impact, so
044there's no local share to do $5 million worth of work because there will never be a situation in any of these buildings where you don't have something that has to get done. It's a it's a thought process to an end. It [snorts] is for some not the right answer. It's tough. You guys are in a tough spot cuz you're a smaller school. A Shaker whatever, they could ask their 100,000 people to do a $5 million project as a transfer, pay cash for it, call it a day. You guys that would probably be a whole thing and a whole project. You You know what I mean? So, No, but like when when you're done paying a loan and it goes away and then you need another one. Yep. Usually you just wait till you we need
045that thing. We don't just oh shoot, you know, now my $500 car payment is falling off. I want another one. You know, I'm I'm So, the way you're thinking is not wrong. What you're not knowing or maybe not have been a part of is that process of thinking, "Hey, we know what's next." is already happens. And that's been happening well before even I started this profession. And they do building condition surveys. That's what I was just going to say. Every 5 years of some of that as you guys have been through this. So, every 5 years your district is required to do a building condition survey. Which is a design professional walks through any district owned property. Mhm. And they have a 25-page questionnaire, we'll call it. It's like 140 items. They basically rate everything
046in your building from flooring to roofs to mechanical systems, fire alarm systems, if you have a sprinkler system, which you do, etc. Electrical systems. And you put a degree of it's acceptable, it's not acceptable, it's so bad it has to be replaced right this second. You guys have been doing that since 2005. And it's been happening every 5 years. So, you have this continuing list of things that have been in varying degrees of acceptable or not. And those are being tracked through what is what they would pretty much call your 5-year master plan, which kind of coincides with that process. And so, there are already things that I'm sure are on your list that you probably have long forgotten 4 years ago. Because you guys could only do 28 million. I don't say that like
047it's a bad thing. That's a That's a huge project for any district. That's a large project. But there's still probably $75 million worth of things to do. Deferred maintenance. For maintenance and things like that. Cuz the other thing you have to remember is the bond process is 15 to 20 years. So, if you're doing a new addition, I think it's 15 if you're doing new work. If you're doing renovations to existing things, it's 20 years. Meaning we have 20 years to years to pay that bond back, that 20-year loan period. Yep. I mean, in in that 5 years since the building thing was the electric mandate. I'm sorry, Francis, what? In the 5 years since our last building uh condition survey, was the mandate for electric buses, which we're not prepared for. Right. I think
048the board At all. No, no, including including including the state. That's not on the list. I don't think the state's ready, either. But we're going to go with it. What I would say is your car analogy is the right analogy, but it's like understanding that your car has run through its useful life in that 5 years or 10 years or 20 years that you use it the whole time. You know at the end of that, you're going to need the next one. So, you're basically telling yourself, "Hey, either I'm getting a new loan immediately, or I'm just going to keep putting that amount away." You're in a cuz you do that as a school district. We can't save. So, we have to create another bond You are making a decision subconsciously or consciously, however you
049want to look at it, to defer a future project that may not cost you maybe more, but will impact your taxes more. Right. Okay. That's sort of the the game you're playing now, and it's unfortunately a a game. And ultimately, it's it's to limit the tax impact on taxpayers. Every year, your goal, I assume, is to have the lowest amount of tax impact for your voters. This is unfortunately one of those ways where you keep that process going positively. Because if you don't, wh- whenever you decide 10 years from now, 5 years from now, it's going to be things won't get cheaper, and now you're going to have to take on more debt because you aren't using any line in your budget to pay debt. So, I Sarah, I like to think about it, again,
050as I wrap my brain, and this is why I'm the instructional leader, um you know, if you let the bond fall off, and we save $200,000. So, each homeowner maybe saves $100 on taxes each year. 5, 6 years from now, because we're bound to that condition survey, because it gets submitted to SED. So, 5, 6 years from now, so maybe folks saved $100 for 5 years, but now we we're faced with looking to the taxpayers to have to pay $1,000 more. Does that make Well, it does. No, I see it. It just It almost seems the same. I don't know. Either whether you choose to amortize it out or just have a couple years of saving and then spend it when you need to. I I think the scarier part is the and the part
051we don't really know is our debt loan is a part of a lot of those calculations that goes into the amount of aid we get and our tax cap. So, is that the bigger thing here? If we don't have that debt line item on there, it doesn't look like we need quite as much of a budget. It's part of the tax cap calculation, so it would reduce our tax maintenance, capital expenditure type improvement. If your on your If your budget line item for debt is $500,000 a year, Sure. and after this matures or expires or falls off, however you want to say it, becomes $100,000, you're basically $400,000 of that goes back to the people. Mhm. But, it's money they don't know they have, and when it comes forward again, it becomes a $500,000 burden
052instead of a $100,000 burden. Does that make Yeah, because they got Because they get kind of a slight, steady increase. had a little bit of a reset, and then at some point But, I was going to say, so fiscal advisors would do a 100% better job explaining this, because they would have You did great, CJ. I appreciate it, but they would have That's their thing. They came in when we did the bus loop project. Okay. And cuz that was a tax neutral capital project, and they did a really good job sort of breaking down why you got to keep these things alive. And not to jump the gun, that's usually part of what is the process. So, whenever we decide we want to move forward, there's a whole slew of steps between hey, yes, we're
053interested in doing whatever the next project is to that vote. And, you know, there's a whole process in that that you guys are involved in, that we kind of present along the way, so that you guys make sure that it's the things you want in a project, that it's the amount you want in a project, and that it can be supported one by aid. You want to maximize all the things you're going to do to get the most amount of aid. Fiscal advisors is very good at that. They're going to hone in on those line items and make sure that you're doing things that are going to get you that maximum amount of aid. So. And as you guys all probably remember, right? We start talking about now, the construction probably won't happen till 2028.
054It takes It's a long process. So, in May, we asked CJ to come back talk about timing. So that the board can make a decision about timing. And the debt that's probably retiring is the building we watched go up. So, enjoy that for the night. [laughter] Thanks, CJ. Okay. That's all I got. Any other questions? Thanks, guys. Okay. Uh next up, we have Mr. Ivenberg, Assistant Superintendent of Management Services report. Oh, you want Oh. I'm going to play the I'm going to play the choral entrance, moving forward. for our for our report. All right. Hello. Can you hear me or no? Hello. Oh, there we go. All right. [laughter] All right. Um so tonight the budget proposal for the Board of Education for the budget adoption. Uh we've reached a conclusion of 20,686. And that'll
055be a it's a budget-to-budget increase of 1.243 million or 6.39 million 6.39%. Uh from budget to budget. So this year's budget, the current budget in the 24-25 school year is 19,443. Uh but the tax so looking into next year uh we're looking at a if you remember back to the tax cap calculation, it allows us to increase the taxes up to 3.2%. That gives us an overall dollar amount of 287,125. Um and then so this is an overall look at the categories of the budget that I discussed during work sessions. Um you can see a a huge percent or a huge portion of that increase is actually due to to debt service. However, going back to our conversation here, that's offset with with building aid. So as the debt service goes up, so does the
056building aid in alignment with that. Uh so, another huge portion of our of our budget increase would be the instructional line. And then benefits as we had our health health insurance when we had talked about health insurance originally, it looked like it was going to be anywhere from 6 to 9%. We were fortunate enough to fall right into that 6%. So, um we've done pretty well with with the benefits even though it it is increasing a lot, it's there's other benefits that are also a part of that that category. Uh operations and maintenance and then transportation we've increased very minimally. And then general support uh falls in line there, too. Just below the the medical and benefits line. So, I will mention that um a about 3.86% of the budget, if you were to exclude
057the the debt service, um is is just the is the actual increase. So, we were looking at a three 6.39%. It looks like such a huge number, but the reality is uh I've gone through and trimmed a lot of extra things that look like they were generating additional or too much uh uh funds or fund balance. So, we've really done some trimming here on the budget as well. Uh so, that's why we're only seeing a 3.86% and you know, during work sessions I'd said, you know, there's there's things that are increasing somewhere around, you know, 5, 6% and to see our overall budget increase at at uh significantly less than that, um I think that we're we're in a good shape to to move on for for next year. And even with that, that's the
058the 209,000 that's like contractually obligated for medical and Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it that's all tied to yeah, our health contracts, uh uh that's also includes retirement systems, uh workers' compensation, and uh social security. So, all of those things fall under that category. It's a huge uh portion of it. Of course, health health insurance is about half of that. Um but all of those are are obligations that we that we must uh that we must meet. Remind me instructional went up that much mostly because of Did we add staff? Or was it just contractual increases? Just really uh contractual increases. Um the I mean, and and a majority of our obligations are obviously to pay staff. So, um that's a majority of what it what it will be. And also, there's uh there's there's other contractual
059obligations that we have to meet with uh organizations that we use to provide services for kids, uh where we send kids out. Uh this also includes uh special education services. So, there's a lot of other services that we're getting just for kids in that in that category that, you know, requires us to go up. And then I'm going to ask the question, none of that's aidable? Well, and so different slide. Some of Some of it Some of it is, right? Because in instructional, you have BOCES uh services that we're using for for not just for special education, but we're using it also for some of the um professional developments that we uh that we subscribe to through BOCES. And um Software, technology, things like that. So, that's all aidable and that goes in that instructional.
060But even with the aidable, like we're talking a net number here, right? So, even if we factor all that aidable in, we are still uh Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yep. So, this is our uh this is just a pie chart just showing the uh the comparison of those categories that I showed on the previous slide. Um just kind of wanted to just to get a visual that a majority of of our budget is the instructional portion of our you know, is the instructional side uh followed by the uh the other large portion the uh medical and benefits. Uh this is the projected revenue uh I took a look at um where we are this year and uh we've done we've done well with uh with interest and earnings. So, I increased the assumption on our uh
061on our interest for invested and invest invested funds uh for next year. Um property tax property taxes and uh state aid are your two largest sources of uh of revenue for the district. It's not like we have any other large uh companies, organizations, or any pilot agreements with any other uh huge, you know, sources of revenue. So, um we have to offset uh whatever whatever the difference is with uh with either hopefully balancing with fund balance or increasing the property taxes. Uh and then also last year during uh during our budget sessions we did talk about um raising the uh the reserve funded amount uh we're going to leave it the same as the uh at a hundred thousand dollars, but then we've increased the uh the fund balance used just slightly just because we've
062done well this year. Um and I will add that back earlier this year we did we received that uh that grant from the state the bullet aid grant. Um we've done well with interest this year uh and and also uh the NIHIT consolidation, we finally got the money back from NIHIT. And I think that when you look at NIHIT and you look at um, the bullet grant um, and potentially even the interest earnings this year, those all might be one-hit wonders um, because we're not going to get interest or we're not going to get uh, NIHIT next year. It's it's gone. Um, and the bullet grants, I'm not sure what the state's going to do, so it's kind of hard to forecast that. Uh, and interest rates have declined and they're they're steadily declining on
063a regular basis. I'm watching it uh, as as much as I was really happy every time I signed in to New York Class and seeing over 5% interest earnings uh, it's it's it's hurting me now. It's down in 4%, so When [laughter] was it high? And that was compounded how often? What was the compounding schedule on that, Jeff? It was it was uh, it was 5.57% or something like that for quite some time uh, during yeah, so uh, especially I think it was like last back in the fall at the end of the uh, summer. It was very high, so um, it was really cool to see all that interest come in, but uh, that's and that's partially how we're going to uh, save on paying or taking out more debt for this for this
064portion of the capital project. So, I've also uh, said to our fiscal advisors I'd like to take $400,000 that we earned in interest and put that towards the loan instead, so we're not going to borrow that. Um, so because we've invested those those funds now we're going to pay less. And uh, so it's exciting. I mean, I hope that we get more interest, but I am still going to obviously I'm increasing what what our assumption is, but um, who knows where we're going to be because I know that they're warning that interest is going to go down. So. Maybe this might be a question for everybody, but I'm just looking at this and the only thing it looks like we might be able to try to talk about or change anything on would be other
065revenue. And how we we've decided to accept tuition for like out of district students. Yeah. You know, I guess it's something, but how feasible is it to rent out space, you know, like I'm just trying to think what can we do to generate some more revenue to to help where the position we're in, you know, and these are added expenses. What can we do to use our asset to generate more revenue? I want to make sure I So your question is about what could we do to generate more revenue? Um one of the things that um we could consider as we move sixth grade up here, and I shared with the board by the way that the state approved that. Um BOCES is always looking to rent space to do those self-contained classrooms. Um I
066I don't remember what the going rate is, but I think it's around $20,000 a year. And they supply their own teachers, their own social workers, and they actually um in their special classes. So at the elementary, middle, or high school, it could be an 812 eight students, one teacher, two paraprofessionals. Um school districts would bus their children here, and um in my experience, it it's been a wonderful experience that um the teachers are top-notch. They really run great programs. So that's, you know, um one option that we might want want to consider as we free up some space. Um we don't have a lot of tuition students here per se. Um We have two in UPK right now. Two in UPK, pre- pre-K. But Sarah, this is kind of exciting. Now that we are um
067we're going to have a full related service team of uh we actually are doing final rounds of school psychologists. And we have uh um a PT, a full-time PT. We have a full-time speech pathologist our employees. We now can contract with the county for them to do evaluations and services for our preschool students, and then the county pays us. So, normally when it's a preschool student, um maybe Whispering Pines will do the evaluation, and then the county pays them. And that's like the psychoed eval, the speech eval, the OTPT eval. But, because now we have a full team, since Kanawha County requires you have a full team, Danielle's got the paperwork ready to go, we can basically contract for um for our folks to do those evaluations and or services if they're in our building.
068Say say they need speech, and then the county gives us gives pays us to do to do those services. Okay. And you said there's a need for this? Oh, there's a huge need. There's actually wait lists for uh speech providers, PT providers, evaluations. And Danielle, I think you had said So, in in um state regs require that once a parent puts in um a request for an evaluation, it's supposed to be done in 60 days. All districts across the state are not meeting that mandate of 60 days, and um I think Danielle at one point said there was like a 3-month wait list to get a speech provider. Yeah, this is a huge problem um across the state. Well, actually across the country, I'm sure. But, um it it is a huge problem. Um and
069and we are obligated to provide those assessments. So, with a team to be able to provide those assessments and then generate revenue from that um is a is a is a great great thing. It's it's great for us certainly economically, obviously, but more importantly from my perspective, it's great for the children that are waiting to be evaluated who need early intervention services because those services are going to set them up to be successful when they get to school. So, it it's a huge huge problem and a huge need. Which having them set up properly before they come to school means we can identify the costs ahead of time a little better and sort of understand what the needs are going to be. So, we're continually looking for revenue, you know, obviously sources of revenue, you
070know, based on your question, those are two things that I was thinking thinking forward for the next coming school year. Um you know, to offset costs, Jeff and I are looking at nice starter grants, um especially with this electrification. Um and and kind of working through that. So, always constantly, you know, trying to find other other unique ways to offset. Okay, thanks. You're welcome. So, I just wanted to show you this uh this slide where we're at with uh state aid. It hasn't changed at all. Um so, I included a the letter from SED in the uh portion where I have my presentation tonight. And uh the advisement from the state was basically press onward and uh adopt your budgets with what you what you know um because the state budget has still not passed.
071And it looks like they're going to have an another budget extender that just keeps it ongoing until next what is it? May 7th. Which is after the day of the public hearing. So, uh this could just drag on right now at this point and um so, they just told us to go with what we know. Um so, this is the uh this is just a a a gra- or yeah, a pie graph of basically what the uh of the previous slide of the uh the revenues showing that largest portions of our of our revenue are the state aid and the property taxes. So, when we don't receive one, we have to balance it out with the other. Um and since the state gets to decide how much they give us, uh we have to make
072up the rest of the difference uh with with either taxes or pulling money from savings. So, with this budget, uh we've we've done both to balance that out, uh increase the property taxes uh and not exceeding the tax cap, and then also using uh fund balance and savings uh to balance the budget and fill that gap. Plus the So, the last time that we did have a work session, we did have quite a a gap, and that you know, that uh that gap was was pretty small compared to uh so, the increase for the uh fund balance used for next year um was was pretty minimal compared to uh what where we were looking after things started to settle and contracts started to it looked like we had a a place to land. Uh this
073is the component budget summary, the three-part uh three-part budget, the administrative, the program, and the capital. We discussed that during one of the work sessions, but I just showing you that also uh for for the budget adoption. Uh and this will also be in the uh the newsletters and publications that we put out to the community. And then the propositions uh on the uh May 20th uh vote will be for the budget vote, and the school bus uh school bus purchases for two school buses up to a maximum cost of $230,000, so we reduced that uh significantly this year because we're only buying two buses, and then uh to establish a repair reserve up to $300,000. Uh moving forward, the public budget hearing will be May 6th. Uh meet the candidates night is planned for
074May 15th and then the budget vote on May 20th. Uh this is just some uh some data here just to I think I might have put this up on one of our other prior slides, but uh if you look in comparison to some of our neighboring schools, we seem to do more with less. Um so per per pupil uh we're the ones on the on the very right there compared to some other schools that are similar in size. And then our enrollment for next year is is still actually projected to be up to increase a little bit um because uh as many of the the other schools in the region, they're also seeing that same that uptick uh in that pre-K level uh go up a little bit. So uh that steady decline that we
075had had over the years uh just over the past couple years, it seems to have steadied out and and leveled out. So uh it seems good uh you know, that we haven't seen such a decline like we were expecting about 5 years ago. A bunch of houses being built, too. There is a few houses being built, yeah, exactly. Um so I don't think there's any housing developments, but it does look like there's properties being scooped up and yeah, purchased. So even when people add on, that increases your taxes, so adds to our tax levy. All right, adds to our tax base. So just to to bounce back to Sarah's question before uh on the revenue slide it looked like we're getting $835,000 back from BOCES in coming in this year? I went too far, sorry.
076It's okay. There you go. Uh nope, the state aid There you go. Yep. 837. Right. And then everything that we purchase from BOCES, Like, is it is it competitively priced? Or, you know, how sometimes when there's a a coupon [laughter] there's a situation where you might, you know, pay a little bit more for it to use the coupon. Is is that anything in these numbers, too? You know, that Sometimes Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. But, I When you look at the um I think the BOCES packet, I think um I think it's around 50 50 cents on the dollar rate. So, um that's what the your average is. And again, that all depends on uh on which service you're getting from BOCES, whether you're getting 40 40%, 50%, or maybe 63%. It all depends on Which
077service you're getting, yeah. So, um with every with a lot of the services that we purchase, like if we're purchasing technology from them, yes, they add their their BOCES fee on that. You know, there's a management fee for for whatever we're purchasing. But, if we're purchasing uh you know, uh maybe a copy you know, copy machines, right? They they'll add maybe a couple thousand dollars onto that onto that price. But, overall, you're still going to make out and you're going to get that money back, uh you know, maybe 50% of that money back. So, you're still So, it's not a real number. It's kind of You're still Yeah. gray. Okay. It depends on which which coaster you're you're signing onto, yeah. I understand. Yeah. Jeff, I meant to ask you this before this evening so
078that you could prepare it. So, if you don't know, that's okay. But, you've you've done a slide in the past of sort of like, what does this look like? What is the impact of that tax cap and that amount of money for an average household? Do you know that? Uh even just like generally, are we talking $400 a household in an increase with this? Or, are we talking $100 a household? So, I don't want to spitball on this one, but I will um I'll address that at the May meeting. Okay. All right. Um so uh cuz I I I might have brought it up at one of the prior work sessions, so you might see it in there. Uh but I don't have it in front of me, so I apologize. Okay, that's Yeah, I
079I meant to ask you earlier. I can put that up at the May meeting. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. Sorry for that. No, that's I meant I should have asked earlier. I apologize. I do have a I do have a question. I'm sorry. Are you done, Melissa? I don't want to interrupt you. Oh, okay. Okay. Um so, back to the projected revenue, um state aid is a guessing game right now, right? Because state hasn't passed her budget. So, my concern is is if we don't get that $599,000 the change, which is an increase, right? Yeah. What did you say? I think you said it before. What what What will cover that if we don't get that $599,000? We We would likely have to try and make up for that um in in fund balance. Uh but
080right now I'm using So, we're using the state aid runs based on um what the projected were. Uh typically when the governor's run comes out, uh the governor doesn't or the budget doesn't come out at less than what the governor's run was. Okay. So, um the governor's run is usually our baseline guarantee, like this is what you're going to get. Okay. Uh we have to get building aid. So, some of that portion of that increase right there that you're seeing is our building aid. Okay. And um because we've taken on and done the commitments for for doing a building project, Mhm. the state is obligated well, I guess by By law. whatever they want to do, right? Yeah. But um as as as they follow with their obligations, then we have that that increase to
081to count also for You mentioned the other day that you're following advisement on that. That you're providing that you were given guidance that that's the number you should go with and Yeah, so Anything else from that is a bonus. So, that in in reference to that letter that I had attached, that's that's the one that says, you know, here's here's your baseline. This is what you should use. The last run that was in January. Use that. Yeah. I have one more question. Well, it's not a question. I found the slide. So, my question is actually is the information still accurate? It was from March 4th. Was that with a calculation? Have you had a study calculation? Yep. So, that that wouldn't that wouldn't have changed since then. But, again, I want to say that that's
082just an estimate. No, I know. No, yeah. Yeah. Yep. In no way, shape, or form the stone, you know, what you should exactly spec expect, but it is ballpark. But, I'll I'll throw it out, right? I've used that formula and checked my own tax bill and seen that it's it's close. It's close, right. Right. So, for a for a house at $200,000 based on what we have here, a house that's worth two full home value of $200,000, we're looking at $7.41 a month, $88.98 a year, give or take. Um $300,000, we're at $133 for the year, $11 a month. $400,000, we're at $14 a month. Right. Just a That was I answered my own question. I wanted to make sure that was still accurate information. Yeah, it has That would That would not have changed
083at this point. I have one more question. Sure. I um I don't know if I'm recalling correctly, but did there used to be a federal aid section in your report? No, cuz what we are we are um we are putting up the general budget. Okay. Only to the public. So, that is the that is the budget that you vote on is the general budget, the A fund. We don't we don't vote on the F fund at all. Okay. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? You have questions? I was just going to say it looks like a I mean it looks like a I know it's been quite the season for you and I know it's not done yet, but it looks like a I think what we're going to get and all our
084growth seems like we can't control it. So, it's what it is. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Yeah, I just one thing just caught my eye on page six, the state aid estimates. Yep. What's the one on the bottom, building building reorg incentive? That's building that's your building aid. Oh, okay. I consulted the wording there, but that's In short, that's building aid. Okay, thank you. You can see actually that's the part of that if you um refer back to Avis's question the $398,000 there, that's part of that increase that you see on the state aid. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you, Jeff. This is a a a monumental undertaking every year. I appreciate all of what you do for this and and I also just I think I say it
085every time, but I also really appreciate charts and then pie charts and it like just helps me put my head around it in a in a you know more effective way. So, thank you for taking the time to do that and and explain this on a level that all of us, even if we're not mathematicians like Miss Elmerosey over here, that we can understand what the heck we're doing over here. [laughter] So, thank you for that. Absolutely. Lost my place in the agenda, guys. Sorry. All right, here we are though. Uh next item is policy student board member application. Um so, be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approve policy number 1210, which again is student board member application uh proposed policy. Uh may I have a motion?
086I motion. Thank you, Francis. A second? I'll second. Thank you, Tony. Um comments or questions? I'll ask Francis to Let me comment on this briefly. Uh so, New York State is mandating that we have a ex officio student on the school board starting next year. Um it's unclear entirely what that date is based on what I was discussion was having yesterday, but um we need to prepare for that. And as part of it, one of the things the state's requiring is that there be a process to choose that student. Um it could be recommendations, it could be the president of student council, it could be whatever essentially the board chooses. Sort of based on our desire, our focus, our goals that I don't remember right this instant to sort of allow people to step into
087roles. Um we've created this application for students, uh preferably seniors and juniors, cuz we're we're hoping to have a a primary and an alternate to uh join with the board, won't be able to vote, but will be able to join with it, attend the board meetings, uh be a voice of the board inside the school. Or at least a a channel to the board inside the school. Not necessarily wouldn't necessarily be able to speak for us, but would be able to at least understand what we're talking about. Um, so this is an application form that collects essentially vital information, their home address, how to get in touch with them, a listing of extracurricular activities. And then two recommendations from teachers or staff. And then there is an interview portion where this is the part we'll
088figure out kind of based on the number of interview number of applicants we have. Where the board will then interview this person and they this here sort of the three questions we're planning on sort of basing that interview around. Um we briefly had a discussion about having it be an essay, but we would rather see how this person sort of reacts. You know, this is this is a primarily a communication role. And having them be able to answer a question and react is is vital. Um so are there any questions on sort of what we put together or any thoughts on what it could be? I just like to say um any students that are willing to be on the board, it's um considered I believe community service, right? And it looks good on a
089resume for after you leave high high school. So I just wanted to say that, put that out there. I I also just mentioned that this is something that we've been talking about for a little bit. So now we have we we sort of just have a now you have a deadline, but but this is something that we as a board have been wanting to implement um for the for the last few years. So um now now we have to, but um this is this is just sort of a a a holding us accountable to getting it done, but it's something that we've had on our radar. Any other questions? Okay. Um did the motion. So, all in favor? I. I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Go get us some students. Yes. [laughter] Find the
090students. Um all those ones Oh, no, not all of them are seniors that have been here the last few times. So, maybe. Uh okay. Next item Do I have to I'm sorry to not know this, but given that this is a BOCES vote, should I do these separately? Okay. Um so, next item uh is for our BOCES vote. Be it resolved that the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Albany, Schoharie, Schenectady, Saratoga Counties Woo! I was not prepared for that. Be authorized to expend the sums set forth in the administrative budget document in the total amount of $15,674,431 during the school year 2025-2026. Excuse me. And to raise such sum by assessments to component school districts, non-component school districts, other BOCES, and other sources as required by law. May I have a motion? I'll motion.
091Thank you, Francis. A second? I'll second. Thank you, Lisa. Comments or questions? Do we I mean, so the idea of this is that this is this $15 million is BOCES budget. And as a member of BOCES, we pay a proportional deficit. And we get to essentially, the same as we're on school district's board, the school district is sort of on BOCES board and gets to have a a say on whether or not they get to approve this administrative budget. Uh this budget is for capital expenses, it's for uh staff, it's it's not necessarily for program funding. That's a different game. But, it's more so that it's kind of our enrollment in our agreement and in the enrollment in the BOCES program and that we understand that what they're spending money on outside of the programming.
092Just as an explanation of what we're seeing in front of us. Okay. Okay, so this budget at 15 and a half million plus isn't at all for the No. technical Do you okay. And anything. This is just admin totally. I I don't have the flyer in front of me, but I believe our portion of that is something excellent. Do you Do they have an estimate for our yearly fee of that? So, they actually the whole entire um proposed program budget is 180 million 207 848 or 88.8%. The 15,000 Sorry, 15 million that's on our um agenda or it's 7.7%. For the administrative budget. Do we have any idea what an increase this is from last year? The flyer should probably say. I'm looking it up, too. They gave it to us last meeting. I They
093did I don't think they did a comparison cuz I was actually looking for that. They're expecting Yes, it is. This is last year. Uh I don't know. Oh, they did that last year. That might help us Yeah. to know what last year was. Uh they according to their website, it's a 2.7% increase in assessments to districts. So, I don't know what their expenditure increase is. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I I'm sorry. I do. ahead. Go ahead. So, are they Is BOCES also waiting Do they have state aid also? That they are waiting for? Does anybody know? Like for their budget? I I have absolutely no idea. I kind of wish I'd gone to the dinner now and known that. [laughter] You know, um that's a great question. I'll I'll get an answer for
094you. Sorry, just thought of it. No, I I didn't think about it. I would I would assume there's some things that they do get aid on because they're still held to the same tasks that we have to do, but I'll find out and I will um I'll put it in the weekly update. Okay. Okay. All right. Great question. Now we thought about it. Any other questions? Okay. All in favor? I. I. I. I. Any opposed? I. Any abstentions? Okay, next item. Uh be it resolved that the Duanesburg Central School District Board of Education hereby cast its vote for the following candidates to fill four vacant seats on the Board of Cooperative Educational Services of Albany School District connected to these Saratoga counties for the term of July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. Uh these
095four candidates are as listed and they are the only four candidates to my knowledge, so they are running uncontested. Um may I have a motion? I'll motion. Thank you, Tony. A second? I'll second. Thank you, Sarah. Comments or questions? Bruce has been there a long time. He's a great guy. He's also Actually, Bruce and Matt are both uh big uh members of the state Tri-County School Board Association and have been at many of the local regionalization meetings. So, it's awesome having local representation on that board. Agreed. Any other comments or questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Next item, I will do a What's it called? When I do the all at once? The consent. Okay. So, next uh we will do um recommendation resolution based on the recommendation of the superintendent
096to accept financial items 9.01 through 9.06. May I have a motion? Can we break these apart to vote on? I'm sorry. Can we break these apart to vote on? Sure. Okay, so I'll start with number one. You'll have to listen to me read a lot. I apologize. Uh all right. Number 9.01. Be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approves the following financial report as submitted. General ECA warrants A-30 and EC-14 dated 3/20. ECA treasurer's report dated 3/31. Treasurer's report ending 3/31. And general and ECA warrants A-31, EC-15, and HQ-12 dated 4/9. May I have a motion? I'll motion. Thank you, Francis. A second? I'll second. Thank you, Alyssa. Comments or questions? I do have a question. I'm sorry. No. The warrants A-30 and EC-14, didn't we um vote
097on that last meeting? Yes, it didn't pass. So, so it will go up for vote every time it doesn't pass. Is that how it it works? Yeah, cuz we're just voting on whether or not we received the report.