ERCSD - Budget Work Session 02-25-25

001e e e okay good evening everyone would like to get this call this meeting to order please rise Pledge of Allegiance [Music] a [Music] thank you good evening everyone fire exits are located in the front of the boardroom and at the sides of the boardroom in event of a fire you will hear a fire that time please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest exit I will now make a motion to enter executive session M Ki uh to discuss the possible appointment of particular persons or Corporation and receive advice from Council on possible litigation we do expect action following thank you do have a second second second by vice president Miguel all those in favor say I I anyone oppose obain carries we'll be back shortly e [Music] e e e e

002e e okay I'd like to call this meeting back to order okay do I need to do I need to make a motion for this read the yeah okay where is the district where is the district needs special Council to address a present contract dispute with the language learning Network lln and where is such dispute may result in litigation including a federal court outside New York State and where is the district is familiar with Bond shaik and king pllc and a Statewide law for which currently performed substantial legal work for the district including representation of special education matters over several years now therefore Pete resolved that the Board of Education who authorized appointment of the law form Bond Bond shonick and King a PC consistent with the terms of the attached engagement agreement just manage

003related to the contract dispute with Ln and two authorizes District commence legal proceeding against lln including in the apprpriate Federal and or state court related to the contract between the district and lln and authorize the superintend of schools to take all steps necessary to implement the provisions of this resolution including payment to bond shuk and King pllc in accordance with terms of the engagement agreement I will make the motion do I have a second second by Mr guber all those in favor say I I anyone oppose abstain motion carries we will now move on to the budget presentation I believe Mr Stark will be presenting today yes yes yes we're going to this is the uh second part if you remember a couple of weeks ago we did the revenue um report and update and

004today we'll be doing the expenditure and uh our assistant superintendent for business Mr Stark will walk us through it and then we'll open it up for for board questions right so if I recall I think you might be doing the introductory yes I am we're going to go to that ah actually that's not yet so before we get there right um I want to give a a quick update on the actual current school year um so um on a monthly basis uh as we we started in the month of January um we will be reporting out on our uh progress throughout the year on our expenditure report as well as our um revenue report um so we have for you uh in front of you right here uh the updated expenditure report uh from the

005end of January from January 31st so um one of the things there were a couple things that I that I talked to you about um as to what was and was not included um during the presentation that was made at the January board meeting um we as you all recall we had a teachers contract that was settled during the year um in our December numbers which were presented at um the January board meeting um the back pay from previous years had been paid and was included in those numbers but the uh increase in the current year salaries and so on had not yet been included that is now a part of the expenditure report so if you see in the 20242 projected expense under teaching um that is at 118 million which is substantially greater

006than what you were given um in the prior month so the U I'm using the wrong thing I'm using my mouse which does am I pointing this the right way no well I have a screen here should it work here up there I turn it off we're experiencing technical difficulties so it's um question from trustee Gruber uh when we when we're looking at the total projected expense that is all of the expenses that are currently have been paid as well as everything that has been encumbered uh through the end of the year so the last version of this showed um a lower number because we had not encumbered a few things which we'll show you on the third slide so there we go it works with with either so this is this is the last

007several categories um when we presented this in um in January it works it's working no it works it works it works it works um we had not um encumbered The Debt Service payments which are now included so there were a number of things that we had not fully encumbered through the end of the year all of these all these items are not necessarily paid but the projected expenses as as I describe on this slide here it includes all amounts from the general fund that have been expensed or encumbered through January 31st 24 so we are forecasting a $15 million surplus in transportation because we were budgeting for 72 million and we are only projecting 57 that is correct and if I see the total what we taught is going to be 325 we're only projecting

008now 292 so that means that we have about 30 million in Surplus again so yes that that is that is uh true in terms of those numbers the other thing that you have to remember is that we also in in in balancing the budget uh included $19 million in fund balance so we'll as we get closer to the end of the year it'll all that we already have from last year Surplus right correct yes what what's this increase in the Central Services like a $4 million almost a $4 million increase between 2023 and 24 and 25 let me go let me go back to that so Central Services is is the part of so let let me go back to a thing to something that we'll be talking about with the new budget as well

009as the current year budget so one of the things that we have found in in going through everything in terms especially in terms of salaries of of our employees is that there were a lot of salaries that were coded in the wrong places in the budget so you're going to see as we move forward in this budgeting process and you'll see that as soon as we get into the budget that there you're going to see variances that um are crazy big and there are some that are very large on the positive side and there are some that are very large in the negative that will show in in red numbers and some of that is because of things that were increasing and decreasing in the budget but a lot of it and I I'll venture

010to say most of it has to do with the fact that um things were categorized in the wrong buckets in the wrong areas of the budget and we have um corrected all of that moving forward we so first we've corrected it in the current year budget so when you see what some of these numbers look like in terms of what was budgeted which is not in here but it's something that we'll show you um moving forward you'll see that there's a lot of those Corrections have created a lot of these changes so um yes here you see um Central Services uh has has gone up um a lot but that you'll also see that there are other areas that haven't gone up by quite that much is is the central services mean staff or is

011Central Services what is included in there um in in that part of the budget is a lot of your building I'm sorry your your District level Administration okay and they were categorized either in the building where were they where do they used to categorized that were I'm saying well you'll see that more clearly when we give you you know the package uh where you'll get everything Line to Line I don't see anything that went down if it was categorized well the budget itself went went up by uh no 40 or so million so you don't see anything that went down but there are areas that have gone up uh proportionately more because we've shifted the expenses into the proper categories so I have a a question isn't there a formula formula and a template that

012um I would say most District use that is similar um when it comes to creating a budget and what that should look like so New York State um has a standard um set of accounts that are used by school districts and um what what we have done is to try and take um the recommendations of the state and move things that may not have been where we believe they should have been and put them into the right place so that's exactly what we've done is we're taking some things that were not necessarily categories categorized properly and putting them into the correct areas of the budget okay that's the main reason why I asked that question too because I'm trying to understand how is it that over the years um we've had items categorized in the

013wrong section not for you to answer no no not for you to answer unless you have the answer but it's just just a thr same questions so okay it it's yeah it's it's a little uh when I when I first came and started looking at all of this it was it was very confusing and concerning so uh there's a lot of work that we've had to do to correct um previous miscoding is the way that I'll I'll say it so uh getting back to this um the December report as I mentioned included the Retro payments from previous years the salary increases from that contract extension for the current year are now in the report now um the remaining Debt Service payments were not there and we had not encumbered the um the the the employer

014contributions to the two Pension funds ERS and TRS um and those have been added for the January reports as well um prior expenditure reports um had been rolling over incorrect amounts year after year which is part of what I'm explaining to you is why how we're recategorizing um things into the correct areas of the budget and you'll see that when we get into the budget conversation as well um going over to the revenue side um you can see um that uh we have an overall increase from 299 in the 22 in the 23 24 year to uh 325 uh 325 million in change um in the current year and again we are reporting there the actual Revenue that has been earned to date as well as projected revenue for the remainder of the year in

015in these primarily in these three areas although in other areas as well but property taxes the New York state aid that we receive and interest income so maybe I'm just misunderstanding so what's the difference between here it's 325 oh this is the revenue I'm sorry I'm sorry what were you referring to no no I I didn't realiz this the revenue the other one was the expenditure okay good okay all right any 30 million by the way Mr am I reading it right that we are running a surplus already for the last three years actual expense 2223 was 241 we collected 275 Yes actually expense for 23 24 is 66 we collected 99 and we're expecting 33 million surplus this year again so we are up to 90 yes that is correct not 90 yes we're

016up to over $90 million surplus from the from the last three years and we were told last year that we're in a deficit of 20 million okay someone goes has to go back to school to learn how to do accounting that's the least I could say does that make sense we the the numbers that that the numbers that you're seeing in front of you are are the are are the numbers the current the current year the current year numbers are projections right now that are not complete okay but the last two years what you have there are Surplus every year every year they end with the last three years we end 30 million surplus per year this year we end with $33 million surplus I don't know who is doing accounting the last three years

017but someone that doesn't know what he's doing if this would have been in the private sector few people would have been in jail wow speechless honestly I know let me do my math numbers don't lie if these are the numbers then these are the numbers there the almost $100 million in cir okay so any other questions about that okay we're going to move on one second when we supposed to get a a a controller's report I I mean this is we have not received uh that the controller was doing a review of the current year bu I'm saying I'm doubting your numbers and we have not receiv received we have not received the report yet we we're told that um we should be expecting it I think any day now but we have not received

018anything yet but but to your point president Rose in in some of those initial discussions the questions that were asked is what we're Eric is just reporting like can you give me information and Eric's like I can't because I don't there's no there's no information on these lines you know so there A lot of it was I can't help you because I have no idea what you know happened prior to me coming here and why these numbers were not in the proper places right so uh I'll just give one example quickly about the conversations that were had between the the state auditor and myself um uh one of the primary things that they're looking at is um we have files in in in the computer system that are salary projections and the salary projections are

019by code and we look at them and then we look at the codes in the budget and the numbers in the salary projections do not equal the numbers in that were in the in the final budget um so I one of the things that I discovered when I first started looking here back in in August and September was that um and so I asked one of the first questions I asked after they had a time to do um their initial review I said have you found the same thing um I never found any codes and they said no we found a few five so out of all the codes in the budget and this is you know 10 120 pages of codes they found five in the projections that agreed with what was in the

020current budget so um we should be getting that report shortly it will be very telling to see to as to how they report out on that but um we don't have we don't have that yet I would expect so being lied to I mean like this is not this just straight up I mean because we were sitting here and looking at I'm try I'm trying to figure out something else how do we manage bank accounts we don't know what's in the bank account we were told last winter the entire winter meeting after meeting after meeting the monitor was stay is saying it in and screaming you're running out of cash in July you have no cash you have no cash we had a surplus for two years prior how didn't he have cash he doesn't

021know where his accounts are are the are is the money is the money in the bank now is the money in the bank money the money is in the account it it is projected in the revenue report money sitting in the account and we were told that we running out of cash the entire winter every meeting you're running out of cash you're running out of cash you have no credit your Moody is zero you cannot borrow a penny and the money is sitting in the account he doesn't know where his accounts are can we just just to make sure because you know we've told that there's been a deficit for a long time that now we see that we're million so is it possible I'm I I I'm you know hearing what you're saying is

022it possible like see let us see it a breakdown I mean if you're saying that there's money in the account to be honest with you it's easy said but since we've been told we were in a deficit now we're not in a deficit I personally I think the board would agree that well we need to see a breakdown I want to see that okay you're saying that there's money in the account let's see it broken down so that we're all clear on it we'll prepare that for you for we have a meeting a week from tonight how about how about we see one year prior two years prior what's going on so we can compare we we'll be pull the records on there I mean some of the money is probably going to be also

023for you know for actual expenses we have but we should be able to always Pi goes in and out he was always screaming that we have no reserve for no Reserve funds we need to have Reserve funds if something I see on the I see on the page $100 million Reserve yeah without without going anywhere there's $100 million on the table between the last three years there's $100 million on the table sitting now I'll Rel is is isn't that big enough of a reserve fund I'll relate this question to Legal is it legal to sit on I think there's a percentage you're allowed to keep in your general fund for so do we need to put it back in the general budget and not collect it from taxpayers there's a there's a provision of the

024law that requires a a 4% un unrestricted did uh reserves um I think I I recently heard someone speak on this issue and said that somewhere over 70% of the school districts in the state are in violation of that and there's never been any enforcement of it if there's an audit was this violation reported to the yeah and I think no was it reported to the commissioner I think it gets reported I think to the controller and it's made note in an audit but it I believe it should it should put this should also be put on our one of our our violations right that I I don't know how that impacts your foundation aid but the the reserve yeah you're right there's a 4% cap um well part of that's a projection the end

025of the year we haven't received we haven't we haven't received the state aid but there's there's money in the bank well I I'll prepare that for you and you'll have it at next uh for next week's meeting so the the only thing I want to say is that um it's very concerning and I I say this all the time that we've had monitors overseeing our work for over 10 years physical monitors academic and you know to know that there's formulas and templates in place that comes from the state and our monitors are appointed by the state and for this to happen to our you know to our district and knowing no one saying anything about it is a problem um instead you know we were yelled at at board meetings telling us what we need

026to do what we need to cut and instead of really looking deep to see if the work is even doing being done properly so um you know moving forward I just hope that those who are in position um working on these budgets every year is paying attention not only to the numbers but to to you know the the formula and making sure that we're doing things correctly and um doing the math correctly and recording and making sure that everything is is the way it needs to be um so that we're not in the situation because we as a board we get yell that you know and we're not part of the process from beginning to end so you know like I said that that's that's very concerning to me and and to follow up on

027you been a great points all around I mean we were told that we need I mean thankfully we decided as a board not to cut any student facing services but I mean the audacity to present to us cuts to Student Services when we had six is before last year but $60 million extra sitting in the bank I mean and to have the state consistently tell us you know the monitor sitting every you know we're running get a cash like Mr gr you know sa I mean it's it's it's it's mindboggling honestly okay um we'll we'll move on now to um the the preliminary report on the 2526 budget um and I will turn it over uh back to our superintendent for just a moment uh to discuss what we worked on as a team um

028in terms of the priorities for creating this budget yeah I'm just to reiterating what I said a couple of weeks ago with the budget priorities that you will see over the next uh couple of weeks with regards to the budget where we are looking at reallocating resources to maximize student outcomes to provide the necessary materials and professional development to our faculty in order to improve literacy and we talk about the science of reading as a state mandate um with regards to our student population um looking at our salary projections of all new um positions and vacancies that we currently have making sure that um we have properly have make sure that we properly have people and staff avail able to our students academically with extra support um as we go through the K to2 experience

029here at East ripo including um funding of our capital projects and maintenance so what's happened for many many years here to the public and especially to the board is we've done a lot of funding of programs through our title monies right and so what we're doing is spending a lot of time repurposing those Monies to make sure that they're in the a funded that they're there one of the big concerns that of course are out and about right now what what's happening uh with questions about our money's going to be taken away with regards to title monies that come from the federal government um and so even before this happened the beginning of the year we were looking at transferring some of those monies and positions that are in our title funds to the regular

030General Ed budget and then um making sure that um we uh correct the revenue and expense coding errors as was just mentioned by uh Mr Stark and this year's budget so you'll see in subsequent slides um us starting to do that and while you'll see some of these huge variances as was stated by uh Mr Stark so those are our priorities which you'll hear about this is now the second night and you'll hear about them in more detail on our budget presentations on March 4th and on March 18th when our assistant superintendence for departments will be coming up linking everything as to why we need um some of what we're looking at doing as we move forward for the 25 26 school year well thank you Mr Stark I'll send it back to you thank

031you okay so we we'll begin um as you recall at our last meeting I presented you with a first draft of re of a revenue budget um we have modified that a little bit for a number of different reasons which I will review with you now um so first um I think I mentioned last year that we had some discrepancies as to what was reported with our Pilots uh in the past um we have uh corrected all of that so the um maximum allowable tax levy calculation has changed a little bit um again that calculation Begins by taking the prior year tax levy which was the 162 m800 th000 um and you add to that uh you multiply it by the tax base growth factor which is a number that is provided to um all

032school districts in New York state by the New York State Office of Real Property Services or also known as and abbreviated as orps um and that gives you an adjusted uh tax levy you then add back in the prior years's um Pilots which are payments in Lee of taxes which are agreements that are made uh between developers and um municipalities that affect um how the taxes are paid so there are payments that are done outside of the calculation of property values um we then um reduce that by the exclusions that are a part of this um calculation which have to do with um Capital money spent reduced by the uh amount that you receive in building Aid and that gives you your adjusted prior year Levy you then multiply that by the inflation factor or

033uh CPI which um in the legislation for the for the New York state property tax cap is limited to a maximum of 2% so inflation was higher than the 2% this year so the growth factor allowable for this calculation is 2% you then uh so you take the prior years adjusted Levy multiply it to come up with the levy uh that includes the growth factor you then have to reduce it by the current year Pilots which uh you see are now increased from the 252 to $463,500 and that gives you the tax levy limit prior to exclusions um and then you add back in the exclusions which are again your capital and your um your debt Service uh reduced by the building a that you receive so that's added back in we come up with

034a maximum allowable Levy of 167 million 6 76586 which is an increase of a little more than $4.8 million uh or uh in a percentage uh 2.99% increase okay anybody have any questions on the calculation this is simply the calculation that the state requires us to go through okay um so again in the revenue budget um one of the budget priorities was to correct Revenue coding errors from prior years um we have also had a lot of budgets that have been rolling over incorrect amounts year after year we've corrected those and this year's Revenue budget just as our expenditure budget has been done has been built from the ground up looking at exactly what we believe will be um expected to be achieved during the 25 26 year some of those things are estimates obviously

035for example interest income um we we we can't be sure of what rates will do generally under a republican Administration they will tend to go down from when um the Democrats uh are in in power in Washington so we make an estimate where we have scaled back what we're earning now a little bit um as we move forward with that you'll see that in in just a moment before we get to the the um to the full Revenue budget we're going uh again to go over the uh New York executive school aid run what is meant by executive is we receive two Aid runs each year one is from the executive branch of government which is done by the governor's office we generally receive that sometime around uh sometime in January um which which did

036happen this year then it is voted on by the uh two houses of the legislature and we receive a legislative uh proposal um usually sometime around the end of March the goal I think the date in law is that we're supposed to have it by April 1st uh many years we get it by then other years it comes shortly thereafter but we'll be getting that um there's one difference in uh what you have in front of you here um and that we have been notified um on a couple of Corrections to what is in the actual published report if you look at the published report for foundation aid for the E East Ramapo District you'll see a higher number and that's because those numbers are based on um data that is in the system from

037um report reported amounts based on reported student population and our student population from beds uh from when they were reported in the sd3 to beds day have seen a decrease so we've had our um our um Foundation aid number uh reduced a little bit um there are two different kinds of a I'm sorry you have a questions um my understanding is that Albany has used a data from 20 years ago so all of a sudden they're adjusting the data to what we really have now so um you you're very correct what I what I was about to say is that um if you look at this page here um there are basically two different categories of Aid that we have um we have um formula AIDS and we have expense driven AIDS primarily the found

038the foundation Aid is the formula based Aid and that formula as you're saying is based upon a number of different factors in a district it it it involves student population it involves free and reduced lunch population and it includes um wealth ratios that are used um it's a very complex formula the wealth ratios that are used in terms of the the wealth of a school district um they have been using 20 plus year old numbers for all of that time those were adjusted um in the current year one of the things that you'll see in the foundation Aid is that in the current year we have a 14% increase that is a huge increase in in the foundation Aid and that is primarily based upon the fact that um we have uh done a few

039different things some of it is this change in the wealth uh numbers that are being used for the district other things that in the in the calculations that have changed as we have um done better job of reporting some of the categories of our students like our Ells and multilingual students um I'm sorry bilingual students um which also have factors on that where um we've uh I think reported uh something like 2,000 more students that get those services so when you change a lot of those things it can have an effect either positively or negatively on that calculation for us very positive as you can see here and you mentioned before that when we gave in our projections in the beginning to now we had a decrease what could you tell us how much kids

040less we have than what would we projected in September um I don't have I I don't have that committed to memory I don't have that with me but again that's something that we can provide you with um we we we'll look at what um the estimate that was done in the st3 uh that would be part of the form a that we file which is an attendance uh piece and then we can uh look at what the beds numbers were on the official beds day which is in October what was the question I couldn't hear the question was about do we know the number of students that changed between the reporting dates yeah we could find that out yeah okay and also Bob and we can find that out right Mr G we can find

041expect more students next year or not that many because I'm trying to look if our budget this year what we know is 292 200 and what was the number in the end two 292 is what we are projecting now that this year's budget is uh even we I understand that we believe that we need to add additional positions for people that we are short and this is why we have some academic issues or office issues why do we believe that our budget for next year is going to go up that much that we would even project more than 325 because if our budget is going to be 325 let's say this number then we are basically don't need any more money we could give a tax break because we're getting fate 13 million more so

042our tax levy could go down with that 13 million even if our budget stays at what we projected last year I'm still having a hard time seeing that we should need that much money we should need $33 million more by all the positions we're going to add so just food for thought our budget should be a lot less than that the tax levy should be a lot less than that if we want to have a balanced budget okay so uh back to the aid run um you can see overall um the the the remainder of the items um are are expense driven AIDS and those go up or down based on the usage in those particular categories so if you look at the bosis aid um you'll see that um we we're going down by

043279,000 that means in a prior year our bosei services uh what we paid to bosis was reduced from the from the year before that so um all of the other categories are based on actual expenditures that are reported in the st3 to the state overall you'll see that we are showing an overall increase in Aid uh project to be approximately $16 million okay so we then take the those previous two slides and we apply them into um the budget um what we've done in this first draft of the budget and I I want to to again make sure that everybody understands this is a draft and this is just the first conversation that we're having we have only um uh projected using half of that maximum allowable tax levy at 1.49% which would be an

044increase of $2.4 million um the pilots have also been um increased as we described to you in that other calculation um you see there the the aid number that was in the previous slide has increased by uh 16 million uh which we showed you that's a 10.1% increase um and then uh we mentioned a few times that we trying to correct other things that seem to have just been rolled over uh year after year um we had in last year's budget and the prior year and the year before that approximately a million n in tuitions which would be tuitions that we were charging to out of District students coming to our schools and our programs um we do not have um any we have we have a minimal amount I think for one student right

045now that um is uh paying that we have a paid to ised for so we've cut that from $ 1.9 million to $100,000 you see uh uh when when it's a decrease it's in parenthesis and in red um and then shows you the percent change so that's a that that's again an indication of um correcting something that has been um miscoded or or mis Mis budgeted in in in the past um and again the following the rest of the categories are are um all much smaller pieces we'll show you a little visual about that in a second um toward the bottom you see fund balance appropriation for Capital so we um in this budget we'll be putting forth um a proposition that we would be using some of the fund balance that we have to

046do Capital work um as part of the the conversation that you have have heard and uh trusty Gruber just uh discussed that we don't have a good credit rating um and we can't borrow money in order to do Capital work so the part of that is there and then we also have um the general use of fund balance which last year um we use the 19 million um in in this current proposal that's five again this is just the first proposal um and um an overview and then uh as we move forward we'll get into further conversations about that um looking at an overall increase uh to the revenue budget when you add all the category together of 2.93% so here's the visual and that we we did have some um members of the public

047ask for a little bit more um visuals uh and some people uh are are able to learn better um or understand things better by looking at at uh graphs and pictures and so on and so forth so um we created the revenue budget breakdown that you see here the important piece that you obviously can see from this is that the super majority of our Revenue budget comes from two sources it's from state aid and it is from property tax so those are the two big chunks um we also separated out just the the transfers and the use of fund balance um and those are the two other largest pieces in the in in the revenue budget but they only make up 2.96% of it and then all of those other categories added together is 1.6%

048of the Revenue budget so again N More Than 95% of your revenues come from uh state aid and property tax so now we'll move on to the expenditure budget what is it 2425 year the total revenue shows for 338 million and in the previous um 325 325 where's where's the difference so I'm sorry let me hear the question again 4 25 you have 338 million m in Revenue you go back to the revenue report on 24 so so right now we're just dealing with a projection toward the end of the year this is this is what the budget was that's the budget and that's a projection have another 5 million surplus so this is a budget this is last year's budget and and this one is a projected Revenue the on the current year was

049the projection which doesn't include everything it's it's a projection based on our best how can projection no this this column the 338 is what we are projecting that we are going to get the 162 that's last year's budget correct this is the previous slide showed the projection Turtle revenues is what we are getting in or what we are spending Budget on last year that's Revenue what you coming in this is 3 and our expenses is 292 so basically we we when we did our budget in Octo in whatever it was in uh August after we were told to increase we had a budget of 325 and now we're saying that we are actually getting in more money than the 325 we are getting in 338 for the year no so again this is the budget

050at amount but the budget at amount of 338 includes that last line is a fund balance appropriation of $19 million that we are putting back right so that was the net of those from last year but that was still in the budget the question was from where we going to take the money and we were putting in the 19 to cover our deficit because when we did the budget last year we were told that we can that the only way we could raise we could only raise taxes to a certain amount this we going to get from uh property taxes I was was 154 I think if I remember numbers correct Foundation 8 was something similar so and we needed more money we said we're going to take 90 million out from a from what

051we have in reserves and we're going to use it for the for the budget in the end we don't need that 19 million because our budget for now we are only projecting 292 and we somehow added this 19 million from 325 to 338 so the the the the change from 2324 to 2425 isn't on here but yes the the total amount in the budget in the in the revenue budget revenue of the budr weing is 338 but 19 million of that was is a draw from the fund balance so what what about that why we needed it what about the 31 million that was found a few months ago is that included in this number so again that's that's that that that that's the prior years um that's that that's not last year but3 23

05224 okay and that has rolled the Surplus from there has rolled into your fund balance but again part of that number which we've discussed in the past as well is that one of the things that was done at the end of the year prior to us being here but was clearly done was uh I believe believe 17 or $18 million if I remember correctly was taken out of the expenditures from the 23 24 budget and moved into the srrp funds and paid to the district through a federal fund so there was there was an adjustment made there which created um a little more than half of the Surplus so there were other factors that's not the 19 million because that was somewhere in the that was about 13 million I think that was about a

053half of the Surplus was from yeah arpa funds that were wrong categorized right but but this number this number used to balance your expenditure budget with your Revenue budget without using funds that would be collected only all right so Mr Stark just saying that the 325 right it's different from the 338 because of the fund balance appropriation correct is that what you're saying cuz 19 no I'm saying that this is your budgeted am mhm what we showed you 325 in the first Slide the 325 is the current projection based on what we have um actually received and what we are expecting to receive respecting from where receiving from where because it's rejected from taxpayers paying their tax bills from the state providing us with our Aid um one of the things that you see here

054um that we're collecting so for example um you see that we budgeted zero so we projected to receive 133 million less than we budgeted no because you no because you have we've received more than we budget it because you have $19 million in fund balance we're going to end up in the end of the year we're going to end up in the back with 338 million and our budget was only 292 no no no it's not 338 million cuz you're not collecting the fund balance oh we're not collecting but we're going to have it in the bank yes we're going to have it it's going to be in the bank and the bank is going to be in the end of 2425 is going to be $338 million ended and we're going to spend $292

055as what we're projecting now that's what the projection that yes that is what the projection is so you know what the difference is over 40 million I see it slightly differently but you can't explain me how you how you see it from from the current year it's not it's not 40 million part part of it is there as you're saying but the we we're not collecting we we we are projecting now that the what we are going to pay this year for whatever contracts we have 292 let's say it's going to go up with 3 million it's going to be 295 in the end of the year a school district shouldn't have uh rolling back and forth money we don't we don't make any money we don't we only collect what we supposed to spend

056it's not something we could put it in reserves but we are going to see in the end of the year 338 million came in did ended up it's not the 19 million you say didn't come in it was there prior but in the end of the year our our bank account will have balance a A plus of 338 million and a minus of 292 the difference is 40 million 40 something million yes no I let me let me insert myself here oh the the 338 million that's budgeted the 19 million fund balance is basically you're approving a budget and saying we're going to have an operating deficit of 19 million and we will take1 million from prior year results to balance our budget you only take 19 million if you need it so to compare

057to the only still 338 less than 19 let him finish right so now you're at like you're at 319 or all the rest of the categories that are budgeted there other than that 19 million comes about 319 million they're projecting 325 so what it really says is they're right now they're projecting to be 6 million over the revenue that was projected in those categories um and and but then the the the calculation of 325 versus the 292 plus plus there's a going to be a some extra expenditures in there so let's just say yeah 295 something like that so you you'll have you'll have uh a surplus of about 20 million is what this is saying right and then from what you were saying you'd be adding it to the 32 close to 30 million

058we have these these three numbers together I did the math is over 100 million so plus the 19 it's 119 million what no the is cash that we have how we have it if we took it from reserves from six years ago we were suppos we were explained last year that we are we have a shortfall between Foundation 8 and tax levy we have a shortfall with1 19 million so we said we'll take it out from Reserve funds that we had we didn't need it because we actually had a surplus of 30 million last year so we weren't even short and we have a surplus of 30 million this year so the 90 million is not necessary but the fact is when you take these numbers together what that we have extra from the last

059three years is over 100 million and the 19 million is above that because then how do you get to 338 from where it was taken out from not from the 30 million surplus we have maybe from the 30 million we had the previous year okay so we'll stay with 100 million okay I'll I'll give you the 19 okay so um moving on from the revenue we will move on to the expenditure budget just a second so can we agree that we have an additional 100 we're 100 we have $100 million surplus right now at this point part of that is a projection for the current year so if we're if you're to ask me if we have that now we do not have that now without this year collected of our we have Pro St

060and so on so let talk about the last to the end of the year according to that projection yes we would have approximately that much we have 6 68 million 6 million 68 68 million I'm not I'm taking out the 25 26 24 25 23 So currently we have a $68 million surplus should be somewhere sitting in an account nobody which account nobody I don't know can we see I would like to know maybe could it's there hope we're receiving interest on it at least told you I will I will provide you with a with a cash balance report uh next Tuesday and you you'll see be sh you're not going to come my sister all right so um yes we will get back to that I promise uh we'll move on now to the

061draft expenditure budget and we're going to start that conversation with a couple of uh slides that describe uh things that are included um in there again this is sort of a an overview to give you an indication of the things that are included and some of the wise but we're getting get into a much deeper and uh detailed discussion of all of these areas um starting next Tuesday um when we'll when we'll um do um the reports from curriculum and instruction um pupil services and multilingual education um at this point I would like to turn over uh the floor to our assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction uh Mr Gonzalez and he'll run us through the next couple of slides and then I'll be back for more uh thank you Mr Stark uh so these

062next two slides Dr Gonzalez oh thank you I usually only make work too hard for that I usually only make people call me doctor when my wife or my my mother's in the room so thank you I appreciate that uh the items listed on the next two slides represent the investment uh being made directly into students and staff uh so these districts curricular models that are before you are selected based on three primary reasons the first is uh data suggests that a focus on reading is Paramount uh for moving students forward so these approaches while not comprehensive or exclusive are research-based uh with special attention given to the science of reading which is a New York State education department mandate moving forward uh the second reason for the selection of these uh curricular models is

063for continuity across the district so that students receive consistent instruction irrespective of what school they attend uh across the district um and lastly the approaches are fundamental to teaching and learning that quite frankly really do already exist in in most other school districts whether it be these specific selected curricula of the American reading company uh Wilson language training and uh the efforts that we're making with early literacy or some other uh selection of a curricular model these are investments that um should be uh existing throughout the districts uh you know in perpetuity so the first one is American reading company we are currently utilizing the American reading company curriculum for our uh large population of English language Learners in the bilingual sections we will be moving to provide the core it's called Arc core uh

064for our monolingual sections you can see the number of sections that we have for grades K through five across the entire District we'd be servicing 130 sections of students uh the grade six home language arts which which is the Spanish uh language grades 6 through 8 monolingual Arc Fusion which is a new middle school middle level uh curriculum as well as grade seven and eight monolingual Ela um and those you can see the number of sections that we would be supporting uh they are respectively 41 and 52 for Arc fusion and AR Ela uh in addition to the actual implementation of the curriculum we are purchasing professional development services which will be done both District wide as well as uh individually within schools uh the Wilson language training is a uh research-based literacy uh intervention

065system that will be used for uh grades K through 12 there are different approaches depending upon the grade level um what's of Paramount um importance to point out here is that most of our uh most of our students across the district are at a tier one uh intervention status so we would be looking to use the tier one strategies and tier 2 strategies and where appropriate tier three strategies but um this is a a steep uh a steep climb for us nonetheless um and then early literacy we're looking to ramp up with a uh kindergarten Jump Start program as well as a future powered kindergarten go to the next slide uh this slide highlights the an anticipated expansion of programmatic and instructional opportunities for students so CTE Career and Technical education has become an attractive

066option for students uh in order to expand and uh both carefully and responsibly that would begin with the expansion of Project Lead away which is currently in our uh middle schools uh as well as expansion of course offerings into the high school setting uh these need to be done very uh purposeful um and so we uh this would be a multi- year implementation of CTE offerings at both of our high schools uh in direct alignment with the district's commitment to reading each student in the in the entire district will receive a bundle of books for the summer that is an investment through Scholastic Inc that bundle of books will go into the hands of every single student grades K through 12 uh it is intended to help the What's called the summer slide that bundle

067comes with activities that can be done at home either with a parent guardian or a caretaker um and then we would also work with our staff to make sure that in the fall they revisit those books that have been sent home um and then last lastly the investment that really needs to be made uh points to uh uh refers to the the data collection and what the data looks like for our schools so uh a special highlight is the district's commitment to supporting the creation of school specific data teams that will work with members of our team here at central office to know specific factors about individual students and um Collective students so that we can lead to better outcomes Dr Gonzalez at the last board meeting we presented with with scores that were I

068mean that were horrible honestly um with the reading scores um are are is this going to be targeting towards those deficiency that we clearly have in the district and and the testing scores yeah absolutely and one of the things uh president Roose that uh if if you do recall back to what the data looked like that was an aggregate number and so the work of the school-based data driven teams will be to disaggregate those numbers so that we can drill down to the specific students specific strategies for both instruction as well as test taking um in some instances just putting in some systems and structures will help and to create a better testing environment for students to actually perform better um so that that's the hope the uh curricul uh selections that we have made

069are research-based um not only for um any student in K12 but very specifically to service the population of students that we have here in the East rle Central School District thank you thank you Mike okay so um now um the next thing that we want to discuss before we show you the the initial draft numbers uh of the overall um expenditure budget are uh a couple of slides that explain in terms of our staffing um where certain things are that currently aren't being spent or currently hadn't been um requested so currently in the budget um we actually have and part of the reason that we that we're not spending up to the the budgeted number is that we have 144 unfilled positions 144 FTE stands for full-time equivalents um and they are in a multitude

070of areas so they are um they are all listed out here um we can go through them um the biggest and and and one that affects um our students the most is is is a lack of 46 uh multilingual education teachers so those are elll and bilingual teachers um we are short um six full-time equivalents in speech therapists one nurse uh the next several are clerical throughout um various departments throughout the district um two in the business office one in personnel and and Human Resources um a by lingual clerical for the multilingual education department um another clerical for curriculum and instruction four in the transportation office which we've talked about uh many times uh 10 teaching assistance uh districtwide um three grounds workers six maintenance workers six security AIDS um 35 uh building level permanent

071substitute teachers that were discussed earlier this year here um and then we also have 22 custodial workers that are actually currently substitutes that need to be converted in um to being uh full-time employees at at higher salaries uh that also would include benefits so those are the things that are currently in the budget that um are uh unspent as a result of them not being filled are are some of these vacancies due to um you know individuals resigning so it's a combination of It's a combination of of um resignations retirements and um other things where they have not been filled either um in in many instances um in terms of the non-instructional um pieces uh we have issues that can that that are traced back to civil service in Rockland County where we have uh

072we're required to hire off of um lists from tests that are that are being given um in many cases uh the lists um are are either not available or don't have anyone on them um in other cases we get a list and um we send out um what are those called canvas canvas letters and we don't we don't get responses um which is which is a typical uh issue um in terms of uh many of the um the educational positions the professional positions for example the multilingual education teachers we've had many conversations about this in in our board meetings over the course of the year that there is a a Statewide and Nationwide shortage of these uh teachers and we have um new numerous times had our uh our teachers poached by neighboring districts or

073districts across the river in Westchester that PID more money so a part of the conversation um that we hope is going to help with some of that is that we have settled our teachers contract um and the the increases that are in that now will make us more competitive with some of those districts but um there are a variety of reasons uh why these positions are are are open and it's not for a lack of us trying to to fill them so since we've had so many vacancies is that I'm going to ask this question is that perhaps where because I know we said that we found $30 million approximately oh so with that with with that being said that's coming basically from the vacancies a large portion of that is vacancies and then on

074top of the vacancies the uh the the budgeted employee benefits that go along with that so you have um the contributions to the Pension funds you have uh medical and dental insurance contributions that the district would have budgeted for um and um Social Security and so on so yeah some what's a rough number on this the amount of vacancies toward salaries what does that equate to just a general obviously it's 140 vacancies what is that it's it's probably in the how about I how about I give you a calculation of that next next meeting rather than yeah give you a wrong guess right now these 144 fulltime were these um covered by part times part say again these full-tim were covered by part-timers this was or it wasn't done so we have some right now

075that are covered by substitutes and most of them are vacant so some some things are covered by Subs some are covered by point tws which we've had conversations about I mean some stuff weren't done this year I mean these 22 custodial workers um buildings weren't cleaned or whatever what is no no th those are those are substitutes that are currently employed as substitutes that really should be permanent employees so the the cost differential there is a difference in the hourly rate that they're paid plus they'll get benefits so salaries were paid so it's not much at a much lower level for th for those particular positions going back to the 46 teachers is that classrooms that have no teachers at all or they don't have a bilingual teacher now that means that when we if

076we are going to find these 46 bilinguals are we still going to need that many regular teachers or they going to [Music] replace so it's a combination of of both in some instances we have a sub in some instances we have monolingual teachers covering the classes with a point to in others we just have um you know we it's a certified teacher or someone with a certification in a different content area providing the the support could we get more because as you understand when we're going to build the budget we're going to try to figure what the cost is going to be so I would if we could get some sort of a breakdown I believe that most of maybe there are a few classes that have no teachers but it's not it's not a

077full salary of when we start a teacher at $75,000 a year let's say when if we hire a new teacher it's about between 75 and 100 that we pay between benefits and payal so with Benefits it's more with Benefits it's more what is it with Benefits 125 but we do have some people in this class it's not that we're going to have we'll take away the substitute that we get less we pay for a substitute 70 and we'll pay a each round 25 so if we if we put this full times we'll take off from substitutes it's not that this is going to be a full addition on to the budget so let me address that question specifically so let's look at the 46 uh multilingual education teachers so those have been budgeted um at

078a rate that we consider the average of what we would hire a teacher at um and that is what is in the budget we have not put in the budget as well the point tws that we're paying to the existing teachers so you don't have both of those in the budget just the projection for the new H I understand so that means that we don't by not having these 46 teachers we not saving 46 times 125 only this was my we are saving on the on on a portion of the um benefits portion of the benefits IOD this is what I want to make sure it's not that we are going to add 46 so the number is not that staggering it's it's still Stagg but we I'm trying to look where our budget next

079year should even if we fill all these positions what they're actually going to do to the budget let's say that we somehow find all these people they're willing to work this 144 what this adds in Pay right above what we have now and you will have you will have all of that yes we'll get there okay so the next slide is um about things that are not current vacancies but additional things that additional um positions that we believe are needed uh for a variety of reasons in order to um have the district operating in the way that it should for our students uh as was discussed to um provide them with the education that they need so that our scores are better so that we are um providing them what they really need um in

080terms of that we have um a deputy superintendent budgeted for two additional executive directors what what's the deputy superintendent what's the question yeah what's exactly that what's the deputy super so we um that something that we need to speak with the board about is um establishing some positions that are not currently um in our infrastructure but as we is that your question yeah that's exactly my question I know what the technical term is but we've never discussed about having a deputy superintendent exactly we have not discussed it yet y so um that's why we are introducing um these new positions here today in a very superficial way um it does require deeper discussion and conversation with the board there's no question but what we've done is we've um had a lot of discussions about um

081what we believe to be the appropriate um Staffing for a district of this size and complexity and so what you're going to see on this slide are a number of positions that uh we don't currently have but we believe are appropriate for uh this District um and one of them is a deputy superintendent so other districts that are similar in size and complexity have a deputy superintendent for example I guess we'll get when we get it we're going to have to go through it I mean I'm assuming you said doing just superficial now keep superficial I'm not next week yes we'll get into more about each one of these so I I just did a quick uh search I think as of right now the only School District that has a deputy superintendent is North

082frin what led you to the conclusion that we are in need of a deputy superintendent sure so that that's a I think a deeper discussion that I I think we can engage in at at some point meaningfully um but I it's part of of um um a package of what we believe we need in order to run this District efficiently effectively um we have a lot of challenges at the executive level right now we have a lot of initiatives and um so we believe that a deputy superintendent is an appropriate addition to the executive leadership team but again we can have a deeper discussion I'm I'm just trying to think as you you speak um is it really a deputy superintendent that's going to make that change in um our needs or is it adding

083more um people to different departments that will make the difference a combination as you see um so in here you'll see that we're also um requesting um directors five different directors um one in Nea math social studies science pupil services and um in a typical District this size you would have um chair people or administrators for each of these content areas we've long away done away with that that's a really important leadership positions that this a district like this absolutely requires so um we're really making an effort to try to put back in place Place positions that should have been here and filled all along um some of them are very much related to specific content areas some of them are are broader in Authority like a deputy for example um here you'll also see

084that we're um requesting um literacy coaches and math coaches and again I think in the next two board meetings we plan on discussing that in more depth and detail but yes of course it's not just one position that will make the difference but it's it's a combination of positions and it's the strengthening of the entire infrastructure that we're that we're looking at now are we also taking into consideration that um right now we are working on a superintendent search um and mentioning that you know whoever were to take that position would be work with a deputy superintendent how how are we advertising or how would we advertise promote that so we haven't um advertised for it yet we haven't again even fully discussed this with how would we I'm not I know we have we're

085talking about it now but how would we well we could we could discuss how we would for example um we could hope to have a superintendent put in place and then post so that that superintendent would have a say and participate and choosing a deputy that that would be one typical way that we can move forward for example so according according to this we have about 220 um vacancies um full-time positions which is we need to fill over 22 yes so again these are the requests that if you add the request in with the vacancies yeah the number my my question is over 200 correct you believe that if we're going to fill all the all the 144 we'll still need all these 77 or this is now we are messed up because we are

086missing the 144 so we're looking at a much broader thing to help we what we would hope would be to fill them all I don't know that that's realistic um the ones that in the previous slide are those vacancies currently exist and as we mentioned yes you're right we have other folks that are um filling some of those teaching positions um and not in the best of ways so um there that there would be um some sort of change in terms of finances for example we have a number of folks I think we have about 25 of those vacancies maybe a little more that are filled with what we call Point tws um so those are 25 uh full-time positions that um we would like to uh not fill with the point to those are

087teachers that have the highest senior and therefore the highest salaries so it's actually quite expensive to fill our vacancies with these 02 positions so if we were able to um fill those vacancies um we would probably save some money so that's that's an incentive and those are those uh 40 40 or so um elll and bilingual uh positions we're talking about quick question so so the directors let me just go there so directors of the core classes they're more so like chairpersons correct now with that being said are you looking to bring in new people or are you utilizing the teachers that are already in place to be chairpersons where like for example um they may instead of teaching five course five classes they'll teach four and they get a small stien so what do

088it what do you what does this look like what one of the things that and I think we'll talk about that more perhaps in the next meeting but one of the things that I we've discussed is that um we've we've been without this type of of leadership for a very long time this type of focused leadership in each of the content areas and um so we were um preferring a model where we would have a k through 12 director in each of the areas to strengthen the academic uh programs and the instructional strategies and methodologies K through 12 as opposed to having a chairperson at a high school for example that may have um three teaching assignments and then point4 of their assignment being a chairperson so we were looking more at a director level

089uh recommendation I'm just looking at the cost I know so my my only concern is we have uh a problem now um filling 144 positions um you know I I would hope we have a plan in place on how we plan on Advertising if we were to go forward with this um to try to sell it uh to be able to fill these positions but um you know that's 221 positions that we're talking about that we would need to fill um for next the next school year and not only that too my my other question would be would would we be able to sustain this moving forward for the next few years sustaining financially oh in terms of in terms of financially correct in the budget so so yes what what what when we get

090to the the numbers uh in a couple of slides you'll see that we've we've built this out and you'll you'll see where it all adds up um and um you know we provided you with a revenue budget um the expenditure budget in putting all of this in place and you'll see some other areas that have decreased such as the transportation budget um we've put this all into a budget that that will balance um and then moving forward that's your starting point so you would you would have that and you'd be looking at uh contractual increases for the future years for all of these different positions just as you would you'll be looking at the increase in um state aid on the revenue side and such so on and so forth so the plan um and

091the budget that we've built includes all of these things um and you know you'll see that as we as we get to the numbers but yes the plan as we've as we've talked about um we would be able to to fund this budget um as with what we're proposing so the reason answer yes the reason why I asked that question too is because over the years positions were created Administration changes positions get cut and um that is what leads up to us where we at now where it we have an issue um finding people to fill positions because you know there's no you know they don't know if they're coming or going so it's like I we need to make sure that um you know it's set in stone and that whatever we are putting

092in place we can see it um continuing 5 10 years from now for example I see there's a from the budget vacancies we have 10 teaching assistants which are vacant full-time teaching assistant and now you're requesting another 25 we can't fill 10 how do you plan to fill 35 how will it look come next year when we find ourselves with 35 vacancies in this look to see what the children need and what we can that still doesn't change what we need to try to get if the children need another 10 assistance just because we don't have I understand what you're saying but that shouldn't change the fact that oh we need for I'm not sure we need let's first fill the vacancies and then we'll know what we need we have no clue anic you

093could speak to because this is an indepth conversation those are good questions and we have certainly struggled with filling our vacancies there's no question um but there were really some strategies that we could have been using that we were not using in this District that we're hoping to put in place now um so we have quite a few we're we're kind of hopeful um so we're I'll just share a couple quickly with you um one is to tap into our graduating class our graduating senior classes at the two high schools so um a teaching assistant position as well as a um as a building level sub would be uh good positions for graduates who may not be going to to college during the day um you know so that they would be able to earn

094an income get benefits and maybe go to college at night if that's what they are are if that's what their story is so we would be working with the high school leadership to help identify some folks like that these would be you know people in our own Community um that might be bilingual bicultural so a good match for us we're also um going to be participating in four job fairs um and one of them we will be hosting ourselves for our local community um where we um try to encourage um folks from the community to fill some of a lot of the positions actually that that we think that they could fill through the Civil Service as well as of course through the uh the teaching assistant which is um a very easily obtainable certification

095so we can provide some support for them teaching them how to get the certification we've had a brief conversation today about a potential program with that rockn boses is offering um to help people become teaching assistants and also one that we may be able to mimic ourselves um so um in addition to that um sadly when I first um came here in U December of 2023 I did a historical look back to see how we were hiring folks and when we were hiring them and I the year prior I saw that there were um a tremendous amount of hiring in October so they started the school year with with a lot of vacancies and hiring in October is not conducive to attracting the best candidates at all so all of the districts are are hiring

096now not now but in April and May and June for September so um we are putting together um central office committees um we're going to be putting together committees for the summer and uh we're going to do the four job fairs that we discussed and we're going to be looking at um different and Creative Solutions like we mentioned um to assist us in filling things like the teaching assistant positions and some of the other civil service positions so I am hopeful that we will be able to um fill a lot more of the positions than we have in the in the previous years will we fill all of those positions by September very unlikely but um the other thing we're doing is we are um in communication with colleges in the area trying to work

097with them to help us create a pipeline for um people who are studying to become teachers um bilingual teachers inl teachers um and teachers in this area again same type of thing firstly we can offer um student teacher experiences for them more than we have in the past so that you know we get to know them they get to know us we'd be able to hire them if we want or they want that's want to is um potentially offering um positions to folks who may qualify for what's called an internship certificate these are um students who are studying to become teachers but have not finished their degree yet the state allows them to come in under a specific certification and certain requirements um and also to work with these um colleges to uh attract people

098who are about to graduate both in December and in May so those are two areas of the Year where for graduate from college that we could um try to connect with the colleges and and have them come in to fill our vacancies so we're really trying to make all those efforts and we have you know um an infrastructure in place and then a developing infrastructure for for improving our hiring um practices in the district so I do think that we'll see um the fruit of our labor so I I know it was said with that um this was shared with all the districts in Rockland Rockin Bose is having is offering a silver service 101 um exemp prep class next month are we sharing that with our community as at all um to take advantage

099of that to see how that can help us we're that's we were talking about that we're going to look into that they also have an adult ed program where they offer um certification for teaching assistance assistance and helping them do that we might be able to create our own so yes we are going to be looking at that so 221 positions which is vacant is the this being calculated into the new budget in full so some of them are already in the budget the the ones that we from but but it's in Surplus because it wasn't filled so it's in Surplus so but now you're adding on in the new budget again so it's going to be double Surplus if it's not filled we were to add and not fill any positions yes it would

100create so why don't we just not put it in the budget and when it's filled take it from the Surplus and continue next year because we're we're we're looking to we're looking to build the budget again with what we believe is needed to properly service the student population correct um currently we don't have a lot of these things and um as a result of that you there were comments before about our scores right so our scores exist for a variety of reasons but um in our in the work that we've done uh with the team um in in looking at the data and uh looking at other districts where the there were there were visits that are done to other school districts that have better scores than us um not necessarily um by that I

101don't mean that we've gone to Scarsdale and chap we've gone to other school districts that have similar um student populations to us that are doing better and and we need to put into place some of the things that they do fully understand to make our numbers better and again I'm not the expert on that that's my colleague but that's not my question I'm I'm not talking about I'm not talking we're hopeful to fill all of it but we do have money and surplus against this positions that we didn't fill last year so it's in the budget from last year we don't need an increase um we don't to we don't need to on the vacan on the vacancy side I wanted to suggest this same thing since as well it looks to us I'm not

102sure 100% that we have $100 million in reserve maybe we don't look at increasing tax we look last year we did it because we were forced to take out of Reserve funds maybe when we build the budget this year we're looking in to start with taking from those reserves and like this we could give a break for our community about tax we have the money let's take roll over some of the reserves into this budget if it's 20 million or 90 million whatever it was we were ready to take it out last year we ended up having a lot more than that because above that 19 we ended up with 30 maybe we build it into our budget since a half of these are questionable if we are even going to fill let's take a

103bulk amount of whatever amount is to start the budget with and not go to Levy just take it out of reserves that that's certainly a part of of the conversation that we're going to be having absolutely we understand that all we understand that all these things un needed we do not want to take it away we actually believe that if this is going to help it's very helpful we should have it but we have money sitting in reserve let's take it from there and not take it out from people that are struggling to pay their bills and it's my understanding we're not allowed to keep more than 4% in reserve it's not legal right okay added interest in uh finishing at around 10:00 let's move on okay we still have a lot to discuss right

104continue this so so let's we we we're we're we're getting there we're we're almost toward the the the the end the one other uh piece that um we have looked at is again uh discussed a little bit earlier positions that are uh in the current year budget being paid out of federal grants we have 14 assistant principales at our various school buildings um point8 uh FTE of a teacher on special assignment which is which so teacher teacher on special assignment is doing administrative work but is uh hired as a teacher so it's it's an administrative uh position but currently funded out of one of the federal grants and similarly a08 uh out of clerical so what what was your question about that no question so what that means is is that current no no it's

105not the workload the the people are full-time but we we fund their salary from different places so right now of those 2.8 02 is already being paid for in the general fund we'd be moving the remainder of their salary back in that's currently being funded by a federal program Los the we're not losing the grant again we're just removing them the grants the grants are for a lot of different purposes um but because of previous things that have happened in the budget years ago or could have been two three four years ago there was not sufficient uh funds in the general fund budget to cover those positions so they were kept in the budget or added to the budget out of Grant funds that could be used for other things and the appropriate place we

106we still have other positions that are in that are in Grants and they're in they're in the proper grants in proper places uh that we believe they should be in but these particular positions We Believe are really part of the regular general fund education that should be provided out of out of there which is why we're moving the could we get a dollar amount of it and what we could do with the money that we get from GRS because Grand money understand if we are not using it we losing it could we get that money to do other things instead yeah we would not so we'll be able we'll be able to cover other things from the budget with this money just it's not the appropriate way to to use it for these amount for

107these so not necessarily other things from the general fund budget so a lot of the grants that we have are supposed to be supplementary to the to the regular education but because uh over the course of time we've been required or well not required but have opted to pay for some of these positions that should be in the General Grant we haven't been able to get the supplementary things that the grants are intended for um for instance so I guess maybe not today but maybe the next board meeting can we get a breakdown of what that looks like inter intervention services things like that that um are not necessarily a part of the the the general education so like the assistant princip for example is this part of the 77 could we fund some of

108these people that we have on our wish list no no these are these are people that are already employed no the 77 expenditures on our wish list could be fund with these grants some of these uh systems or cultures or things well the answer is yes we could certainly do that but then why would we bring these back in what the the purpose of the purpose of these funds uh as the grants are set up are to create uh additional Services above and beyond what is part of the regular educ are we going to give it or the money will sit and we'll lose it no no no the the the the intention would be to use it and that will also be a part of what we discuss as so we'll have to find

109people to do the extra things otherwise we're going to lose the money it's not necessarily people it's not necessarily salaries some of it is in it could be gr it could be professional development it could be that you know those type of things where now we're taking those monies and putting it through PD the other thing we have to be careful of is that you know we don't things are happening in on the federal level right and if some of these Grant monies are are are taken away we want to make sure that we are you know we have these people in our regular budget what I'm concerned is if we won't have what to use it we are going to lose it this is our federal yeah no we're not believe me you grer

110we won't lose it I mean we're going to speak to it when we tell the story the next couple of days but you know you will see that some of these monies are used by you know um special education some of them are used by ml some of them used by curriculum instruction and we can repurpose those monies yes we would never lose it thank you okay uh another piece that that that you that you'll see um that you may not have seen in in Prior budgets is a transfer to Capital and I mentioned before that um one of the one of the issues that we have here is uh is an inability to uh borrow um because of the credit rating um so something that because of our books weren't right so maybe now

111that we have 100 million surplus our credit rating will be affected as well potentially um one thing that I can tell you about uh both uh credit ratings insurance ratings things like that um they go down quickly it takes a very long time to get the support of the rating agencies uh and move back up to with the rating that we have now cly doesn't happen as quickly right now this is what let's keep on so um we have 5.25 million uh that that's in there and again when we get to the the facilities uh area and and Matt will be with us to go into more detail there a couple of items um we have original boilers uh that are that are close to end of life at lime and El Dorado um we

112have two chillers that uh will be needing replacement um at Spring Valley High School and Chestnut Ridge Middle School um we have used a uh large amount of the remaining funds from the srrp funds to begin uh the repair of parking lots and sidewalks at our schools there are an additional seven schools that will not be uh covered by that this would um one 1.4 million of that would be to that and then parking lot lighting um uh with the uh with the remainder of that uh at 850,000 um in many of our school buildings the the lighting situation at night is just abysal um it's not safe um and so there there's a lot of stuff that that has to do with um just infrastructure safety a whole combination of issues but something that

113you hadn't seen um or I I don't believe that you've seen in in your budgets before um there is a uh you can create this line which transfers Capital into your budget the the the purpose here is uh in in showing you this here and also showing you that line in the revenue side is that we're not looking um to collect anything for this it's a balance where we put five million from fund balance in the revenue side to pay for the uh the construction that would be done to to do this okay uh just quick question for the paving um when we say Paving that's Paving the parking lots correct at the school parking lots and and then concrete work on the sidewalks and staircases okay so last year we had um spring Valley's

114student parking lot that was supposed to be paved um when they came they paved a portion so we're looking at Paving the entire parking lot of these schools our parking lots districtwide are in horrible disrepair correct so correct the the the goal when we talk about this and the monies that we earmark from the srr funds it's to complete all of the parking surfaces okay thank you yeah and to add the lines and for parking and okay okay so that brings us to the um initial look at um the overall budget what you see in the leftand column is the current year budget um the middle column is the initial draft of a proposed expenditure budget um you see down at the bottom you have that interfund transfers and fund balance that I just discussed

115um so um that is there as well you see a large increase there because there was only 550,000 last year which was inter fund transfers that remains um Debt Service um you'll notice has gone down um and I'm going from the bottom up here just because I mentioned that and then I'll go back to the top um Debt Service was 2 million higher last year because we had in the budget um cost for a revenue anticipation note which was uh is something that you would borrow to get you through um the early part of the the school year before you've collected taxes something that clearly understanding our situation right now is not something that we will be needing so I've cut that out of of the budget so back to the top um Board of

116Education uh again we mentioned to you that earlier that we have a lot of things that were in our budget all over the place that were categorized incorrectly um just in working with um with Kathy on the board expenses and and and superintendence and finance where things were placed um there were some things that weren't done exactly correctly and and we've worked together to um to put them in the right places so one of the reasons that you see a large increase um uh in the in the Board of Education line and again we're going to get into much more detail on these things but just to give you an example is our translation services for board meeting were not in the Board of Education area they were being paid for out of another contractual

117line so we're trying to take all the things that are that were put in different places throughout the budget and put them in their proper areas so that's just one quick example of that and you'll see um uh you know one one would not necessarily have expected a 20% increase in the Board of Education line but that's the backstory of that so moving on down um you you see the superintendent line also goes up we talked uh in those new positions about a deputy superintendent that uh covers that um Finance has a has a small increase uh based upon that Central Services which is where we talk about District level um Administration we showed you on the um on the uh new position requests that there were a number of District level employ employees so

118that's why you see a an increase there um then interestingly when you look at general education special education and multilingual education you see decreases in general and special education and an increase in multilingual education and that is because most of our multi-lingual our elll and bilingual teachers had been budgeted for and paid for out of the regular and special education line which was not the correct area for them to be so we have a lot of things in this budget that are correcting um the things that were misplaced you'll also notice that you have um uh almost a $10 million decrease in the transportation budget which I know we've had many conversations about um so uh going through all of this um we show um an overall increase to the budget of um a little

119under $10 million and that's with adding all of those new positions making adjustments to certain areas like Transportation um and um I'm just trying why do you have 67 projected budget for 25 26 67 we I I didn't hear you I'm sorry uh projected budget for 2526 proposing 67 million while last year we you're projecting for this year the current year here you're projecting we're only going to spend 57 million that's 20% increase because we only 57 we only used 57 this year that's correct we only used 57 because last year when we argued with but for for 25 26 we're projecting 20 67 that's a 20% increase because we are adding students every year but with a 20% increase it might go up prices went up what one thing that I that I don't

120understand is the first page we started out that the actual cost for how you for this year was 292 and now I see again this 338 what's the budget 292 or 338 338 is what we before the budget is 338 that's the projected spending which is a projection but the budget for the 338 is spending 338 is income say that again 338 was what we projected to spend correct no no 338 was the amount budgeted budget budget was 325 no the budget was 338 3 3 yeah the revenue is 325 projected projected revenue is 325 2425 year is done that's not something that we changed we did that last year and our budget year that's not but this budget was done last year yes and this was 325 the 19 you added because you added

121in Revenue but you didn't add this is what costs basically what you're showing is cost the expenditure budget this is an expenditure budget this is not an income budget this am I right or wrong this is expenditure this is expenditure before you said 292 and which is actually which we we are projecting that it's going to cost and here you're writing 338 so you're showing it's only we voted in we didn't vote for 338 we voted for 325 add 4.3 no was 331 was not 338 right but then you had the additional 6.7 million from taxes added into that it wasn't the 325 original plus the six so the budget is 338 the projected revenue is 325 why is this only projected when it's Revenue that's that's my question so again one of the one

122of the pieces of the revenue budget that would have totaled thex million of fund balance right so what was actually budgeted for to actually bring in was 338 less the the the 19 million in fund balance MH but the fact is that we're budgeting for 340 8 versus 292 in projected cost from last year so it's an increase of 60 million from last year's projected cost to this year's budget yes and and essentially that is um the the projected cost that that U would cover um if if all of the V of all of the all of the the vacancies were filled all of these new requests were hired all of the associated benefits and bringing in all of this plus other um you know increases in in the um in the professional development and

123and all the other things that will'll you know um be discussing with you over the next few meetings so yes and that is assuming all of those all of those costs are assumed in the budget um they're not they're not necessarily assumed in what the actual expenses would be but in creating the budget the the um yes it is it is assuming um all of those cost yes so mostly it's an employee mostly yeah so we for the most part we averaging about 272,000 per employee it's not all in employees obviously and that would include um benefits but again that number is a little high yeah it wouldn't it wouldn't be that per employee so something there are other things in there all right let's go to the pie okay H okay that that is

124the uh uh I'm sorry one more piece that we have here is also showing um in the pie chart visually the pie chart on uh the expenditures um you'll see that um obviously a school district is a service organization so the the uh bulk of what we do is in our salaries and employee benefits so if you look at adding up the three educational pieces of multilingual special ed and General Ed um and you add that to the employee benefits um it accounts for the the largest percent of the budget one of the things that that is unique to this district is the size of that slice of pie for transportation ation services and that obviously uh relates to the number of non-public students that we transport um most districts would not have 19.3% of

125their budget in in transportation but um clear would be much higher if all these children would be in public school yes those the education and employee benefit pieces usually make up um closer to 75 to 80% of of a budget in in a school district that is um that doesn't have the the non-public population that we have we have gone through those numbers that in reality we're saving a lot more than we are spending we're sa we are saving by having them in nonpublic school rather than spending course the 82 is the 82 is salaries for teachers what's the 82 Genet what Genet the red so General yeah general education special education and multilingual education are mainly salaries also and it includes equipment and it includes uh I'm trying to see what professional development but

126the majority of the costs that are in those three pieces of the pie are salaries and why do we keep employee benefits different than and why don't we keep salaries in um the way that school district accounting works is that employee benefits are in a separate area of the budget they're in the 9,000 codes they're they come at the at the end of the budget um and the all of the educational areas are in the 2000 codes um when when you get uh and and we'll be sharing with you the full um detailed document you'll see the way that everything uh is coded and works out and that's following the the coding system that's uh created by the state okay okay okay what's the last page on the slide let's talk about the there was

127one more page yes okay thank you very much Mr Stark and thank you Mr the Carlo and your whole team and cabinet obviously we still have a lot of discussions to have about this um just want to remind everyone the budget vote is going to be on May 20 2025 we also have a open position for trustee the deadline to file petitions is Monday April 21st 2025 at 5:00 p.m. the budget hearing will be May 6 2025 um I will now make a motion to adjourn this meeting unless I'm missing anything else second oh wow thank you second all those in favor say I I andone opposed say motion carries thank you and good night