BOE Work Session and Budget Hearing

001sounds great it also sounds like a nightmare at the same time good evening and welcome to the monthly work session of the board of education i'd like to call this meeting to order at 6 44 on today may 10th if everyone could please stand for the budget as well the united stands okay so i know we had a couple of minutes to look over the minutes and the agenda does anybody have any questions wouldn't like a couple minutes to look over it any further three sets of minutes [Music] a boost to yeah [Music] all right so let's move on to items for discussion and we'll start with the wi-fi on the athletic field okay so um i'm actually going to turn this over to mrs griot because um this she's done some work on this

002uh with mr fisk and she will update the board uh to the status [Music] um [Music] however when the field was um installed mr daley knew that eventually we were going to use it you know and so we did it um and you but if you want so what we looked at was the option and so um to the high school certainly the great press box but we still haven't limited for the potential uh lack of ability to attack so [Music] one it was overstanding when we looked at going and improving the line in high school surplus to the 10th building and it was at the first pass we didn't need that we feel that that's the best option uh because we want to not forget you have to really shoot now um [Music] peace

003um capabilities but we also know that we're going to have with so that's a very um that sounds good i just said just a couple of comments my own here is that when we were doing this the bond was always put out for not only athletics was put out for physical education and athletics and physical education as you know with technology driven especially from our current technology person who's a former phys ed person so right now we have no capabilities of using that for physical education unless we complete this what you're just saying so i'm very happy that the fact is that you know it's it's not about people in the stands using wi-fi no this is far far greater this is i was just shocked that if this fell out when we originally spoke

004about the bond this was all part of it and if these things were coming out somewhere along the line about fiber line versus you know direct contacts whatever that might have been we would never kept the rest of that as a boy we didn't know that was going on so that when you get hit with that at the end we have no wi-fi wait we can't run the current bluetooth headsets we can't run ipads out on the fields that becomes really you know a concern so i'm happy that we've done the legwork behind it um but i'd also like to stay ahead of everything and i and i know the bond is a big animal you know as it went through but constant updating of the board to this kind of stuff is really appreciated

005at all times thank you um i'm not familiar with the conversations that are bottom or line have been shared with the board of education um we talked about the wi-fi but we do have one um we just don't have live from the technology building to the press box which but the um and plus the bond was was really developed in 2017 2018 and i think that our reliance on technology over the past four years has greatly increased and so it was not technically a huge built into the bond to run a new fiber cable to the field so obviously now using the nhs cameras and then the huddle cameras that needs it the coaches you know are using certain apps and where it becomes difficult is the video video takes up a lot of whatever

006it is bandwidth it takes up a lot of bandwidth sorry i couldn't think of the word and um and so it's it's not reliable or stable so um that's that's really why because the increased use the the scoreboard uh has its own system built in so the computer that works the scoreboard that's that has a live a feed that it relies on so it doesn't have to rely on wifi the cameras also work on bluetooth and don't need to rely on wi-fi but we will tie them into it but they work without the security cameras but not the the huddle and the new system so my understanding is the nhs is it was nhs right nfhs yeah it was in the the gymnasium and it was working fine it was only put out on the

007field but never used because it happened so now that we were going to huddle we never had any we didn't we never tested it because it happened so those cameras were only installed right before code had happened and weren't used so i guess at that time it wasn't brought up to us but again you know daily we know that in the future because everything is increasing but eventually the most important thing is underneath the positions [Music] and that's great does the fiber line need its own conduit can it share it with anything or you know i i know sometimes he has his own yeah [Music] um so there's no additional funds being used for this they're being taken from the security you said and tech funds is that this budgets money or next book okay

008thank you so much okay second item is the formation of district committee to address diversity equity and inclusion so coming up with a strategic plan and syntax so um we have been discussing um this with um i just want to pull up we've been discussing this with our administrative team um and i know the board has discussed this and has a strong desire to uh form a committee um i think that uh what we need to really think about and formulate and i have some notes is what you would like what the board would like the charge of the committee to be would you like this to be a board committee obviously you know any committee would of this type we would really want to include a diverse group of parents community members students and

009staff but what would be the specific charge of the committee and we we had discussed also it would be best because you know this is such an important topic to bring someone in who can help us to facilitate such a committee and can bring the knowledge and the skills to address this in a meaningful way so i know mr kilgitz had uh recommended someone we've also been working with a consultant for really five years in the district doing a lot of training doing programs for our students as well uh so uh mr tomaso and i will be meeting on thursday with um mr brown who is the consultant that mr kilgus had recommended we did have a meeting with dr kaplan our consultant we have been working with as well so we will and we

010do have a few other names so we would really like to thoroughly look at you know who's available who would be a good fit and then really get some direction uh from the board as to what you see the um the goal of it of it being obviously our um dei policy um is very comprehensive um and there is a lot that the administration has already been doing to address the dei um policy and implementing various programs but um specifically this committee would be to um what would the charge of this committee do so would it be we are already committed to providing equitable opportunities and support for us diverse students making sure that we have programs that every student has access to regardless of their race gender socioeconomic status and the like and i

011think we are doing a good job at that we're looking at our data to analyze um access to those programs like uh data for instance in ap classes data in our ais program um so we are currently analyzing that and that's certainly something that can be reported out on in the fall to see uh if we have disproportionate numbers in in any particular group or are we equitably providing services based on on access and need um and then um so what aspects of our policy would this committee address so um creating and maintaining a welcoming and inclusive and equitable school climate uh providing curricular materials that represent and affirm student identities provide provide professional development which is something we're already doing that supports innovative inclusive and culturally responsive teaching and learning and i think we've

012been addressing that on goal through the last number of years it's it's an ongoing process these goals are ongoing it's not something where you're going to say okay we're done and you know we've achieved uh everything in the policy i think it's a uh it's something that we would continue to address um you know another a possibility or part of either the committee or the strategic plan is to recruit retain and develop a diverse faculty and staff that is part of our policy collaborating with community partners to provide access and opportunities for students amplify student voices and encourage student leadership opportunities in this area and of course provide inclusive programs that strengthen the emotional and physical wellness of our students as well as our staff so those are just some um thoughts that i pulled

013together and um i think we can certainly present um something a format uh or i can send something home we could have a special meeting where the board would like to discuss that with the administration we can have a subcommittee of the board meet with the administration so um if we could talk about what is the board's vision going forward and then we can certainly present what a vision for the committee might be or some various options for the committee as a charge because i think it's very important that we have a clear charge you know committees that don't have a charge can often go awry and we really want to have an objective um and that objective obviously is going to include hearing the different voices in the community because that's important but to

014what ends so um obviously that's part of the process but the goal and the charge of the committee would be i think it's important to formulate something um so that's um pretty much where i am now as far as um syntax goes i did reach out i put this in the board update i did reach out to syntax and they were very supportive of our communication subcommittee because that is their chart i mean that is their role in their firm as they are communications firm when i reached out and talked to them and discussed what their role would be moving forward in a diversity equity and inclusivity committee in the community they felt that it was um that that's not their area of expertise and that their role would be to um their role would

015be to help promote a call for members through the district website and social media accounts promote the committee um its goals and its progress and success with press releases and articles uh as necessary and um you know really report out to the community um on what we are doing because obviously this work is critical and it's important that the community know what we're doing so that's the role that they would play not really to formulate agendas or to collaborate on the committee because it's not their area of expertise whereas communication was so i have a couple of things from everything you just said is that i think it should be a subcommittee just like the communications was a subcommittee and the subcommittee should then meet with integral parts of the three buildings you have your

016administration in each of the three buildings we have we have parents in each of the three buildings and we have students in each of three buildings integral parts they need to have part in this okay plus the last part would be that becomes community because those three parts make up the community of our schools so the community encompasses all those three parts with those three parts then using the strategic plan because now we're building the strategic plan and in the strategic plan to make sure we address all of our policies on dei that we went ahead and approved and we're constantly looking at them all right so that now this subcommittee would use the strategic plan to make sure they're following as a school district we're following okay all the dei that should be included

017here all right to make sure our students parents okay community members are all having what they need to have okay as far as feeling of security syntax i also believe though is a very integral role here because their their role is communications so when we hire outside people um we've had as we just said somebody worked with the district for years now we're looking at somebody else right now um their their role would be everybody has to be trained on this committee you just can't put a bunch of people together from all over the place and say you're a committee i went through this with the long island nets and erased racism and we formed our committee our dei committee okay for section 8 which is all of nassau county athletics and what we did

018is we provided for every member that was on this committee okay training from erase racism and what they did is they carefully covered every aspect of dei language vocabulary so that everybody was understanding of all types and creeds races religions everything okay of where we are today integral part the committee needs to be trained that training should take place okay we did it via zoom because it was easier to get to everybody because it's intensive training they use videotapes they use there's a there's a hundred different ways they come at you but the great part about this is that everybody on that committee is on one level they all know the language they all know where they should be going there's no implicit biases even though they exist in people and they will always exist

019in people they will understand how they exist in people and they will be able to work together okay to come up with respect and dignity for everybody when they're talking around the table so that's strategic plan key ingredient go back to syntax for a minute okay trainings by the way is the second key ingredient the committee needs to be trained the third one is syntax because syntax is a communications vehicle that the district employs and they know how to get information out properly uh timing of information the last time we had our subcommittee with syntax they were astute on other districts who tried to roll things out too quickly or not not fast enough they know how to roll things in long island schools so they need to be part of the committee the agenda

020building no not necessarily okay because that's where your professionals would come in but more so syntax needs to be able to be able to make the calls of rolling things out as the board hears them and then moving them forward and that's exactly the way that subcommittee went the last time so i'm welcoming all of this i think that we're off to a fantastic start i think by investing in the principles of three principles in each building to select their subcommittee this ingredients of students parents and faculty members within those buildings part of it it all makes it come together it empowers each and every building and i'm welcoming to you know for a board member or two to serve on the subcommittee when they meet and discuss issues that need to be discussed within

021this district and then bring them back to the board that will allow board meetings to be held okay where those letters that were being written all the time they will go to the subcommittee and they will deal with those letters okay because they have that kind of time and energy level and then brings it to the board so the board can really look at policy because that's the only thing we can look at that's the only thing we can decide in this district is policy okay and we will have that ability and also with from from hearing everybody would also know that we have to where we have to go to for the administration to find out why that might be occurring in a particular building why hasn't a student been looked at in a

022particular building or heard properly if that was the case all right now the principal is alert from that from the subcommittee so a lot of great things will come out of the subcommittee and the biggest thing i i remembered from our self-hoodie we had on communications is it stops the gravy train and the gravy train in my book is always that everybody is saying things but the reality is it's said in a different way than it's happening so that's why the subcommittee to me is so important i thank you uh superintendent ruiz for looking at this right now okay for starting this off okay so that you know as as you move on and you know no longer with us we have now a foundation that you built for the future okay to keep us

023going thank you i also think it allows for a two-way conversation so people you know in the community what we're doing here in the district you know we got a report from the professional development with dr kaplan and we saw all the wonderful things in the way in which dei was being um i guess addressed or implemented in in the classrooms and by the teachers in each of the schools and we heard from the students we had the quotes from the students and the quotes from the teachers and where we are now and where we're going to go because we want to keep improving and getting better and i think if more people know that then they might understand a little bit more about the wonderful things that are happening here so we have been

024doing the work and and and obviously we have not publicized what we've been doing uh enough you're right we have you're absolutely we have a right of a lot of professional development and even you know student uh students workshops that have been provided over the last couple of years so um we are proud of the work we've done but as i said before it's obviously not enough something that we need to continue to do ongoing and um i think to engage students in as you described miss developers engaging students in and having a voice not just receiving the training but formulating it identifying where the needs are and having greater discussion and communication across all the different levels um i i do think it's you know i know some districts and communities have engaged people

025from not just parents and students and faculty and administration and the board but people in the greater community because that can also extend as we did with our engage every family we did that with our strategic plan and because this can't be done in isolation in the school district the school district is a part of the community and so i think including community members who also have a strong voice who may not necessarily have students in the school would be important and helpful that's a great point and that point i think that another thing that the subcommittee would be able to at least communicate and deliver to local government okay within the village itself and sort of like an action plan that's happening within the school district and extending it all but like kristen just

026said to have that open conversation back and forth and how can both of us assist as we all said the last time we it's a careful get there because we have to worry about the school district first you know it's a microcosm of the community but the schools and when we heard those children get up and say the schools failed us they didn't say the community failed us they said these rockaway schools helped us so that's our charge and as a board member i'm really hyper now sensitive to that charge and the charge where i want to make sure that the subcommittee services our schools and our students and our parents first yes they are part of the community they need to be part and that's probably a second subcommittee you know extension to go

027out to the village so what would you like the next step to do i think we should outline exactly the stakeholders that we think should be involved which we have oh we've been talking about this for quite some time but i think what we need to do is outline the specific stakeholders that we would like to see involved and start putting pencil to paper in in terms of who and how many from there we can also or in parallel we should be putting together our business plan so to speak or our our purpose our our statement what we stand for i mean it's it's one thing to appreciate our differences but it's another thing to focus and encourage what unites all of us and if we're able to not demonstrate but if we're able to

028put that out to our community to our stakeholders so that they can then filter that out to everyone else within their own networks so that they the focus really remains on loving and appreciating our our differences but really really focusing on what unites us all what are our common grounds what are our common interests why are we on the board why are people sitting in the off in in the in the seats right now it's our students it's the betterment of their education it's the whole idea of lifelong learners that are looking to to not just better their community but learn to love one another and be united and if we could focus on unity although we are academically where we're we're a school and it's all about great grades and the best programs and

029ap courses being able to you know join hands with the idea of uniting the community i think is pinnacle in what makes east rockaway so special and an amazing place to live and not focusing on what happened 20 years ago but focus on what's going to happen in the near future and our goals as a district and and maintaining that idea of unity to me that you know we have our strategic plan we have our point our important bullet points of of uh i think unity should be like at the top of that you're not uniting the community making everyone realize that you know it's not about any one individual on a team right what makes a great team it's not one person you know michael jordan wasn't incredible without scottie pippen or dennis rodman

030or everyone else on the team focusing on a team environment um and keeping that parallel moving forward and i think you'll see a big difference at in in our community as well as at the board meetings and people reading letters about how they felt 20 years ago forget about what happened yesterday let's focus on how we're going to implement a new strategy and and hold hands and and and across the finish line together if we can actually do that and put our differences aside you are going to see day and night compared to what it was and to what it is moving forward that would be my goal personally all right you're well said yeah yeah all said because the end that sounds great i think it would be helpful if the board could select

031the representatives to start with at least for now and so we could hold a planning meeting i mean we could we can sorry they may interrupt just thinking out loud we can also round robin it it doesn't have to be the same one or two or three people every time maybe it's a good idea to to rotate members so that everyone is involved in this process and that you have every single stakeholder from the boe from you know you get an administrator or two you get uh a principle in my opinion not to give anyone any extra work but i think a principal from each building should be on the committee committee if possible um and then just go right down the line it would be great to have some seniors and maybe some juniors

032or you know we can outline this we're not to sit here and outline it right now but i think we can really put that i'll put some ideas together of these specific stakeholders that we think we should we would love to have involved and and put some numbers to it you know how many community members do we want or need for that matter and and you know if we put it out there i'm sure we get a pretty good response so maybe what i'm hearing is we're signing ourselves some homework here and you know we'll start with an outline start getting down some notes start drafting maybe a mission statement that we would like we did last time i have my other notebook we took amazing notes and we have like a million ideas and

033it's we just got us we got to start now and and you know maybe advertise a little bit i'm sure there's a lot of people that would love to get involved in this we just need to know how many is too many i think that's where we need the vision and the charge for the committee so that we could put out a call for members and you know promote that promote i think we started communications we really allowed the committee really to make those charges they come up with them if we're getting an outside resource to work with this committee the subcommittee i think it's so important that the board gets an opportunity right away to hear from this individual right so the individual hears from us and all the notes that dan has taken

034and we've all talked about and then let's hear back from this individual okay what they have to offer us will it fit the bill that we wanted to fit okay of making everybody come together okay in unity with this it's so important for that because then after that training comes with subcommittee members and in the meantime trusting the administration of the buildings to come up with the subcommittee ingredients people you want to see on that subcommittee that you think are important pta people that's right you know there are so many things that the administrators will see their vision on that i don't want the board the board should not be micromanaging yes this is a subcommittee that's going to feed into the board the board has the major objectives as we all know okay and

035the policy-making is enough all right that our meetings that we will challenge with it every time that that's why the subcommittee has got to really be effective in growing their own roots and their own mission statement with it as long as it's conforming to what we've had here and and why we see it an important factor so i think our next step is asap bring in whoever we're thinking of bringing in now all right as soon as we can get a zoom with them or a live meeting with them and that meeting shouldn't be more than 45 minutes that tops you know just to hear out and and and ideas and then let it run with the administrators like everything we do as a board we allow our administrations to run the buildings we don't

036run the buildings we shouldn't be running programs this is a subcommittee okay i think it sounds like we have a good starting off point and then we'll work on this more uh next i guess within the next meeting or if we need to hold a special meeting well is there a charge now that i lisa do you have the names of the individual you can reach out to or we have the one consultant that we're meeting with on thursday oh beautiful that sounds promising thursday was great consultant that we're i on working with um and then uh i have two other leads so i think we would like to really meet mr d tomasso and i will meet with the consultants and then recommend someone to board and we can schedule a meeting i don't

037know if we have two good people if you want us to decide we'd be very happy to pick the consultant and then bring them to meet with the board i think that i mean this is if you're saying it is a board committee i would want the consultant to meet with the board to help create the vision and then you know unless you want the principles to create the vision so i guess i'm not i'm still not quite clear i think the vision is more so important that the administrators meaning principles okay are forefront in this because they're running their buildings every day they know the strong points weak points of their buildings they know where that comes from all right so in consultation with the consultant the principals the administration you know central administration

038all pull us together and then are presenting back like we always did to the board and the updates so it wouldn't be a board committee then it would be a district committee that board members would sit on because you have a board commit a board subcommittee so it's because there is a difference between a committee that the board that's a board committee and then a committee that we run in the district like the strategic plan like the engage every family board members sat on that but it wasn't a board committee right well that's why i'm not i'm not really sure about it which one would you recommend for this type of committee that you think would be more beneficial i i think well my i think i think would be great if it's a board

039committee a board subcommittee because i think the board feels very strongly about it and i think um you know if it is a board subcommittee it shows commitment by the board i don't want to speak for you i mean i think we're very committed i don't think anyone questions how committed we are as a board i i i think you had the right idea dom it should run through the principals who control their school their their buildings and we should certainly be there to help and support if we're coming up with the committee and telling everyone what they want to do or you've heard some of the feedback that that happens at some of these meetings you know we're going to start telling everyone what they want to know i think that's a bad way

040for us to start that's not what we did when we had the communications committee but there was a clear charge for the communications subcommittee and it was a board committee and it there is a qualitative difference and a procedural difference when it's a board committee versus a district level committee so you know that i think either way is fine it's just to define what what might work better a committee with board sits on it or a board committee where the board creates the vision for it and then the committee works collaboratively because the committee did work collaboratively but we did meet don uh and neil and i and then pete and dom and i met to formulate the agendas so that that you know that's a little bit different because the board drove the committee

041a district level committee um the district administrators drive the agenda is the board inclusive enough in a situation like this and i say that because i've heard things like there's five white faces up there or whatever maybe we should have a very inclusive committee from the beginning that is not the board telling everyone what to do but the board in full support yeah offering our support you talk about inclusivity what i'm hearing is yeah i think it's a better way to do it whoever's on the committee can help with the charge so everyone has an equal voice i tell you why it's so important and you guys bring up terrific points and lisa thanks for bringing us our attention even to to delineate this part because i've seen way too many times and we all

042have seen as as teachers in the buildings policies that never even know exist because they're not daily part of your job in the classroom and i would hate to sit down and have this subcommittee okay advise the board and the board for policy and then there's the disattachment that's right to the buildings there's a disattachment to kids so what we need to do is take slowly totally attached to that and that administrative committee that you just said lisa from the buildings that that really fits the bill that's that's terrific yeah i think you know i think the vision and the um the charge can be broad enough that then bringing that to the committee train i think the training is really training absolutely training is key and then the committee can can set you know

043you could have even just a a steering group of people who can meet to set the agenda at the end of each meeting you know if it's a large committee you could have maybe five people with representatives to drive the agenda that can determine the course you know how the committee is going to operationalize or implement what the vision or the charge is so so that's you know i think that would be helpful so we will bring it back to the administration i just knowing all my years uh you know chairing committees if we're not clear about what what our vision is and what our charge is to accomplish even in a very broad sense um i think it doesn't go as well so agreed we can work on something that we will share with

044the board we can prove what we come up with for the charge and then we can start uh inviting i mean i would think it's uh a great as we as we've done with strategic planning it's not like we get 800 members to put a call out to um you know if you want to limit it to parents and students and faculty and administration that's fine so that you would get a broad representation rather than having the principal select the members we can certainly nudge and invite people um which we always do but i think putting out a you know general call for call to action for people families and friends moving out that we're formulating this this is what the charge is going to be and you know we're looking for a group of

045people with we're going to bring various different perspectives to the table right yeah that's exciting to get an idea of who's interested and who's yeah i think that would be great and then the real work can even start right over the summer you know prior to the school year okay i think we're in a good spot yeah yeah this is exciting it's been we've been talking and putting little plans into place along the way but it'll be great to see pennsylvania okay so those were our only items on our agenda um for those people that are tuning in we are sorry for the delay there was uh some technical difficulties um but we will be having the budget hearing next so we this concludes our work session can i have a motion to conclude the

046web session so i um everybody else in favor all right all right okay and we are now going to move on to the budget hearing the screen of the floor is all yours shall we go to the seats yeah okay so good evening and welcome to the 22-23 budget hearing um these are the topics we will be discussing so first i'd like to start out with our financial accomplishments and our long-term goals so starting back in think it's 2016 so we're getting our facilities my okay what's that better nope okay don't talk or the little robot will turn around and look at you shouldn't be this difficult and then i'll ask her to post it so people can follow i don't have access to email here this isn't myself um i don't understand why it's

047not working claire what if you put the camera further back we apologize for the technical difficulties me but [Music] if the other one was frozen yes oh i just downloaded it to the um so it should stay there okay maybe you can announce that we're going to be posting powerpoint online and it's um so is this going to be starting and people can follow all right but this is not this is my notes or anything on it anymore okay this is what happened before when i came in it didn't work i had it all set up i mean it didn't work i clicked that's why i put my used my drive no i had it all set up not working [Music] i know i did it i had it all set up jackie i don't

048know he touched it but yeah it works off the drive without a problem that works yeah but it's got to be up for this it really doesn't because i just loaded it to the desktop you just probably had to log out and do it just post it later just say we're having technical i mean i can the amount of times i don't think she has that claire what if we gave it to you and you put it on your laptop and projected your laptop onto would that work without the could camera no but then you wouldn't have sound no nevermind does that work you don't have to pull those wires um unfortunately um [Music] [Applause] all right we apologize for the technical difficulties i'm not sure uh why we're having so much trouble getting the

049image to project onto the live stream we apologize we're going to get started um and then we will post the uh presentation to the website so you can listen along and then you'll be able to see the images uh tomorrow or later tonight so good evening again and welcome to the 22-23 uh budget hearing so i'd like to start with our long-term goals and our financial accomplishments um we began planning long-term goals back in the 2016-17 school year when i began um the board of education superintendent um and i um discussed many things that we felt we needed to what we needed to accomplish so one of the um goals was to limit our tax levy increase to the best of our ability and i believe you see my little check mark for the past

050three out of the past four years we have come in below the tax levy cap meaning that the cap allows us to tax up to a certain amount based on a formula and we have chosen to come below that amount by 1.3 million dollars i think that is a significant achievement by the school district capital reserve fund um we managed to allocate 6.2 million dollars in the beginning of uh 2016 to 2019 to help offset the 2019 bond projects and we wanted to improve our digital district fiscal rating we got an upgrade to double a2 which is a very good rating a district of our size it's a good rating in general but even more so for a district of this size um we just recently had a moody's analysis which was posted and is

051on our website where we continue to maintain this even in these difficult times and it was very clear if you read on the first page that one of the reasons why we continue to carry this is due to our conservative budget budgeting which allows us to have surplus at the end of the year and continue to build our reserves reserves are needed in case of emergencies and anybody in this school district knows that we've seen our share of emergencies did it change no okay additional uh long-term goals was removing the dependency on the capital reserves to support our annual plant maintenance and annual capital projects so what this is we previously would reserve rely on the capital reserves for any maintenance for the plant and any annual small capital projects that is not a good

052way to run your school district these things should be part of your opera general operating budget so that there is money there on an annual basis to address these needs you can't constantly rely on reserves for things that are annual maintenance projects so we have completely come off of the capital reserves and these areas have been brought back into the operating budget in addition we were relying on 1.5 million dollars in the 2016 school year 1617 school year to bridge the gap between the expected expenditures and our anticipated revenues again not a way to uh be supporting your budget it's like taking money out of your savings account to meet your car loan eventually your savings account is going to run out so one of our biggest goals was to get off of a dependency

053on reserves and bring that money and kind of get our budget aligned with the anticipated revenues to date we've reduced it by 1.4 million out of the 1.5 million again we had anticipated having um removed our dependency on reserves completely by this uh by actually the school year but of course covet has changed a lot of things and kind of put a lot of our goals and planning a little pushed it a little back further we are now only relying on a hundred thousand dollars from reserves um another goal was to reduce our dependency for technology replacements our hardware technology plan was developed a couple of years ago uh technology has become an extremely important part of our instructional program and again we were relying on reserves to replace our hardware hardware and we haven't

054we have expanded our hardware we've gone all the way to three to twelve for one to one initiatives and built that into the budget as we expanded our one-to-one initiative and right now we're still relying on a hundred thousand dollars annually out of the reserve fund that's why you see a little box because that is our next um that's the only goal right there that we have not met and our plan is to meet that by next year capital reserve fund for future product projects we closed our last capital reserve fund and we applied it to the 2019 bond to reduce the debt service and the cost of the taxpayers at this time we feel it's time to recreate a new one so that for the next five to ten maybe 15 years we can

055start to accumulate funds in that reserve and again we'll be in a good position to offset capital expenditures in the future without an impact to the taxpayers so that's still got a little box but it is one of our propositions for this year the thing with a reserve fund is that it requires um community input to create it to fund it and to expend it so the money is put there and then we would need the community vote to allow us to use it for specific purposes so this is our budget process we begin in we begin in the fall we had four public work sessions all of them are posted um on the website for you to go and revisit um and then we had our budget adoption on april 12th a vote is

056next tuesday and this is of course the budget hearing as you all know back in several years 2015 was it we um i wasn't here the board of education the superintendent and community developed a five-year strategic plan and we have determined four focus areas when we build our budget all initiatives and all expenditures take these areas into account we don't add anything or remove anything unless we look at these four goals currently we are in the middle of a strategic plan to develop the next five years so i'm not going to read all of this to you i put it in the presentation because for those of you who have time there are presentations up here at the table for those of you at home this will be posted on the website i think it's

057important for you to understand based on that strategic plan what have we done to support it what have we added what initiatives have we taken into place not just what initiatives for this year but what initiatives have come out of that strategic plan to improve this program the instructional program for our students and so you'll see this is our staff i can i'd be happy to explain that we do use a lot of jargon in in education so i apologize for that so ais is academic intervention services those are the students who are struggling learners that are not reading on grade level they're kind of lagging behind so those are services in math and english language arts so we provide those academic services for those students enl is english new learners so those are students

058who come into our schools and are not native english language speakers and we give them support in learning the english language okay so this is the staff that we've um increased these are student opportunities that we've done over the last several years quite a bit of them quite a long list and again at your leisure you're more than welcome to review this um these are other programs that we've brought into the district over the last several years all this under at or under the tax cap additional funding to support a lot of new curriculum um a camera system so that the home games could be live streamed and the community can watch them for free so we've done a lot of really great things over the last several years these are the facility improvements that

059we've um implemented you see we've got new vehicles new buses and vans new adult edu new um adult education that shouldn't say that it should say um driver education you know so i'm reading it right but that's not what it's to say so i will correct that that's a new driver education vehicle so it has all the safety features of the most recent cause our a vehicle was old it was um in need of a lot of repairs and it didn't have a lot of the safety features of the most of the newer vehicles so we felt it was time to purchase a new one so the students were learning on a vehicle in which they will be driving in the future [Music] these are facil additional facilities improvements again these are right in the

060general fund budget we are no longer relying on reserves and these are many of the projects that we've done over the past five years so our security enhancements security for the board of education and the superintendent administration has been a top priority and over the last several years we've made significant investments um creating a safe environment for our students and our staff um so this is a list of what has been implemented in the past five years so let's get to what we're really here for the 2223 budget so currently we're running on a 41.7 million dollar budget for the 2122 school year and we're proposing a 42.6 million dollar budget for the 22-23 school year that's an increase of 869 000 or 2.08 percent budget budget which is significant there's a pretty low number

061when you take into account contractual increases however it's important to note and i write this here because it's it's unusual um living with the we had a living with the bay project here um discussions about getting the funding and the improvements here to the district facilities began back in 2015 before i even began here and they continued um until the projects were completed here in 2022 so this was a seven year process and what the district gained from this was the bulkhead around our high school fields which we desperately needed a high school parking lot in the back of the building was repaved we got a generator for the high school i and they uh renovated a high school basketball court all this done by the living with the bay with no cost to the

062district however for the seven years of work time and effort in the planning and implementation and design of this project um they re they agreed to reimburse us 230 dollars so we are receiving that we receive part of it already and we expect to receive the the remaining amount by the end of this school year so that was money or revenue that was unaccounted for so we decided well what are we going to do with that we should really use that money for projects that the district needs that we don't have a source of funding for and so we decided since all of the renovations and benefits that we got from living with the bay we're here in high school that we should use that to fund some upgrades that are needed in the elementary

063buildings so when that revenue comes in we have earmarked that revenue to be held and used to offset the cost next year and we're using 230 000 to replace to as a portion of replacing of five playgrounds at the at the elementary buildings and i'll discuss that a little further so ultimately if you really think about it a budget the budget increases only 639 000 or a 1.5 3 budget budget increase that includes keeping all of our instructional programs keeping all of our staffing and adding enhancements these are the district initiatives that we are adding for the current 2223 budget where um you going to hire a literacy coach which we already have hired who will begin in the 22-23 school year to assist at the elementary buildings we are purchasing new health curriculum for

064both our middle and high school students um replacing the computers in the high school library we have continued to support and expand our enrollment in cte programs i believe i don't know what is it six or seven years ago we had room for five students in the budget and we are now in the 2223 supporting 23 students attending the cte programs and this year in 2223 we're going to roll out our nassau community college concurrent enrollment program so a lot of really good opportunities for our students again in a budget-to-budget increase of 1.53 percent additional opportunities we have the rock orchestra which is now going to be official club it has been running for the last couple of years on a volunteer basis this will ensure that this rock orchestra will continue long term um

065the other areas that we're increasing is we're putting a junior high school winter track coach an assistant coach for our varsity winter track and as you know with our new track we are getting a larger interest um so our programs are growing and then we're going to increase our intramural programs and that's going to be which specific programs we roll out will be based on interest for the 22-23 school year so the capital improvement proposal again all funded through the general fund budget and this is where 230 thousand dollars will be used um to support this project and why now well we have several of our playgrounds are at or near their life expectancy so we have seven playgrounds five of them will be addressed this year in addition there's been a lot of concerns

066about the cleanliness of the current playground surfacing which consists of tire shreds and this has raised many concerns from our community um this is directly aligned to the focus of health and safety when determining capital projects which is one of the things we look at since health and safety is something that could be covered with federal stimulus funding we applied and were approved to use our federal stimulus funding which is outside of general funding it's additional money we get from the federal government is outside of tax levies and and the resonance and so we will use that to cover 80 percent of the replacement of the surfacing material so we no longer have the concerns of cleanliness then we have an e-rate opportunity the district is very focused on using every option we can to

067benefit the school district at the least cost of a taxpayer as you saw the federal stimulus funding using the living with debate funding for our playgrounds and e-rate opportunities is something we do each year and we use that money to [Music] improve our technology at a very limited cost for the taxpayers so this year the project is going to be putting additional firewalls at each building and that will protect us from cyber breaches spreading from one location to the other so should there be a cyber breach here in high school the additional firewalls will prevent it from spreading to raim or to cena avenue in addition we're going to have an addition of a new outdoor rated network switch for our press box and that has to do with a lot of the information we

068discussed earlier about improving our technology so e-rate projects are reimbursed at 50 from the federal government so the total um anticipated cost of this project for the current year is 32 500. we expect 50 reimbursement of 16 250 which leaves the district outlay at 16 000 250. and then we already bid out the project and boces won the project so we will then see a sixty-seven percent aid returned on that cost which will equate to a ten thousand eight hundred and eighty seven dollars so ultimately a thirty two thousand five hundred dollar project it's costing the taxpayers 5 363. so this is just another way that we utilize options and programs to save the taxpayers money it's an ultimate savings of 27 000 to the taxpayers so this is the three-part uh expenditure budget which

069takes our overall expenditure and it divides it by three different components as you can see the biggest part of our budget is expended on program and that's where it should be and then there's the capital and there's the administrative portion this is the breakdown by dollar amount what we spend what our budget for the 2122 school year was for each component what we are proposing for the 22 23 school year and what the increase was again you can see the bulk of the increase is that program and that's where it belongs so just give a little bit more detail what each component contains the administrative component is the board of education costs central administration and building the central office and building administration the entire business office insurance auditing legal and our district clerk and it's

070a hundred and eight thousand dollar increase and of that hundred and eighteen eight thousand dollars thirty five thousand dollars alone is for insurance flood insurance continues to increase here um and there's just no way around it every year you see this this year is a little bigger every year i'm talking about it's a five thousand dollar increase it's a ten thousand dollar increase but we are required by fema to keep a very large amount of uh flood insurance if we want fema assistance should we have another event like sandy so we have no choice but to keep an extremely high coverage and so as it goes up so does our expenses program component again the most important part of the uh budget this is our students it's our instructional staff our social workers our psychologies

071psychologists our health services all instructional materials all of our transportation costs athletics co-curricular athletics and this is where most of the district enhancements i would say the majority of the district enhancements are included in this part of the budget and then there's the capital component this has to do with facilities basically our security our custodial maintenance staff operations and maintenance of our buildings debt service and capital projects again i keep reminding everybody we're no longer relying on reserves we've completely brought this into the general operating budget which is why it belongs and there's only a forty four thousand dollar increase in this component so let's talk about the revenues there are many sources of revenues and they're all listed there i'm not going to read them to you this is the revenue breakdown we do

072in fact have an increase in state aid i know there was a lot of confusion based on newsday articles i'll explain that a little better in the next slide but we do in fact have an increase in our state aid and then there's various areas um we get revenue from services which is like tuition we do have some tuition students from other districts that come and attend our very well received life skills program and which we charge the other districts obviously pilot interest for money in our account and then there's the appropriated fund balance so we'll talk a little bit about the appropriated fund balance it's a lot of discussion about the district having a large amount of fund balance going around and there is a lot of confusion as to what fund balance is

073and why do we have so much left over and what do we do with it well around march february march we begin to really look at what our expenditures are coming in what what is based on our budget like anybody's budget it's never you know dead on it's a budget it's an estimate and so we look at where our our staff is do we have a lot of staff that's on a leave of absence we tend to have a lot of staff that's been on leaves over the last couple of years um and then when we fill their roles we hire staff members at lower salaries you know so there's many reasons for balances in the fund balance there's always money built there for unexpected uh emergencies but we anticipate having 1.1 million dollars and

074what we do with that money is we don't just absorb it we are actually returning it to the taxpayers and it's offsetting a tax levy so it's decreasing your tax levy this year we are almost nine hundred thousand dollars below what we could based on the cap imposed as a levy and the excess fund balance annually goes towards reducing that and then there's that living with the bay funding the money that we received for administrative um oversight and planning for the live with the bay project over the past seven years and so i've also earmarked that to be returned to offset the playground and then there's your tax levy which is about a less than 300 000 increase for the current year yes it's yes correct it's money unanticipated money this year um that made

075sense to fund a project that would be quite costly to the taxpayers so here's the new york state budget um earlier this month actually last month um the budget came out at 7.5 million dollars and when i compare it i compare it to what did we build the budget this year the 2122 budget it it doesn't make any sense to compare it to anything else because when we're doing budgeting we're looking at increased or decreased revenue compared to what we received for this year so this year we budgeted 7.6 million they're telling us we're going to get 7.5 million which is a decrease of 75 but everybody else got increased in foundation aid and this has been the topic of conversation and the biggest confusion in the community and i've i've had many conversations with

076many community residents um we were fully aware that our building aid was going to decrease significantly in the 22-23 school year and it went down by 800 000 and we knew that we knew that in 2016 2016-17 and we've been discussing this at budget meetings it's what brought about our bond project for 2019 and why did it go down because a 2005 bond the aid is now being fully funded and this is the year it's starting to roll off so when we started the conversations we started a facility committee in um and we started public conversations and public meetings as to okay now's the time to start to consider um additional bond projects that the district needs the old bond is rolling off we want to take on a new bond we want to address

077concerns in here in the district and we want to make sure we time it so that we have our borrowing that service additional money we have to lay out and time it so that the state aid the building aid that we get on our projects all comes in at the same time to produce a zero impact to the taxpayer and so we worked for years to make sure we did that so we were aware this was coming this was not a surprise to us um so it did go down what is not reflected in the state aid numbers is we have several projects that we're working on currently that will be finalized and i will close out before the end of the 22 school calendar year and that's where the 419 thousand dollars comes from

078the interest rate right now is 3.2 percent no it's not variable it's fixed so um what i did because the state cannot calculate our building aid until they have a final cost report that's a report that's filed by the district when the project is completely done checklists are all finalized and we say the project's done and all expenses have paid because we are not going to pay all contractors until our punch list is completed we're satisfied with the project at that point i file a report with the state and that triggers the building aid so the state can't calculate that for me because they don't have my numbers they don't have my reports but i can calculate it because i know what the projects are costing and i know which projects will be filed and

079completed before december 22 and as long as these projects are filed and completed before december 22. that's the state aid in addition that we will be receiving as building aid so i added that back in because i know we're going to get it so our increase overall is a 344 000. no well it was a decrease we anticipate a slight increase we had to decrease two years ago went up slightly and we anticipate slight more increase excuse me do you know what your 12th grade is all yep okay it fluctuates between uh it's been as low as about 75 to about 100 yes yeah depending on the year i don't have that exact number but i can also get i can also get that opportunity i don't want to give you the wrong information um

080the number has been increasing it's i believe it's about 55 students excuse me no they're this is k-12 in grades k-12 all the students are they're not in a class they're integrated in their regular classes and grades and they receive the services depending on their level of uh their level of learning um they receive a different amount of services either one or two periods a day of support services okay so this is foundation aid something that was promised to us many many many years ago we were flat for several years last year they committed to giving us foundation aid over a three-year period and bringing us up to where we belong last year we got 329 000 the governor uh committed to uh that plan she gave us 50 of the balance for this year

081and we are expected to get the 50 of the balance next year um the foundation aid number went down a little bit then from last year and that's because we did have a declining enrollment the prior year it's always a year behind um so it did impact us but for the most part we should be getting uh almost almost a million dollars that they owed us over a three year period and then that will continue to help so this is the use of reserves that we talked about slightly earlier in the presentation again we have significantly decreased our reliance on reserves and think of reserves as a savings plan savings account money you have there in case of emergencies unforeseen um spikes for example what's going on right now unforeseen spikes in in costs and

082inflationary costs well what we would do is we would use the fund because reserves are set up for specific costs all right so i have a reserve for the employee retirement system so if we needed money next year if there was a loss of state aid what we would do is we would offset some of the employee retirement system with a reserve and then we would use the balance the other general fund revenue to offset no what this is showing you is in 2016-17 when we first started discussing this we used to use about 1.5 million dollars we are now down to using only a hundred thousand so we're not draining from the reserves we're letting the reserves stay there in case of a a need in the future we shouldn't be using you shouldn't

083be taking money out of like a savings account as an everyday uh to fund everyday costs that should be there in case of emergencies so this is the tax levy cap in accordance with the new york state law this is not our tax levy increase it's the cap so every year we have to do a calculation based on five different variables one is consistent across the state of new york the other four are independent and unique to each and every school district so when you look in the newspaper you may see that um east rockaway has a 3.81 cap and linbrook might have a 2.25 we're not doing anything wrong they're not doing anything right it just happens to be based on multiple variables that that are inside of the calculation that has been set

084by new york state so every year i i present this and i'm supposed to let you know based on the cap what is the maximum amount of levy that i can impose against our taxpayers where we only need a simple majority if i were to go over that levy i would need a super majority so nobody really goes over the levy but many districts stay right at the tax cap and we did for many years but as i said earlier in the presentation one of our goals was to be able to bring in a good strong budget with enhancements for the students and not half the tax to the maximum especially when you have a tax cap at 3.81 this year is a little bit higher but since it's been in place the tax cap

085formula over the last 11 years our average in this school district the cap was at 2.21 that's what the average was and that's what we could have increased but that's not what we're increasing so this screen shows you what the tax levy increase is for the 22 23 school year although our cap was 3.81 we're putting out a budget that is um that's is supported by a 0.93 percent increase to the tax levy so that's 2.88 below the tax levy cap which is a significant difference and if you see three of the past four years we have brought in our budgets below the tax levy cap so we've asked we've put out step strong sound budgets maintaining improving our program and yet managed to do it without increasing our tax the cost of the taxpayers

086at the maximum amount we've kept it below and since the tax levy cap has gone into effect the average increase for this district has been 1.84 over 11 years that's that's really an incredible um number very low considering all the improvements we've done um in the district well they were we had 2001 and a 2002 bus so both we had a van at 2002 and the 2001. very old a well maintained but what was happening is we weren't able to get some of the parts and then our driver was going from one junkyard to the next until he found it and it was starting to get a little frightening so this is the estimated impact of the tax levy to our average homeowner again we get the average assessed value from nassau county we don't

087have anything to do with assessed values such values on our property is done strictly by nassau county although they like to put east rockaway school district phone number in big bold print we have nothing to do with the assessed values um they're telling us the average is 458 um that's based on a report provided in april of 2022 meaning this budget would be an increase of 101 dollars annually so in this budget vote we have three additional propositions so you will see four propositions on your ballot this year a little bit more than we're typically used to so i just want to go through what each one is first capital reserves what is the capital reserve i think we've covered this probably several times already um it's a savings account it's kept separate and outside

088of our operating budget for expenditures for specific uses it must be authorized by the voters and usually through a proposition or a special vote they're different from operating budget because their their expenditures come from the reserve funds and you have to authorize those specific uses and it's no additional cost it's money's already there it's already sitting in the reserve for specific purposes and then we had to present it and the community decides whether or not we should move forward i'm sorry let me go back that i have a number we had a 6.2 million dollar capital reserve fund that we applied to the 2019. so once we exhaust it if we were using a piece i think i'm going the wrong direction here hold on a second yeah if we exhaust it totally and we

089have funded it completely we have to re-establish one for the technology i i did uh recommend that we use the hundred thousand dollars out of our technology we serve and you'll see that that's in the next slide okay let's go okay we skipped over proposition two going the wrong way okay here we go okay so proposition the second proposition proposition one is your budget vote always there's proposition one you're voting on the budget for the following year anything after that will be proposition two three four whatever proposition two is that hundred thousand dollars used for technology we we're that is the only reserve we are using annually for what is basically general operating expenses our goal was to not be relying on this to supplement a hardware replacement plan but our technology needs have expanded

090tremendously during covid um and so we've only got it down by a hundred thousand dollars and our plan or hope is that next year we will be completely off of the use of reserves this is to no additional cost for the taxpayers the money is already in the reserve we just need approval from the taxpayers to utilize it to support our plan i hate not having a click up okay proposition three the third proposition you'll see is the establishment of a capital reserve fund for building improvements i call it number three because we've had two already what this is is establishing um for future capital projects so i talked about the 6.2 million dollars that offset our bond that reserve was capital reserve for for improvements and repairs too that's closed we used all of

091that money that was accumulated since 2004 to offset the cost of the bond so that there was 6.2 million dollars that we did not have to fund and we we did not have to tax the taxpayers for or take debt service from so what this is again long-term planning we obviously are addressing our needs right now but we know in the future we will have other needs now it's the time to establish a new one and when there's money available we will fund it so the term will be 15 years which is right when the 2019 bond will expire um we're going no more than 15 million plus any interest that we accrue it will be funded if there's any excess funding um from expenditures we will allocate it to the reserve we can allocate

092other reserves there if we need it it enables the district to reduce the cost of the taxpayers by using these funds again for uh large capital projects without having to borrow um and the key to this and the most important part of this is there is no uh spending from this without voter approval this is for the future this is in the next this is probably for 15 years from now so what we're doing is every year we we're going to be going out every 15 years or so when one bond expires we'll probably go out for more capital improvements because the district will need some some upgrades in 15 years so this is long-term planning so we create it we accumulate funds and then in 15 years when we start that well actually probably

09312 years when we start to talk about what's going to happen the 2019 bond is going to expire building aid's going to roll off debt service which is like your payments your loan payments it's going to roll off what projects does the district need now and there will be money set aside to offset those costs right and this is this is for the future this is not a bond this is a like a savings account that will put money in for the future just like we use the 6.2 million for the for the um 2019 bond we had a fund like this that was set up 15 years before that well that's up to that's not to exceed that's not that's not to exceed and it's not like we're asking for taxpayer money that's a

094cap it's just a cap the last one we had was 7 million if we get well this isn't a bond it's a savings account no no no no no this is like having a savings account like well we have a special account and then if there's excess funding we can put it in there we're not taking we're not borrowing we're just accumulating funds over the next 15 years so that when we're ready to do more capital projects when the 2019 bond expires we will have money set aside to offset the cost for the taxpayers this comes from any excess funds from the budget so if i go out and i have a budget um and there's money left over because i have a lot of leaves or i have reduced expenditures maybe my transportation costs

095come in lay lower and then we have excess funding we can put it in this savings account so that in the future the taxpayers do not have to fund not this we couldn't but before but we could use fund balance to do that like i do like i showed you we use a million dollars every year we would do that first we would reduce our tax levy first and then excess funds would go into here this is only long-term planning um to enable us to not have to take out so much bond borrowing in the future um but it's no cost to the taxpayers as i put up there that's what this that's what this is about so that i can try and explain it um it's really setting up a savings plan for future

096it's long-term planning and it's setting up an account like we did in 2004 and then we used that money in 2019. it's the same concept it's now we've exhausted the prior one so that we offset the cost from the taxpayers for the 2019 2019 bond and we are now work doing the exact same thing okay all right and then the last proposition proposition four is transportation eligibility so why do we have this proposition on this is a petition submitted from our residents the purpose is to revise the mileage guidelines to provide transportation to students in grades k to 8 who reside at least one mile from the school they legally attend so basically what it reduces our our current policy is that we provide transportation for students k-8 who live two or more miles this

097petition which was submitted by residents is asking us to provide transportation for students who live one or more miles so it's actually increasing the transportation the district would provide well we are required to put the proposition on because it was submitted by the residents so we submit the proposition to the residents we we respect the community and then the community in whole has the right to approve or disapprove this um and this revision is not only k to eight private and parochial schools because you can't treat one group of students different than another group of students so if you want to reduce the mileage from two miles to one mile it must be for all students in district and private and parochial so in order to do this we did an analysis based on our

098current enrollment and we identified there are 70 students that would be eligible for transportation if we decreased it from two miles to one mile that transportation to either the junior senior high school you did a little there's a little section in bay park area that's more than one mile but less than two miles that little group of students would get about get a transportation and then there are students in two other private and parochial schools that would get transportation as well correct correct and so based on those 70 students and where they live and what schools they attend it would require that the district contracts out for an additional van an additional bus and increases a vehicle that right now is a van to a bus because by going from two miles to one mile

099that particular parochial school is increasing the amount of students that get transportation well it's individual it it's based on the residents and and you know it's not one person she you know the one person put a petition out you need to get a certain required amount of signatures and that required and manage per board policy has been met and so we are we respect the community and now it's a community's decision and so what is the impact of this proposition should it pass it will increase or the budget that we propose will go up by a hundred forty six thousand one seventy eight and that was calculated based on the current year's contractual cost for buses we don't know what next year is going to be you know because we're waiting for cpi and we

100go out for buses every year it could be more than that but right now based on this proposition it's a 146 000 increase it takes the tax levy will increase from point nine three to one point three nine percent because we have to uh levy for the additional money and then the yearly impact to the um average homeowner goes from 101 dollars to 151 dollars so you know we're only the current budget that we're proposing is less than a 300 000 increase in the tax levy this is another 146. it's almost 50 percent more than what we originally proposed so this is our ballot it's very small very hard to read but i thought it was really important to point out that it's very important that the community vote for everything on this ballot so

101proposition one which is up at the top is for the vote the annual the annual budget we have to say yes or no you approve or you disapprove down in the bottom right hand corner those are our trustees so you should vote for that as well but when we're talking about propositions proposition two you need to either say yes or no for the technology reserve that's the hundred thousand dollars to support the technology hardware replacement proposition three is to establish that capital reserve and then proposition four is to expand the transportation eligibility so every single one of the propositions must be voted on so if you just vote for the budget then you're not voting for anything else so you should vote for every single proposition that you should vote for every proposition absolutely you

102should voice your opinion let us hear you no that's not my role that's your role um so what happens i hate this part what happens if the budget goes down it's kind of silly it's only a 300 000 increase but what happens if the budget goes down we can have a revote on the third tuesday of june and the board has three options we can reduce the budget that we proposed and go out with a different number on june 21st we can just put the same number out and let you re-vote on june 21st or we could just go strictly to contingency and not have a second vote because the second vote does cost money so what are the rules on contingency if we should fall under a contingency budget the tax levy cannot be

103increased so that 0.93 percent increase would turn to zero this would require that we reduce the budget by 295 000 and non-contingent items would have to be removed which means all equipment would have to be removed transfer the capital for building improvements so that money that we were talking about for the playgrounds would be removed student supplies that can be purchased by parents and guardians has to be removed and then community use of our facilities would have to require a fee he could not allow our community to use our facilities free of charge um so that's what the contingency rules are so in summary we have four propositions on the ballot each and every one of them must be voted on or should be voted on individually the budget the budget increase is 2.08 percent

104tax levy is 0.93 and a contingency budget would mean a reduction of 295 000 dollars and there is although it's been changed please note it's been changed to 7 a.m to 9 00 pm um it used to be start at 6 30 and at 9 30 we had very little turnout in the hour before half hour in the morning and a half an hour at night so now the vote is between 7 am and 9 pm questions surprised there will be an opportunity to look for some energy cost savings at that time yes so um the reason we held off with a solar panels is because with an energy performance contract it it guarantees that the money we save in energy offsets the total cost of the upgrades to the building so when we gave

105it a lot of thought we were going to start with an energy performance contract initially and then go to the bond and when you really thought about it it made no sense because we replaced all the heating air conditioning throughout the district right which will reduce on its own the energy so cost so when you do an energy performance contract they do an analysis on your expenditures on energy and then they guarantee that it will be reduced by a certain amount of money with these upgrades solar is one of the ones that we definitely have our mind set on but i don't want it to be compared about against our inefficient energy systems right now our inefficient heating system i wanted to put our efficient heating system in first and then make them develop a

106plan in which they would save even more energy for us to offset the plant offset the cost of solar all the led lighting inside the district so we kind of strategically placed it to benefit the taxpayers but in the fall the um the voters approved expending additional funds from the bond that were not used to um improve the hvac systems in both the elementary schools so down the road there will not be window air conditioning yeah that's our goal there'll be efficient systems at both elementary schools much like we're putting in the high school here but that will not happen this year it will be happen in subsequent years they're all going to be part of the complete heating and air conditioning with the universe in the system so that all the window air conditioners

107will be removed they have that down there yes that's what it's like yes that's what they're going to do here this building should be done um in hopefully the end of the summer so that when we open up in the fall there'll be no window conditioners there'll be like the unit vents on the walls which will do both heating and air conditioning and then we hope to expand that and complete that in both elementary buildings next year yes they're putting in they're currently putting in the pipes now in various places in this building and they're going to be taking out all of the old system and then many of these units have already been delivered you'll see big boxes around them yeah there's boxes all over the district yeah that contain the units no no

108it's all inside the building yeah so that is you know so we we talked about an energy performance contract i believe in 2017 and we gave it a lot of thought like we do with everything in the district we do we think about long term we think about what's in the best interest of the district and what's going to be financially the best thing uh process and so we swapped it and we decided let's do our bond first let's reduce our energy costs and then let's make it a little bit more difficult for the energy performance contractor to offset and find other ways for us to save money because i didn't want it based on inefficient energy systems at the moment so that will be step actually phase phase three because we're we're gonna have

109phase two will be the elementary buildings yeah well we got a lot we yeah we designed it for this building and um we did a wing um kindergarten wing over in uh center um and we did a couple of the the library no not the library the auditorium or the ap room um yeah and center had it in the library we did no we did the ap room and the gymnasium in center as well as the kindergarten classroom that was what the initial bond covered and in rain we were doing the library and um the gymnasium and cafeteria right so then when we were coming on the budget and we were concerned about the ventilation with the covet and everything we just went back out to the community and we asked to expand um so

110that we can complete all three buildings completely new heating and ventilation removal of all air condition window air conditioners and really drastically improve the ventilation as well as improve the heating and air conditioning and reduce our energy costs well we go out to bid by law we're required to go out to bid so we haven't gone out to bid for um rain and center yet so okay so to answer your previous question the graduating class this year is around 89 students and we have approximately 50 students at this time receiving enl services oh wow yeah she knows her stuff but i have it should not be locked up on the weekend unless this uh an event happening so i will certainly look into that it should not there is something on our website um there's

111a qr code that if you scan it or you will you'll be able to see what the athletic schedule is and that would be the only time that it's not available because for safety reasons we wouldn't want people walking the track while there's a softball game or something going on but other than that the field will be open until 9 00 pm and then on saturdays as well so there is a schedule as to when yeah so if it continues you should call call my office um and we will certainly look into it i will i understand that proposition four was submitted by petition um it came in very late it came in right at the deadline we had to react very quickly to approve it you know um you have a certain date that

112it must be submitted by and we got it was due on monday we got it like friday so there really wasn't we did discuss it when we approved it um the resolution but we got it at the last minute yes um [Music] i was just wondering if the board of education has created any kind of a plan or [Music] so i would say no it has not been discussed and i don't believe that we've actually and i apologize have ha have brought it to the board of education's attention um now that you have brought it up i will make sure that we discuss it um but we always have money built into the budget got rid of that maintenance from the capital reserve there's always money built into the budget uh to support projects like

113this so we certainly will look into it and follow up we were also hoping to receive the proposals from the teacher of teachers future teachers who were interested in that and we we have not yet received you know any requests i know that there is a garden uh mrs price is a very very um active group uh through our learning loss um program so we have supported um some of a project of that type um i think there's over 30 students that are that are participating in that it's an enrichment program we had a great response so through the enrichment funds through the care act and some of the the covet funding that we received those would be opportunities to propose those and so um we did have a call for proposals earlier in the

114year mr d tommaso was handling that and we did receive one from mrs kreit for that type of a learning experience but we did not receive any others so hopefully the next call will be um we're asking for ideas for summer programs um learning law summer program so we've sent that out or we'll be sending it out shortly and i'm hoping that some teachers will make those proposals because we can support it through those funds um and um it identified i believe seven areas that they were looking to make improvements on and they believe that there were some preliminary personal conversations that had been made [Music] inadvertently that's certainly an option and we can reach out mr di tomaso and i can reach out to dr mcarthur to see where they are with that because

115again as i said this summer we can certainly look to offer that and then in the [Music] initial fall was at training but um it was a preliminary staging and also the concern from the district that there was equitable we will definitely rekindle that conversation is that all okay well thank you very much yes thank you [Music] thank you i can never get this i would well i could get it twice uh yeah i would still just say thank you very much for uh attending uh we apologize once again for the technological difficulties for those of you live streaming at home the presentation will be posted tomorrow and hopefully we can coordinate possibly the sound to go along with the presentation so you can have a better view so thank you and good night just