001General check check check check. >> Yeah. Oh, stoch. Nothing. Oh, there it is. Sorry. >> We good. Right. >> Okay. All right. Six o'clock. Call this meeting to order. Stand for the pledge. What do they do? >> One nation, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. >> This time we will have the technology presentation by Mrs. Gregory and Mr. Watson. Good evening everybody. Can you hear me? >> There. >> Oh, okay. Great. Um, we have a few interesting updates to share with you tonight. And first will be Brandon Watson just giving you a little summary of some infrastructure updates. first. >> Always the fun and exciting stuff first. Um, so just some real quick things that have transpired over the last year within our department. Um, one, I'm actually kind of happy and it shows that
002some things are working. Um, when I originally started, there were a few methods that people could get tech support. It was kind of all over the place and there was no way that I could actually go and say, "We're doing this much volume." Um, I put some software in place. It's all email based. It's tracking. And I've been looking over the last couple years at our trends and our tech support stuff is actually coming down. Um, there's a few reasons for that. One, um, Darren now, three periods a day is stationed down at student tech office, walk-in for kids, minor Chromebook problems. Hey, it's frozen. My screen's flashing. The batteryy's dead. I need a charger. instead of creating a work order, waiting a couple hours or maybe even till the next day, the kids can
003pretty much come in, walk in, 5, 10 minutes later, they're gone. If it's a damaged Chromebook, Darren will create a work order for it so we can track that and I can see if how we're doing with our breakages. Um, but for the most part, that's been working fantastic. Um, our overall trend, um, so for 2324, we had about 1,700 help desk tickets. That's teachers, parents, students, they all can email us. We get several different avenues um that they'll reach out, they'll call, but we track those tickets. Um we went from about 1,700 down to an exact number of 1,471 for the last year. So, we came down 300 trend this year. We're actually starting to go down again. Um, I think a lot of that has to do with the good work the tech
004committee did with bringing Chromebooks from having to replace them every five to six years down to three. We're seeing less breakages. We're seeing less um just weird things happening. Um, our iPads have been replaced that were five or six years old. We've gone through one full replacement of that. So, that's helped a lot also. Um, and it's just it's gotten a lot better and more efficient. Um over this summer, um part of the budget was to replace our district storage server. This is the server that hosts all of our data and it hosts all of our servers that host all of our data. We previously had one unit. It was 6 and a half years old and it sat in the server room. It was one thing. It was the single biggest point of failure
005in the district. Um we started having some hard drive failures. they'd overnight one, but if you get two or three at once, you have problems. So, um, some research and working actually with a vendor, I was able to for this almost the exact same price as replacing it to get two units. What that's going to help me do is I'm going to have one here and I'm going to have one at our backup data center room in another building. So, god forbid if something does happen, our data is still safe somewhere else. This is not the backup server. This is just our live data. So in theory, something bad did happen. We had a tornado rip the roof off. I could take a server to another building and get it up and at least get
006some functionality going. So that was huge. Um the other thing is we went from old style spinning hard drives that you used to be able to hear in your laptops clicking to all um solid state drives. Now no spinning discs. So that actually takes the time to load your data, multiplies it by like 100 milliseconds. So instead of clicking and waiting, it's almost loading it instantaneously now. And on top of that, the final thing was we went from 1 gigabit connectivity to this server to 10 gigabit connectivity all across fiber. So there's like hardly any delay. The performance is better. Um my nightly backups used to take about 13 and a half hours. I'm down to about eight hours now. I don't have as many issues. It it's working a lot better. It was a
007great investment and it took a lot of worry out of what we had going on. Um, we just recently went through a data review and the very first question they asked is for technology staff that have elevated administrative permissions, do you have two-factor authentication? I actually am working with a company and I should have it all fully rolled out by next month where members of my staff that have elevated permissions, we'll have to use a USB key to log into any computer. That way, if by chance my account gets compromised, they're not getting anywhere unless they get to me and get the key off my keychain, get my password, and get my phone. They get all that, then I think we have some bigger problems going on in life. Um, and finally, uh, Frankie submitted
008the smart school plan. about a month ago now. Now we're just in the waiting game. So as soon as that comes in, the sooner the better. I do want to get the Chromebooks ordered because I don't know if you know this, but with AI, RAM prices are going through the roof and it's driving up the cost of technology. So before we had COVID, then we had tariffs. Now we have AI buying up all the data for the data centers and price of RAM are just going through the roof. So that's it for me. Does anybody have any questions for my nerdy stuff? We'll stop now. >> Okay. So, let's talk about using technology to support student achievement and engagement. Um, you've heard me talk about the SAM model before. We are always striving to get
009to redefinition, meaning technology tools allow us to instruct students in a way that we've never been able to do before. We're not just, you know, replacing handwriting with typing. We're doing something innovative and something cool. And I think we really are on the verge of of getting there a lot of the time now with what we've been working with with um the WZED program and with artificial intelligence capabilities. So, we have some really neat stuff to share with you tonight. Um we did start implementation of the WAZAD STEM kits this year. Um, and we started with grade two and grade five at the primary and elementary level. Yes, we do have a special student guest who's going to be doing a demo for us, but um, grade two has been working on the augmented and
010virtual reality unit and grade five has been doing a lot of work with artificial intelligence. We are hoping in coming years to expand the program because it's the kids have loved it and it's been very engaging and interesting to them. I did link some information for you in the slides. Um it the first document shows the WAD pathways and it's basically a chart and this there is no prerequisite for any of these pathways. So if you wanted to start say in you know cyber security and you didn't want to start it until 6 through 8 and you didn't do the units before that in the lower levels that's completely okay is how they they've explained it to us. But these are complete kits that the teachers get um the written curriculum and lesson plans and
011all of the like consumable items and the tech tools that they need to run them. Um this is I got to get the other uh link I gave here is just um a link that shows how the units align to the ISTY standards which is the international um technology integration standards ne next generation science standards and computer New York state computer science standards. They align to all three of those which is really good for us. Um, but I will stop talking and let Shannon Locking, our elementary and primary computer teacher, talk about what she's been doing with Wazed. And we also have Walter Bugenhagen here, who's in what grade again? >> Fifth grade. Okay. >> Me behind a podium is never good thing. Okay. So, um the kids have been doing great. Walter, you can
012go ahead and show them. Um they've been building. These um robots come in a kit and they have been building them, screwing every little piece together. Uh so, what is Wazed? It's a hands on STEM curriculum for elementary learners and it goes actually pre-K through 12. We've started it um in second and fifth grade to try it out. Um focuses on problem solving, creativity, uh critical thinking, um integrates robotics, coding, augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. So the students are not just using technology, they're building, programming, and thinking like engineers. So >> the hardwood floor maybe so and the lessons are aligned to real world skills. So second grade focused on AR and VR. They explored augmented reality and virtual reality. Um the picture back on this first slide was of um a program
013called Quiver. So they colored a page and then they used their iPads to bring that image to life. They could actually spin um this was just like a dot that they colored. They could spin that dot. They could make it bounce it and put it in the classroom everywhere. Uh so they the second graders had a lot of fun um playing with the um VR and AR. So they code simple robots. Uh they rotate through SE uh STEM stations again um like the uh coloring pages for Quiver. Uh they also used a couple other augmented reality programs where they could build um scenes right in the classroom. um they could have dinosaurs. They could draw their own images and put it around the classroom and move things around um right on their iPads. And they
014learned the difference between AR and VR. So students learn through movement, visuals, and exploration. AR and VR make the abstract ideas um become concrete. So they learn cause and effect, sequencing and early coding, uh logic, spatial awareness, collaboration, and communication. Um we don't have robots for every single student, but we do had we did get enough for like um to work in groups of twos and threes to build the robots, which is actually probably better. uh they can pair up and work collaboratively and I can put some of my um special ed push-in kiddos in with a higher level um learner in there and they work together. Um Walter's class in particular, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Gallagher's co-taught class um works really really well with our pushin um friends and they're very inclusive. So some
015takeaways um this helps um the students build confidence with technology encourage uh encourages curiosity and creativity develops teamwork communication um and creates a early STEM foundation for these students. um they see themselves as builders and thinkers, not just users of the devices. Um and many students who struggle in traditional uh settings really shine and thrive in a STEM setting. So here's our second grade robots, and this is a screenshot of what they would see on their um iPads. So they would um make movements and drag down movements and then they would press play and then um I taped off mazes because um Wed for some reason thinks I need 5,000 rolls of painters tape. Could have done with a few less, but we had at least we had plenty. Um, so we taped off the
016computer lab floor and the students um drove their um robots after building them uh through the mazes and tried to program them um to get through. So they had a lot of fun with that. Let's see now our fifth grade. Um this is Walter and his uh classmates. Uh they build and program advanced robots. Uh again, every little screw and um battery pack, everything they had to put together um and play, they would get on their Chromebooks and it gave them instructions step by step. They had to follow the instructions. Uh Walter, did anything did everything work perfectly when we were building these? that go perfectly smooth every time. >> Yeah. And not everybody put everything together perfectly, so they had to learn how to troubleshoot and problem solve. Um, and we had um company,
017was it in your class? the Waz, our regional Razette rep, came in to visit the classroom um and got to see a fifth grade classroom and and we talked about how nice it was that not everything did run perfectly for the kids and I tried to stay as standoffish as I could and let them problem solve and work through their issues. Um and the kids did really great with it >> school which 50th high school program. So that's all. Um we had these aptitude tests that we would take where like they get going and you know the next sequence we never ever did. I mean of course technology made out here that this is >> and the kids really love it. So the concepts that they learned uh what AI is and what it is
018not. So we are exposing them to artificial intelligence. Um and we talked about even test driving um Whimo is a company that has the self-driving cars out in California. And it was very neat that while we were learning about this and discussing this in class, Whimo had um an incident in California where they drove through a crime scene. And so we talked about how AI is not perfect. It helps them um which helped them realize not to depend on everything. Uh so it really was a nice digital citizenship lesson along with the technology that they know that they have to be careful with the technology and not depend on it um 100%. So some skills and outcomes computational thinking logical reasoning debugging and problem solving. We talked about um how everything didn't work well and
019perfect every time. collaboration and leadership. Um, I had the students even fill out a sheet talking about how who the leader was in the group, who, you know, was there anybody that didn't participate. Um, I didn't really get any negative comments about students not participating in the group and not helping. Um, and people were the students were really generous with their classmates talking about how, you know, this person took over and really kept us on track. So that was really a nice um extra that came out of this um with the collaboration. So students learn that mistakes are a part of learning um and they gain independence in tackling complex problems. So this student takeaways from the WZED for fifth grade. Um, it prepares students for future careers, builds confidence in STEM fields, encourages innovation
020and creativity, and develops ethical technology users. So, students can leave with skills that apply to any career, not just a tech career. Um, and they understand their role as a responsible digital citizen. Um, program impacts, uh, increase student engagement. Like I said, um even my uh students that push in were fully engaged the whole way from building to exploring and playing and learning. Um everything was handson inclusive uh strong alignment to real world skills like problem solving, troubleshooting um and it supports a diverse learners and learning styles. So STEM learning reaches students who may not excel in traditional academics. Um, and this program really supports our goal of access, equity, and engagement and why it matters in our district. Prepares students for a rapidly changing world. Builds problem solvers, innovators, critical thinkers. Aligns with our
021district goals for future ready learners. This program is an investment in our students futures. Uh we are not teaching devices. We are teaching thinking. Um Walter, do you have anything else you'd like to share? Do you want to talk about your experience with the program? And if you liked it, what you liked about it? >> Okay. All right. Any questions, concerns, comments? >> So, overall positive for the first year of WAZ. >> Okay. >> Like we had, you know, some hiccups with our technology and filters and stuff. Uh Brandon was great about getting um things straightened out. Um the things that Wasad had to fix, they were really responsive and quick um getting back to us and working through anything on their end that wasn't like up to date or perfect. Um but um I
022think that the kids would you give it a thumbs up? Yeah. So the kids were really great as far as being engaged and involved and excited. Like that's what I like to see is the excitement. Um there was nobody that really sat down and was like, I hate this. I don't want to do this. This is too hard. And I think working in groups um helped ease any stress that they had um with working on like building the robots and stuff because they weren't alone. Um and they had devices and and adults helping every step of the way. So um so far it's been positive and these two kits especially like the kids really loved them. I can think of a real neat kit for next year after we do our capital project. >> You
023want to do the flight one or no? >> You said it. I >> the most expensive one. It's the most expensive one. But it is the most exciting. >> We could we could marry the ARVR stuff with the goggles and stuff flying above us and see what's going on top. Huh. That'd be pretty cool, huh? >> And the students will leave with a pilot's license for drones, which is immediate employment opportunities. Just saying. >> Oh, I know. I uh I plan a golf tournament every summer for like the last 10 years down in Oolan and it's a fundraiser, but the last three years the one hole is a drone played hole. So the guy sets up the drone and it's a pretty straight away and you know you're I hear I you wow I'm operating
024a drone and you drop the ball and you know some people got holes in one by dropping it right into from the drone holds the ball in. So I mean all this stuff is just you know again >> technology runs the world and now that these kids are doing this you know we used to do the homech and as you got into high school you would do more home and like economics classes were learning how to do a a tax return form. Well, now computers do that for you or accountants do that. You know, it's just so I love it. But I wish I was born like 25 years later. >> Just wanted to say thank you to the Bugenhagen family for taking time out of their night tonight to come and have Walter demonstrate
025our robot for us. Thank you. Thank you, Walter. >> I just want to ask one quick question. This is Do we still have I know we were in and forgive my ignorance in the process of or there was a group of kids who were trying to get a robotics club together. Is that still a thing? Do we know >> robotics? >> At the high school. >> I think there is something. I think it's it's a technology club of some sort. Yes. At the middle level maybe. I think Brian Smith might do it. >> Yeah, that was the name that was escaping me. It would be cool to get the littleer kids and the bigger kids. Oh yeah, that would be neat. Together so they could because it is cool. There's competitions. There's I mean >>
026let's just keep racking up the price tag. >> Thank you, Walter. >> I mean, >> this stuff is expensive, but you know, it's a like Shannon said, you're investing in the students futures, and I I thank you for your support of the program. I want to thank Shannon for being an innovative teacher and someone I can always say, "Hey, will you try this?" And she's always going to say yes. So, um, that really means more than you know. You know, there's a lot of people who would be like, "No, that's crazy." So, um, just a couple other things in terms of AI, we've started providing training to the faculty. um middle and high school faculty had a great presentation in September. John Riss is the tech integrator at Erie 2 and he has a wealth
027of knowledge. He is just really a great resource to us. Um he did a presentation. I linked it here so you can actually look at his presentation. He probably went through five or six or maybe even more AI programs with the teachers and he had lots of detail what they do, all the capabilities. They kind of left overwhelmed there. Said it was kind of like drinking from a fire hose, Lori. And and next time maybe he could just focus on one or two because he just has so much to offer. But it was great. I actually required them each to pick one thing to try, you know, on their own and then submit to me what they did. Um, and everybody did it. So, I mean, we're we're starting to dabble in this even, you
028know, using it as a tool to help um differentiate instruction, create a more inclusive environment when we're teaching. Um, there's so much they can do. leveling texts, um, building lesson plans that have multiple choices and options for students. It's it's really been fun exploring. Um, I've been working with AI also to try to help them make their job easier. So, I have designed um two bots in uh like the Gemini Gem space and the school AI space. Um, so I I've just been experimenting with this. I created an area where a teacher I can show you what it looks like. They log in, they click on if it's shared with them, they click on the the gem or the space, and it'll prompt them to upload a lesson plan, and then um it gives them
029feedback based on the Danielson rubric, which is what we use for our APR. And um then it will ask them, "Do you have any questions on my feedback?" And um the teacher can ask questions. I've trained it to do the best to answer their questions and keep asking, "Do you have any additional questions?" until they say no. And when they say no, it says, "Thank you. You know, it was it was great working with you today." So I've only tested it out with a few folks. Shannon was one of my guinea pigs and she tested it and she came in and was like, "Oh my god, this is really cool. Like, I got so many neat ideas for my lesson." So, it's something that I've been slowly pushing out to teachers and having them test
030it and see if it's beneficial or not. Some people are like, "I don't know. I kind of rather talk to a colleague." And that's okay, you know, but um it's just that's my thing that I've been experimenting with. So, you can click on them here and try to run them yourselves, but you'd have to have a lesson from somewhere to upload. Um, but see, with this one, it's just like you click there's like a button down here where you click play and it'll Oh, I think I clicked it. I can't really see with this screen. It was really great because it'll tell you like what areas of like the Danielson rubric like it said, you know, like, oh, you're proficient and then you can ask it like, well, how do I get to exemplary? And
031then it gives you ideas of how to elevate your lesson plan so that you can hit exemplary on every step. That's what I thought was amazing. >> So, you can see I just kind of launched it and it says, "Hello, I'm excited to help you with your lesson plan today. Um you guys know that we've been trying to implement online tutoring as another option for kids in grades 6 through 12. Um last year we had 14 students using varsity tutors which does get them online with a a real live professional tutor but now there's also an AI option. So the kids can choose to use AI to chat with or a person. I would rather them use the person, but you know, either one is helpful to them. We have 41 students using it now
032and we really would like to continue to expand that. Um, but all the students who have used it have said that it's been helpful. And then we are working on creating a middle and high school testing center where our students who get testing accommodations will now be able to access their assessments online, get their tests read by a computer. I mean, all of our students, we really should have done this earlier, all of our students um for the most part who get tests read use the computer-based um test read for the state test. So um this is just a way to help them feel more empowered. Some students will not even need to leave the classroom if they can just use their headphones. Some still need to leave, but we're trying to make it so
033they get used to having more student agency and reaching out to meet their needs themselves. And what's coming up for us in the future, we have a new district comprehensive technology plan we need to build by the end of the year. So, the tech committee has already been talking about that and what our goals are going to be. Um, we've been drafting goals in the areas of enhancing teaching and learning. Of course, that's never going to go away. Um, including the expansion of hopefully of Wazad and STEM programs, artificial intelligence, and online safety is becoming more and more important. So, this is just a list of everybody who serves on our tech committee. just want to thank them for being there and helping us. And do you guys have any questions? >> Just a couple
034of comments. So, you know, first off, Brandon, you talked about uh presenting then the boring stuff, but the fun stuff doesn't happen if we don't have good backbone in this district and and you've done some fantastic work in making sure that we have that really strong backbone and and the redundancy that that you that you talked about as well. So, um, in terms of where we've come in in terms of the, uh, the reliability of technology when I started six years ago to where we are today, it's it's just night and day. And and you get the yman share credit for that. And Lori, you're being a little bit humble because one of the things you didn't talk about is that you actually presented to your your uh your administrative association, your New York State
035Administrative Association on utilizing AI uh towards um towards uh improving teaching and learning. Correct. Yes, I I did do a presentation at the state conference about um using AI to provide feedback to teachers. Um and I'm I'm doing a webinar tomorrow. >> Oh, okay. Didn't know that. >> Yeah. >> Thank you for that. I mean, that's that's wonderful. you're coming you're coming from in New York and you're presenting to the state about how to utilize technology and to to to enhance the work in terms of AI and even in my my own world listening to my wife who's a teacher and utilizes AI um to create lesson plans which she said to me and I you need to think about the population she teaches that she has students who are non-English speakers she has students
036that um uh learn differently she has students of all different abilities in her class and what she said and what we share with with our teachers here is using AI to create a lesson plan gives you the opportunity to f focus more more on the pedigogy how you're going to teach uh rather than what you're going going to teach and it's been a real gamecher for her and I know I open the year with I saying to our staff if you're not using AI you should be and I just left it right there and I I use it occasionally I'm certainly not an expert um but we had a a workshop over the summer the administrative team did where we learned from um a fellow superintendent who's really really at the forefront uh of bringing
037AI into the into the public public educational system and that's fantastic. Um but really um Shannon, thank you for all the work that you're doing in bringing WAZED uh to the district. I was at a Wise conference uh last November and I actually rode in a Whimo. Um so if you haven't been in a in a driverless car, it is an experience. And Walter, I think I'd rather have you at the wheel than being in a wireless car again. But you did a great job. I loved watching you problem solve up here. I was trying to figure out if you were getting frustrated or not. And if you were, I couldn't see it. So, good for you. Good poker face there, but don't play poker. You're too young. Um, so, but that was just really
038neat to to see how you were you you knew where to go on your car, right? You need I needed to change this. I got I've got to do this over there. That comes from experience, hands-on experience. So, thanks for being the star of the show tonight. Thank you. Next we have the budget presentation by Mrs. May. >> I think I think we should just AI it now. hot stuff. >> Thank you. >> Thanks again. >> Okay, that's a tough act to follow. Um, okay. So, jumping into the first presentation for the 2627 school year budget. Okay, so for tonight's agenda, kind of focusing on budget parameters. So inflation and the CPI factor, which play a pretty huge role in our tax cap calculation. Um, and then focusing on our budget builders. Um, so our
039estimated revenue, our rollover expenditures, and overall our budget gap. I will warn you that this is the preliminary uh meeting. This is a rollover budget. At this point, everything is very highly estimated. Um, we'll kind of get into the specifics of why it's very estimated at this point, but just wanted to give that caveat. Okay, so CPI or the consumer price index um is currently trending above 2%. Why is that important? Um, because it does play a huge role in the tax cap calculation. It is used as the allowable levy growth factor. Um, so in the tax cap calculation, either you use the lesser of CPI or 2%. So since CPI has been trending higher than 2% we would be capped at the lesser of CPI or 2% which is 2%. Um so we won't
040have that official CPI um amount for the 2025 uh calendar year until the end of the month. Um but right now we are at approximately 3%. Um in contrast in 2024 it was 2.95%. So we have the last few years been capped at that 2% uh for the tax cap calculation. Um, so again, information needed to finalize that tax cap calculation is available at the end of January. So hopefully for the February meeting, we can go through the actual tax cap calculation and kind of see where our tax levy limit is for the um 2627 budget year. Um, just forformational purposes, the tax cap for 2526 or the current school year was 2.58%. Uh, the board and the community both adopted and approved a tax levy increase of 2.58%. So going to that tax cap.
041So when we look at our budget builders, our estimated revenue, a big portion of our revenue is state aid. Um so these numbers are based on the November state aid runs that came out um in November. Um this is before the governor's executive proposal which comes out at the end of January. We're kind of expecting it next week. Um preliminarily, we didn't have any increase in foundation aid. So, keeping foundation aid or the largest portion of our state aid uh consistent with the current school year. So, when we go down the list, our uh instructional materials aid, our textbook, software, hardware, and library materials, small decreases there. We do get a allocation per student. So, with decreasing enrollment, that is um pretty normal to see small decreases. Um our private excess costs and our public
042excess costs. Um, if you combine the two, they're both related to outofdist placements. Um, so a private access cost would be a student attending an out ofd district placement at like a a summit or an OOLV. Um, whereas a public excess cost would be a student attending an out of district placement for special ed needs um at like a Bosey's placement or another school district that may have services that Eden can't offer. Um, so overall those expenditure or those that state aid is not necessarily it's increasing a little bit but not not a whole lot. Transportation is a expenditure-based aid. What that means is that whatever we spend in the current year affects what the aid we get in the following year. So with an increase in transportation aid expected for next school year, that
043means that we're anticipated to spend more on transportation this year, which would affect aid for next year. uh which we know that that's the case uh with increasing salaries and benefits um increasing costs for fuel uh bus purchases that kind of thing. Uh building aid so we had talked about this in l at length last school year uh we had deferred building aid related to old capital projects um that were coming that was coming in for the 2526 year. So we had increased building aid which was also offset by increased debt service payments. Uh you can see this year that level is going back down to a consistent level of where we had been in the past. So a decrease in building aid and once we get to the expenditure slide you'll see that debt
044is also decreasing. The net local share or essentially what our taxpayers are paying for old capital projects still remains pretty level. Um and lastly our Bosey's aid. So similar to our transportation aid Boseies is is a expenditure-based driven aid. So meaning if it's decreasing uh we're anticipating uh lower expenditures in the current school year than the last school year which would result in lower state aid next school year. So not to be super confusing but uh so for example the CBO service um the current school year we stopped using the CBO service for payroll and brought that service back inhouse through a payroll clerk. So we're spending less on BOSIE services in the 2526 school year which would then reduce state aid we received for BOSIE's next school year in 2627. So we are anticipating
045the governor's state aid runs uh to come out the end of January. So we should have a clearer picture on this um at the at the February uh budget meeting. So if we look at estimated revenue overall uh we talked about state aid. So overall, state aid is decreasing by about 900,000. Majority of that is related to the building aid that is falling off for that deferred revenue uh that we are receiving in the 2526 school year. At this point, everything else has not really been changed a whole lot um until we can do a deep dive into revenue. Um so for example, keeping property taxes at the same level as they were at 2526. other tax items that includes our payment in lie of tax, our pilot payments. Um those uh schedules are set
046out for the next 20 years. So that's an easy one to just kind of we know it's going to increase by $481 next year. Um our Erie County sales tax, we'll kind of dig into that a little bit deeper as we get um into the budget process. Same thing with miscellaneous revenue. So miscellaneous revenue includes interest revenue uh rental fees so from BOSEIS or um out of district organizations that are using our spaces. Um so we'll do a deeper dive into miscellaneous revenue as well as any interfund transfers that we think we may have. Um the only other thing I wanted to point out on this slide was um at this point I am recommending a reduction in appropriated fund balance and reserves. So, if you can remember when we were building the 2526 budget,
047we had a significant budget gap and rather than cutting programs or raising taxes above the tax gap, which we don't want to do, um we decided to plug it with additional reserves or savings accounts. Um so, similar to your personal savings account, once that money is spent, it's not available for future use. Um so bringing the use of reserves and fund balance down to a level consistent with where we had been in the past so that we are not depleting our reserves um for future use. So if we jump into the expenditure side um a highle review um caveat here is typically at this point in the budget process revenue is very highly estimated. We don't have tax cap information. We don't have information from the governor related to our state aid runs. However, expenditures
048are normally pretty known. The caveat is at this point our unfortunately our expenditure expenditures are also pretty unknown. Uh we are going into negotiations with almost all of our um unions other than our teachers. So our um everything is just kind of up in the air. Um, property insurance we know is going to go up significantly based on the insurance a industry. Uh, we know health insurance is going to go up because that industry is also seeing pretty large increases. So overall um, as we dive deeper into the budget process, we will refine those expenditure lines. But just want to give the caveat that we're kind of estimating overall on both the revenue and the expenditure side at this point. So right now contractual rollover of wages is about 1.26 26 million. Um, our benefit
049increase uh increases as our wages go up. Uh, because a significant portion of our benefits are percentage based. So, our employee retirement system and our teacher retirement system are percentages of wages. So, as wages go up, it would make sense that our benefits would go up as a percentage of that. Debt service um payments are decreasing by 1.6 6 million which is the bond anticipation note um that we had taken out for the 2526 year to offset that deferred building aid to keep our net local share even. So as we were having building aid falling off we will also have short-term debt falling off. Um and then overall estimated increases on property insurance district memberships and other contractual items. So if we look at the major expense categories for our expenditure budget, this includes all
050the requests from the principles and the department heads. Um we are meeting with them later on this week to kind of go through their budget requests. So this includes a lot of those requested items which may not make it into the final budget. Um so the salaries we talked about is about $1.26 million increase. Um equipment see a pretty large increase here about 600,000. That's related to school bus purchases. So, school buses, we typically break out of the general fund budget and use our capital reserve to pay for them in a separate proposition. At this point, we're leaving it in the general fund budget. Um, with the one caveat being in the 2027 school year, at this point, we do have to do go uh zero emission school buses purchases. So, that's going to be
051a lengthy conversation. We are in the process of submitting the waiver to get that extension to not have to purchase uh zero emission buses in 2027. Um but at this point it's a little unknown. So we are keeping it in the general fund budget. That's why there's a significant increase in equipment. Uh contractual about $160,000 increase. Again this is related to um property insurance. Um tuition payments that kind of thing. Um or tuition is a separate one but materials and supplies small increase of about 13,000 related to inflation. So things are costing a lot more. Um so just a moderate increase there. Um tuition and Boseies these kind of go a little bit handinand so we just received the updated Boseies cost um for Erie 2 services um on Friday. So this Bosey's line really
052only includes out of district placements uh that we're anticipating to send out to Boseies next school year. So in in addition to tuition increasing, Boseies is also estimated at this point to increase based out of based off of out of district placements. As we get farther in the budget process and have um participation meetings with each of the different BOSEIS to determine what services we actually want to enroll in for next school year, these numbers may change. Uh benefits, we talked about, you know, a $639,000 increase, uh which is kind of goes handinhand to our salaries. and then debt. Again, the $1.6 million decrease based off of the drop off of building aid. Okay, so this slide is a little scary. Um, again, this is because both our revenue and our expenditures are very highly
053estimated. Some of our expenditures include include requests that we may not see in the final budget. Um but right now we are looking at about a $3.5 million incre or $3.5 million budget gap uh with a 0% tax levy increase. Um again this is the worst case scenario. It should be we should absolutely be uh a little more refined as we get through the budget process with this number coming down each each presentation. Um, I used the 2526 tax cap as kind of the threshold for the the ceiling um at 2.58% which still results in over a $3 million budget gap. Um, so as we refine the process, we should see these numbers come down. Okay, so next steps in the budget process include the property tax cap calculation uh which is due to New
054York State and March 1st. So, as soon as we get those factors, so CPI, the taxbased growth factor from New York State, we can actually put together um our T our property tax cap calculation. Um we should be receiving the governor's budget proposal uh next week so we can really see what state aid will look like for next school year and then an in-depth review of both the expenditure and the revenue categories. Any questions? um kind of a more generic question. So the 2% which is not really 2% was the brainchild of a governor who's no longer our governor >> and this quite convoluted math equation. Um I don't even remember I think I was around before we had that but uh I don't remember what it was. Has there been any conversation about let's
055maybe get to something that makes sense to accountant accountants and human beings because it's uh it's extraordinarily hard to explain um to your average citizen let alone members uh of the school board and so have they discussed something different? >> I have not heard anything. Have you? >> No. Um unfortunately uh I have not heard that that the attention really has been more first to letting the foundation aid formula run and then adjusting the foundation aid formula which brings us our our most amount of aid um adjusting that appropriately. Um so the other thing that that happened when the tax cap was enacted is people assume that your taxes aren't going to go up more than 2%. That's the misunderstanding of it. And it drove people away from the polls. So, you can see an
056absolute decrease in the number of people who vote in in in school budgets uh in every district across New York State. >> No. >> Um you used last year's state aid, so you didn't factor in a potential 2% increase if if save harmless continues. And what save harmless means that you'll the minimum increase you will get is 2%. Correct. It's pretty >> well. Save harmless is you won't get a reduction in your foundation aid. >> You won't get a reduction. I'm sorry. Thank you. That's why I look at you for to say the smart things. >> Um you and you and Walter. Um so save harmless. You won't get any reduction. But what the governor did last year is everyone got a got a minimum of 2%. >> We have no idea what's going to
057happen this year. That's why this is always the hardest budget to to present because it's the doom and gloom. Um, our our expenses are are a big estimate because as you said, we've got the CSEA, we have the administrators, we have the SSO, we have all all the confidential contracts uh that we'll be working on throughout the spring. The big unit ETA we uh um we came to an agreement in end of June. So, that's a that's a big known cost. Yep. >> Uh and we haven't started our budget meetings yet. So, what's in those lines? We're not even Well, you know better than I do. I haven't looked at it by detail yet. So, if my eyes are bulging out of my head later this week, we know why. Um, so this is the
058hardest budget and it's the one that's the furthest from the way it will be at the end. >> Correct. >> I do want to congratulate you because the gap is much less than it was last year. But, you know, we got a lot of work to do. >> Yes. Lot of work to do. >> I do have a quick question. does do the salaries and I know it's probably a small portion but that line does it take into consideration or the number that you presented any I know we don't know for sure but any potential retirements or will that >> it does not it is just our staff currently projecting them for next year. >> Okay. Um, tomorrow the the governor has her state of the state address uh at 1 pm. We usually start
059to get some clues about what's what's coming our way. Uh, and I think the 20th her first runs are due. >> Yes. Yep. The 20th. >> And I I will tell you this this is year six of um being your superintendent. Your year nine of being superintendent. It's different every year. Um back when Governor Cuomo was in charge, his runs would be absolutely awful and they get better. Year one of Governor Hokll, they were their runs were really good and they stayed really good. Year two, they weren't really good and then they got better. So, who knows what's what's going to happen next. >> Thank you. At this point during the meeting, members of the board of ed may request to have any items removed from the consent agenda and considered separately. Are there any
060requests to withdraw specific items from the consent agenda? No. Then that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, consent items be approved. >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. >> Approximate position and time now that the board has designated to receive statements from individuals and groups. The board will review all statements, then respond appropriately at a future meeting. All persons in attendance are required to sign the attendance sheet and designate their representation status. For example, a parent, teacher, bus driver, chamber of commerce, etc. There is a twominut time limit, anyone? All right, moving right along. Uh, new business that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the resignation for the purpose of retirement of elementary teacher Linda Schwans be accepted effective July 1st, 2026. The board and administration
061wish to thank Mrs. Swans for her 28 years of service to the district. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. >> That upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the resignation for the purpose of retirement of elementary teacher Aaron McNeel be accepted effective July 1st, 2026. The board and administration wish to thank Mrs. McNeel for her 34 years of service to the district. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. >> That upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the resignation for the purpose of retirement of English teacher Monica Donovan be accepted effective July 1st, 2026. The board and administration wish to thank Mrs. Donovan for her 30 years of service to the district. >> Second. Any discussion? All in
062favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. >> That upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the resignation for the purpose of retirement of special education teacher Kimberly Mangino be accepted effective July 1st, 2026. The board and administration wish to thank Mrs. Mangino for her 26 years of service to the district. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? I >> I any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried >> that upon the recommendation of the superintendent the resignation of teacher aid Mindy Windship be effective January 16th, 2026. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the resignation of registered nurse Jenny Clark be accepted effective January 23rd, 2026. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Any abstained?
063Motion carried. uh new business appointments that upon the recommendation of the superintendent after successfully completing the probationary period, Patrick Sullivan be permanently appointed as a cleaner effective February 11th, 2026. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. that upon the recommendation of the superintendent after successfully completing his probationary period, Russell McNamera be permanently appointed as a cleaner effective February 11th, 2026. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstained? Motion carried. that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, an overnight wrestling trip for Friday, January 30th through Sunday, January 31st. Those Okay. 2026 to participate in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association wrestling division 2 dual meet. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Any opposed?
064Any abstained? Motion carried. business report. >> I don't have anything else to add tonight. >> You don't want to say like I was only joking before. No, just kidding. Superintendent reports. >> Okay, just a few things. Um, I should have a first draft of the TW 2627 school year calendar uh for the board to review at our February meeting. Um there's not this will be the first year that we are very closely uh aligned with the regional calendar meaning that our students that attend um um courses at uh at Boseies will be on the same schedule um like we've like we've uh um been striving for for a number of years. There's not a lot of room in this calendar because uh Labor Day is not until September 7th. Uh we will have two superintendent
065conference days the week before and our students will start on September 8th. There's a couple of nuances that I need to work through um in regards to primarily in regards to to Junth that that recognition. Uh it's on a Saturday this year. So that leaves us a a couple of discussion points internally. Also, I need to work with uh Mrs. Larosa and uh Mrs. Carter about uh some of the half days that are scheduled for um records and and whatnot. And so you'll be getting I'm I'm I'm saying this now so you could remind me to share this with you tomorrow. Okay. Um the the caveat to well the the addition too is there was a change in when we have to have a reorg meeting. The the adjustment is the the reorganization meeting for
066the board has to happen anytime before July 20th where it was it was stricter in previous years. So that's something we we can look at as as we start to prepare our summer calendars as well. Um, in addition to that, uh, I do want to let the board know that, um, prior just prior to break, Scott Taylor, the superintendent at North Collins and I had a meeting with Senator Senator Galvin to explore if, uh, whether there's any state funds to support the creation of a re regional transportation hub. Um, and we had that conversation because of the requirement to transition to zero admission busing. And it would seem to make a lot of sense to two superintendents anyway that um we we work together so that the infrastructure uh installation is significantly uh more cost
067effective. Uh Senator Galvin is always always gracious in meeting with us and he shared that we are the first to be talking about this in the state as far as he knows. Um, but he's going to look into it a bit on his side of things and we will we will we will learn more and I'll share more uh in the near future. In addition, I learned today um that there is a there are two two-year waiverss. We knew about that um regarding when we have to start purchasing or when we can no longer purchase diesel buses is really the way that's structured. Correct. Okay. And it was unclear whether we should be submitting that waiver immediately or we should wait till next year. So we and and I learned very late this afternoon that
068that does not need to be submitted until next year. So you have some time on that. You absolutely have some time on that. You think I'm wrong? >> It's due March. >> It is it I know this came directly from STA to through Dr. Work and if we do submit it, they will hang on to it and just apply it to the following year. They apologize for how confusing that whole process is. So you're looking at another four and a half years. Okay. So that that's the good news because hopefully we'll continue to learn more and and and get to a level of of well I'll call it sanity quite frankly to editorialize a little bit. >> Yes. >> Four and a half years for >> so so the way it's currently structured is after
069the 2027 school year. >> Okay. We have to be we have to be transitioning to zero emission buses and by 2035 the entire fleet needs to be zero emission buses. >> So the four-year waiver to be quite honest to be quite frank is not entirely clear what that gets us but it gets us a longer pause. >> Okay. >> I don't know what that's going to mean in terms of the 2035 deadline. >> Okay. >> Right. But I know that we at least we have a little bit longer to be doing things and and where that buys us time. Okay. >> Is if we really had to start building our infrastructure in 2027, it's absolutely impossible. We know how capital projects go. >> We would have to have uh plans into SED to get approved
070to to do the install of the of the fire suppression and and the charging stations like we heard at our presentation earlier this year. >> So, okay, we've got more time. >> Gotcha. Okay. Um, any other questions about that? Good. The last thing I want to share with the board is um we're going to we're going to have to add a second meeting in April. Uh Tuesday, April 28th is the date that uh Boseies has set set aside for uh component ports to uh vote on on the Boseis budget. That will be an early morning brief meeting um at this point. >> Okay. Yep. Tuesday, April 28th. >> Okay. >> Could we just go with a Danish from from Braillers? >> What time do we think that we'll be coming? >> It's t probably 7:30.
071Any questions for me other than your doughnut order? Okay, thank you. >> Sorry. Next, we have student report. Uh, Treya Emik. Did I say that right? >> Yes. >> Oh, I have to push it. Okay. Okay, good afternoon everyone. I hope you all had a happy holidays. I'm going to give you a quick rundown of what student council has been up to since our last meeting. Um, we did the Arctic Racer the Arctic Raider races before break. We had 16 teams this year and this is our third annual and Mr. Presanti's team won. Then from January 5th to the 9th, we did Red Ribbon Week for drug prevention and we had kids escaping drugs came to speak to both the high school and middle school student body. And there will be a winter dance this
072year for the high school on January 30th, which is a new addition. And if anyone would like to jot down on January 22nd, the seventh graders took the initiative to do a fundraiser at Red Robin. So if you take out or dine in on the 22nd, um the seventh grade student council will receive a portion of those funds. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you. >> Thank you, T. Next we have the board report round table. >> Uh just a couple updates. Uh this capital project that's going out um bids are next month or so going out to bid next month. Uh start construction this summer on some roofs and stuff like that. Um, we had the Tim's group kind of give us an update on another possible capital project we can go
073out with. Um, just a quick number. Um, the project could be around 17 million. So, but we're talking 20 29 2030. It's out there. >> What would that project be looking at? uh a lot of the stuff that we didn't get done and passed in the last project. This is without any taxpayer impact. >> Wow. >> So >> awesome. >> Uh that's as of as of right now, like I said, very preliminary numbers, but just something to um start thinking about based off of our our cap or our uh building conditioning survey that was done a couple months ago and things along those lines. So, and then uh Mr. Sorticio and I get to go to a national grid survey or uh meeting on the 20th. Yes. To see how our grid's going to basically
074support our um zero mission uh initiative. So, uh we should have some information from them to see uh just how we're going to be able to do this. It's all I got. >> Does the next capital project include a new pool? I don't know if it was on $17 million. >> Don't throw things at me. I just I just had to say that just for P. No, it doesn't include a pool. >> We didn't say that. Um we just said we've got we've got a rough number, but it's it's out there. And >> no, it just funny. >> I mean, it's just really interesting to just start planning that far in advance. >> It's true. Um, and then when Mrs. May basically gave some like, well, coming up in 2035, it really just it starts
075to blow your mind that we're we're talking 10 years out. So, and some of the challenges will be minimum cost allowances that we're allowed to do at certain buildings. So, this one's going to be a little bit trickier, but um, just stuff to start thinking about. Anybody else? No. Good. All right. Um, let's see. The next regular board of education meeting is February 9th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the middle school high school library. Uh, the board of education meeting Monday, March 16th, 2026 at 6 p.m. in the middle school high school library. The budget workshop is Monday, March 23rd, 2026 at 6 PM at the middle school high school library. And now that upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the board of education enter executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular
076person or persons. Second.