001That's how we feel. Good evening. Thank you all for coming. We're going to call the meeting to order at six o'clock. Everyone please stand for the pledgece to the flag of the United States and to the republic for it stands nation indivisibley andice for all. >> Thank you. Uh item 1.03 approval revision of agenda. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley Central School District approves the agenda as presented. May I have a motion? Thank you, Chrissy. Second and any discussion? All in favor? Anybody? All right. Item 1.04, availability of the board calendar. code of conduct. Hold on. So, there's no motion for this. >> Read the statement. Okay. The proposed 2026 27 code of conduct is available for public review. The public hearing on this document will occur at a
002future board meeting. Sarah, can I just ask there there are proposed changes in this? >> Can I don't know who made there's some reds, some blues. I I'd love to tracking the rationale for them or which ones were internal, which ones were legal. It would be helpful. >> So, we can have that. Thank you. >> All right. Now we've got some recognitions. Trisha, the principal for Wellwood Middle School, is going to recognize the school's clerical staff and professional learning community of teachers. >> Good evening everyone. I'm honored to be here tonight and present to you some truly exceptional people and highlight some really important work that is happening at Wellwood. I have two groups that I'm going to acknowledge tonight. I'm going to begin by acknowledging three individuals who are truly the heart of our
003building, our secretaries. There's no task too small or too big for them to handle with grace, professionalism, and a smile. This is my fourth year as principal at Wellwood, and some of you may or may not remember, my first few years included several transitions and changes within our office staff. And for anyone who's worked in a school knows how essential these roles are to the function and flow of a building. The silver lining for me in that experience was that I gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the many responsibilities these positions carry and all that happens each day to support students, staff, and families. I'm going to start with recognizing our newest secretary in the counseling office, Stacy Button. Stacy joined us just before the start of the school year and has made an
004incredibly smooth transition transition into a very busy role. She quickly learned the ins and outs of the position, often on the fly while always remaining calm, organized, and composed. State testing over the past few weeks was a true test for anyone new to the role. And thanks to Stacy, it's been one of our smoothest seasons. More importantly, she greets students with kindness and warmth, helping create a space that feels welcoming and affirming, especially for students who may be having some of their hardest days. In our main office, we're fortunate to have two outstanding secretaries as well. Amy Homa joined us as a clerical substitute at the end of 2023 and quickly became an invaluable member of our team. She's often the first smiling face families and visitors see when they walk through our doors. Amy
005is kind, patient, dependable, and has a wonderful sense of humor that brains our office each day. Beyond the many responsibilities of the front office, Amy consistently takes the time to support our students in ways that may seem small but make a tremendous difference. Whether she's helping a student access the Wellwood wardrobe, calming an overwhelmed student, helping locate a lost item, or simply just taking a minute to listen. Amy approaches every interaction with compassion and care. She also has a remarkable ability to anticipate challenges before they grow into larger issues, often handling situations independently or bringing them to our attention proactively. Her positive attitude and sense of humor are invaluable qualities in a middle school environment and help make our office a welcoming place for everyone who enters. And finally, Michelle Salsy, who has been instrumental
006in supporting me throughout my principal my transition into the principal ship. I can always count on Michelle to know the pulse of the building. Like Amy, she consistently takes initiative and handles tasks before even being asked. She's always thinking about how systems and processes can be improved to better support our school community. I value her insight and feedback always. With so many moving parts in my own daily responsibilities, I can also count on Michelle to help keep me accountable and offer the gentle reminders I sometimes need when things get busy and priorities start shifting and moving in a hundred different directions because let's be honest, it's middle school and sometimes the days can quickly become unpredictable. Beyond her daily responsibilities, Michelle has joined committees at Wildwood. She contributes to our school in countless ways that
007go far beyond the hours of a typical workday. These three individuals play critical roles in the daily operations and success of Wallwood. Their work is often quiet and behind the scenes in ways people may not always notice, but it is absolutely essential. On behalf of the entire Wellwood faculty and staff, I want to thank each of them for everything they do and the care, dedication, and positivity they bring to our school each and every day. [applause] I think we'll pause and acknowledge them and then we'll do the next All right. The next group I'm going to recognize tonight is a team of educators who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to professional learning, reflection, collaboration, and instructional growth in ways that are having a meaningful and positive impact on students and our classrooms. Their work closely
008aligns with New York Inspires, our district priorities, and FM's portrait of a learner. This fall, these teachers submitted a proposal to develop their own professional learning community or PLC. I'd also like to do a quick nod to Chrissy Purscell, director of the Central New York Asiggo County Teacher Center, who has supported both this opportunity and the important work these educators have been leading. So, thank you, Chrissy. The purpose of this program is to support teachers in examining and improving professional practice while evaluating the impact on student outcomes. It provides structured time for collaboration, reflection, research, implementation, and analysis, all centered around improving the educational experience for students. This year, the PLC focused on examining grading and assessment practices through the lens of equity, student growth, and authentic learning. Their goal is to create common grading
009practices that more accurately reflect what students know and can do, while also providing meaningful feedback that supports growth over time. Throughout the year, these educators engaged in monthly collaboration, professional reading, research, and reflective conversations focused on how grading practices can either support or unintentionally hinder student learning and belonging. Their work built upon earlier learning connected to the CRSE framework and ongoing conversations around equity and education. As part of this process, the team analyzed student data, reflected on student voice and classroom experiences, and examined disproportionalities among student groups. They explored important questions such as, "What is the true purpose of grading? How do we ensure grades reflect learning rather than compliance? How can feedback promote growth, resilience, and mastery?" Through this work, the team examined research around standardsbased grading, reassessment opportunities, grading categories, timely feedback practices,
010and the impact grades can have on student motivation, confidence, and mental health. They explored ways to shift classrooms from performance focused environments towards learning focused environments that emphasize growth, curiosity, and perseverance. One especially meaningful aspect of their work involved examining family access and communication around grading practices. This team studied patterns in school tool access and discussed how schools can better ensure that all families, including multilingual families and families of students with IEPs, are able to engage in conversations about student learning and progress. This year, these educators not only implemented many of these practices within their own classrooms, but they're also sharing their learning with colleagues, department, and our new educators across the district through presentations, collaboration, and ongoing conversations. They are helping to build a shared understanding of equitable instructional practices throughout our school community.
011Their willingness to reflect, collaborate, take risks, and challenge traditional practices demonstrates true leadership. They continue to remind us that meaningful change in education begins with educators who are willing to learn, grow, and work together in service of students. This group truly exemplifies our district priorities of creating welcoming, affirming, and equitable learning environments for every student. At this time, I would like to recognize the following members of this PLC group. Casey Aldridge, Kendra Myers, Sam Wallik, Mark Seiki, Amanda Stock, Mia Danaher, and Andrew Meyers. Thank you for your leadership, dedication, and commitment to our students, staff, and school community. [cheering] I Thank you all for coming. If you'd like to stay, you may. If not, it's okay to leave ahead of time. Um, so now we're going to move into item 2.01. 1 um presentation on
012participation in the federal school meals program. Um I think Brad and Brian are both going to present. Just want to start by saying thank you to Brad and Brian before they get started. and also thanking our community for sharing their feedback and their thoughts on the program along the way. And this evening, Brad and Brian will talk a little bit about our existing programs and then talk about next steps for the district. So again, we thank them for their work in this presentation, but also thank you to the community for the feedback they shared along the way. >> Dr. Barbie has got to be a big help with that as well. And I've got Cheryl just to be recognized over here in the bullpen ready to go, too. >> Oh, great. Cheryl is here as
013well. Definitely Cheryl helps with our number. >> So we got a full house. So thank you everybody. I know there's been a lot of buzz about this, a lot of talk. Actually, uh, Dr. Parvy and myself as part of our road shows have answered a few questions here and there in regards to it. So, I know uh it's been something that's been anticipated and folks have kind of been looking looking forward to. Um, for a little bit of background, I'm going to turn it over to Brian. Uh, as Dr. Farby indicated, here's kind of your four uh corresponding things we'll be going through tonight. What programs are available? Uh, what does FM service look like, future opportunities at FM, and then recommendation and next steps. So, I'm going to let Brian go through. I may
014jump in at times here and there and there certainly will be time for, you know, a little bit of Q&A and kind of go through some information. So, Brian, take it away. >> All right, cool. Thank you all for carving out time for us. I do appreciate it. Um, Dr. Harvey, thank you. Board, uh, the students that let their voice be heard. It takes a lot of courage to do that. Um, and I do appreciate that and recognize that as well. [clears throat] So, what programs are out there? Uh well, we're going to talk a little bit about the few where we're at now and the future of food service at Faith Manlas. Uh what programs are out there? We got the school breakfast program, lesser known um than the National School Lunch Program. Most
015people combine the two. There is an option to be one or the other. Uh but you still have to follow the same rules and guidelines if you're SVP. And now we've explored that. Uh then you have the new uh New York State Universal School meals. New as of last year. So SP and NSLP. Well, what is it? Well, basically it's the ongoing program for the federal government wherein if you qualify, you receive a free or reduced. It's mostly just free now meal. Um but again, you have to qualify for that um and you meet certain income guidelines. What are the opportunities for the district? Well, the district receives partial reimbursement for meals provided to qualifying students. that helps ease financial burden. And what are the challenges of that? Well, the challenges of that are often
016strict nutritional guidelines uh for meal components and serving size. Uh so there's kids I walk behind at the high school and if I was a B1 coach or that's my next offensive lineman, one lunch isn't going to do it. So uh you know, that's where you kind of see on the end of the spectrum where it works for a lot, not for everyone. Um all food and beverages offered during the school day must adhere to smart stacks smart snack standards. Uh this would significantly reduce food service department revenue opportunities. So currently at the high school snack shack revenue the bulk of that is just falls outside of smart snack. I don't call it unhealthy food but it's that stuff that falls a little bit outside is about threequarters of our revenue versus what's sold at
017the front line. So, it's another challenge uh to work through to think about uh New York State Universal School Meals. So, this program new last year uh all students are eligible to receive one free breakfast and one free lunch today regardless of uh any application filled out. Uh so, what it does is it piggybacks on the NSLP. It follows all the rules and regulations, but if a kid isn't covered by the NSLP, they're going to cover that child. So it it basically whatever we give free meals, one school lunch, one breakfast per day. What that doesn't cover on the NSLP, New York State covers that. What are the opportunities for FM? Uh the state provides supplemental funding to cover the cost for all students. I mean, that's a benefit in of itself. I don't think
018that needs to be explained. Um it ensures all students have access to free breakfast and lunch to help alleviate financial burden on families. That is the big one. uh with inflation uh things are just getting harder to per you know it's getting harder to balance budgets I will say I got I do free and reduced applications I got one the other day it was from a woman on social security she takes care of her grandson at the high school so I looked at that and I thought this lady has got to qualify you know at the high school where we cover the cost of free and reduce the food service department does um I went through the ad she didn't qualify I said I thought I must put something in wrong because looking at I
019can't share details but looking at what I put in I thought, "Okay, for sure I my math is off." Did it again. Again, she just didn't qualify. For those of you who have, you got a teenage boy. For me, they're like magicians. You buy groceries, boom, they're gone. Where'd they go? You know, back to Wegman's. And this is somebody it's it's a grandma taking care of her grandson just looking for a little bit of help. I couldn't do that for at the high school. Um, and that's where the New York State program steps in and says, "Hey, we covered those kind of issues." So, there's a benefit. Uh, program challenges. Well, like the NSLP, you have to follow you have to follow the nutritional guidelines. And this isn't to say you want to skirt guidelines
020and give the kids, you know, food you find at the state fair. It's just sometimes you operate a little bit outside to help meet student requests or you find what they like to capture revenue. Um, but that is a challenge in itself. The program is subject to annual New York New York State budget approval and not guaranteed. So the issue there is we go into the New York State program, meals are free, following year it's it's not in the budget, it's not approved. Well, we have to go back to students paying and the uh NSLP program. We cannot absorb that cost as a department and as a district and be astronomical. So that in itself, this is one thing we thought last year. Well, geez, if it's not approved, the following year, you're going to
021have a lot of angry parents and a lot of confusion. This seems to be a program that might stick around for a while. Current participation, um, it's no secret. It's, you know, high school is the only one we're not participating in. Uh, but it shouldn't be lost on folks that we've been covering the cost of free and reduced students at the high school, um, since before I came here. And we absorb that as a department and as a district. Uh, we take that burden on. And actually, what I would say is the students take that burden on because when they buy cookies, when they buy nuggets, that helps create gives us give us enough money us enough money to pay for folks that can't afford launches. So, applaud the students for that. I appreciate that.
022Um, but what are you going to consider about going in SLP? Like you said, it's unknown if funding will continue. You don't know. Uh, the food service program will see a shift in the current cart menu items to healthcare alternative options. So, like I said, we lose revenue from things we do sell now. A lot of the popular items. They're all alternatives for sure. U we are still capturing revenue from uh approved snack items. So that's good news. Um if we run a deficit uh then the general fund has to make it whole. So if this isn't working out and we start losing money when I have to go and say hey Brad you know we need to fund the school lunch program because this isn't making any money. Now, school lunch is unique in
023the school arena in that we can fund ourselves and should fund ourselves. Uh, >> yeah, sure. This was a this was a question I and I've seen it a couple times with some of our road shows and I think maybe even Dr. Py may have gotten an email or two about it in regards to it. I just want to make sure because I think we had a couple times we ran into it maybe folks didn't really fully understand and I know Dr. maybe as much as a year ago when we got the middle school going. There might have been some things taken from board meetings that I don't think of people fully understood or what our we our intention was. So the gist is what I'm trying to I was trying to explain to folks
024especially you know at those road shows was literally that that sentence if the food service program runs a deficit general fund is legally required to make it whole. So what I want to explain to them food service itself we are running positive right now. we are. But if it goes to negative, you're you're required legally that has to be made whole at that point in time. So June 30th, you can have other different things that could go to go negative. Food service is not one of them. So the example I gave in the road show was some districts and I I don't know how exactly they do it. My home district being West Jenny was one. If they got into people maybe a different sit situation but similar concept where if they had meals that
025weren't paid for, they put a budget line literally in the budget for that item. And I said, "So I guess suppose if we were going to run this program and we were going to run it at a deficit, you could take general fund and run an actual line on it. Supplementary food service, whatever that amount is." I think it may have came up before with Craig and I'm not sure if Dan asked the question. It was a good question. How do you deal with that? So the whole discussion got based on I think the concept. She said, "Well, our taxes would go up." And I said, "It's not necessarily one to one." But what what they're saying is basically food service has to be compensated to be made whole. Whatever that difference is, you're pulling
026from a budget. That budget has corresponding detail items on it that's line by line by line. None of them say food service. So, you're pulling from some line in there that's not food service to turn around and make it whole. The concept was if you pull enough, you may have to eventually raise taxes to offset whatever that is. Now, I don't know what that number is, but I'm sure it's probably, you know, a little bit more than what's in that budget now. But that's the concept. And I'm just want to make sure everybody fully understands that because I think we've lost that translation, excuse me, translation a little bit some of the road shows. So is everybody kind of good with that? I think that was one. Yes, sir. >> Well, so can you provide
027an example? So if not enough students purchased or got the free lunch and we got reimbursed for it or what what's a scenario where we would be I >> I think the easiest scenario you're going to go through this and and it's going to make a lot of sense to you, but the real gist is that was my concern probably heard me speak and I've done this at like I said at the road shows is if the money dries up. So if we don't get that federal funding to where it comes in and we actually compensated for it. We are now living by participation. If participation then students don't choose to purchase from it and we basically have expenses that are going to exceed revenues. If you have a bottom line loss, that loss general
028fund has to then take the money whatever that amount is and fund it. If it's $10,000, if it's $500 or whatever it is. >> So the scenario is really is participation going to cover it? right now it probably shouldn't be an issue because you're going to have that federal funding coming in to provide basically that free money. >> So you're saying like if we pre purchased food for a thousand meals and only 500 of them were actually consumed. >> Well, you get into your labor really is probably where you're going to get into your problem where you're going to just have other expenses that are going to commit. So your labor costs, you don't have enough and you just can't self-sustain. >> It's basically a restaurant. You know what I mean? Do you have enough
029money to cover your labor? You have enough money to cover your food? That kind of thing. Um >> can I yeah just jump in real quick? >> Sure do. >> So said differently uh when we participate if we were to choose to participate in this program people should understand that the food cost and a certain amount of our overhead aka labor maintenance whatnot is covered in the reimbursement amount. We don't turn around and submit to the federal government andor New York state and say this is food service at FM. Here's all our employee payroll. all our food cost, please reimburse us dollar for dollar. That is not how the program works. If it worked that way, we wouldn't have run a uh have a chance of having a loss. But in this scenario, the way
030the program is structured, to Brad's point, if student participation is low and we do not capture enough meals to recoup the cost of our labor, maintenance, etc., there is a chance that the district can lose money. If the district loses money, we have to cover it by law out of the general fund. >> I like your concept better. I want to submit all those expenses through and get reimbured for all of it. But I'm being greedy. >> Yes. So the gist is and it's a better way to explain it was basically are you capturing all those costs? You don't get reimbured for all of them. So that portion you're not you have to have enough enough participation to come in and offset it. Alicarts in our case if you get into the high school I
031think it represented somewhere around $253,000. So anything of where we're having labor costs, things of that nature, those alle cards have been able to cover it. So I think we're fine right now. And you know, you'll get to the recommendation and everything else. But that's the one piece I think we've seen a little bit of struggling with as we've kind of gone through with, you know, why are you going to raise taxes? I'm like, no, that's not what we meant. What we said was if it gets to that point, that's ultimately something that could happen. So I don't know if there's any other questions. I'll certainly let him keep going. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah. Like Brad sh we're just trying to share the whatifs. Uh we don't want to leave any stone unturned. We
032don't want something to happen down the line. You say well hey why didn't you tell us this. Uh we don't jump into things. We've been thinking about we considering been considering this uh since last year but it had to make sense. So good news FM can opt out of the program uh if it's deemed unsuccessful. If the kids say no we don't want it and it's not going well. Revenue is tanking. Uh kids are bringing lunch. We can't offer what they like. and it's hurting the program. Well, you have a 60-day opt out. You send a notice to uh the federal government. You send a notice out to the parents in New York State and they approve your opt out and 60-day turnaround. You're back to doing what we did before. Uh the good news
033with that is that the students are very forgiving. I've had to shut a shack down for whatever reason. As soon as I open that gate back up a few days later, they're right there. um they just want to eat the things they love to eat. Uh so there isn't there is an out it's you're not stuck in that for an entire year if uh it's not going well and you don't have a whole year of losing revenue. So that's good news. Uh complying current offerings and more good news is we offer a lot of these already at the high school. Uh even better news is the kids are trending towards picking uh those options for themselves or making that own decision which is great. Salads go like gang busters. I have uh love the lady.
034She makes nothing but salads 20 hours a week. That is her job. She makes salads all day every day and God bless her. Uh because the kids love them. They sell very well. Um we're offering fresh fruit now. We're trying to do uh fresh parfets, things like that. Uh cheese and peanut butter crackers. Um more like like pepperoni and cheese is a big one. So there's stuff we offer now the kids will continue to have and they're trending towards. Um benefits we've seen at the middle schools. Middle schools is kind of like if you're into baseball, it's kind of our AAA team. Elementary is the double A. You kind of see what's working. You know what players are, you know, hitting home runs. Um and there's been a lot of home runs hit at the
035middle schools. Uh sales are going like gang busters. participation is through the roof at some schools. Uh Wellwood being one of them. Uh causes less financial burden on the parents, which is great, which is I think one of the big pushes to get the high school into the NSLP. Um maintaining students student satisfaction. Looking at the numbers, you're not going to make everybody happy. We try to. I think overall it's been a success as far as if you look at where your sales are at, how many reimburseable meals are you selling? Uh we're doing very well. So, I'd say the students are overall satisfied. Um, there's always room for improvement. Uh, there is healthier food choices. So, some students will ask for, "Can I have there? Here's a picture of a healthy meal. Can I
036have that?" It's like, "We can try to do that." But when you have when you're on the NSLP, what you serve as a normal lunch, they're kind of built in health is built into that. So, you're swapping white bread for whole grains. Uh, you're making sure that there's all elements. You have vegetable, you have fruit, you have protein there. So there is healthier food choices even though if it still kind of looks like the same lunch from the year before. Um increase increased program revenue. I'm a firm believer in sales solving problems. Um you need that revenue like I said to be self- sustaining and if I need uh equipment breaks down you know we're not let we're not putting bandaids on it for 20 years and I can say hey Brad we need a
037new oven. And Brad says no problem. He doesn't have to go to the community and say hey sorry I got to raise taxes because Brian needs a new oven. Um the revenue is there. the ability to hire additional labor. Labor is tough um to meet when your your sales are low. When your sales are high, great. You can hire more people. You get those students through faster. So, the increased participation helps in that way and that these kids aren't spending half their lunch period waiting in line. Um changes in timing. So, big changes at the high school next year. This year we did not have lunch periods. Next year they will have lunch periods and that's going to drive a lot of traffic to the cafeteria and should in turn drive a lot to the
038front lines. Whereas this year threearters of our sales are coming off the shacks. Kids are going in between classes. I can grab something at the shack. I can use this free period or study hall uh to do work or homework or whatever they choose to do with that. Uh instead I'll grab a mac and cheese or pizza or whatever at a shack. That will change. Um, if we went into the NSLP at the high school, we might have to rework what we do as far as what the shacks offer. We might have to go to maybe a food court style, something to help alleviate the amount of um, kids that are going to that front line because you have a lot of kids coming in at one time. Like I said, the goal is to
039get them through as fast as possible. So, that's a lot to think about. Um, we will shift from an alleart model to a reimbursement revenue. The goal will be to capture as much reimburseable revenue as possible. The burden on us is then to make meals appealing for the students to take in student feedback. Uh and hopefully within that you got to play in that sandbox and inside that we can try to do the best we can with what is allowed. Uh we can't go outside of the sandbox. We do opt in. We have to apply by June 30th. So the end of all this, it is our recommendation as a district that we move forward or as department move forward to participate in the federal breakfast and school lunch programs at the high school for
040the 2627 school year. Uh our next steps will be FM has to apply by the 30th. Uh we have to work out staffing, equipment, facility needs. Uh how do we handle the flow and After all that, we'll take questions. >> I I think you touched upon this a little bit, but could you just um uh explain a little bit more or a little bit more in depth about the experience that the district had this year at the elementary schools and the high schools and how that how it worked out and how it went. >> Sure. So I think uh the better uh maybe explaining with at the middle schools uh it's a little bit closer to the high school. It's gone very well. We found we weren't sure at first we didn't take away a
041lot of the alarts that the kids love but we found substitutes. We found different things. Um now I'll use Wellwood as an example. Uh once we went free it was just you're doing double what you did in lunch numbers. You're doing triple what you did in breakfast before. Before you had 30 kids coming through, now you have a hundred. Uh, so it's been a success. The kids are happy with the food. They're trying to come back for more food. So if they're coming back for the regular lunch line food, uh, and get second lunches, that's great. Some kids are really slick. They'll try to stack like nuggets. You only laugh at it. Um, but it's gone very well at the middles. Uh, the elementary, it's always a challenge with the menu because the kids are
042very picky at that age. And so you kind of force some things on them like black beans, things that when I was five or six I did not want to eat. So we do our best to try to bury that. They put that on as something extra and they want it, they can have it. If not, uh so it's a little bit more of a struggle with the elementary, but sales the elementary gang busters as well. >> Thank you. So, John, just to piggyback that a little bit, um, you know, I I think two years ago or whatever it was, we were just losing our director at the time. And so, I met with the Cook managers kind of go through and talk about bringing the middle school into it. And the thought process was
043kind of sitting down with Cheryl and going through it. The revenue just like it was too good to pass up. Uh, some of the thought process of how do we get there with that? It really got to the point of what are those meals? What are the offerings? as it requires from the nutritional standards and the guidelines, it matched up pretty close. The alternative didn't really have to research for as much. So, it was really kind of a close to one to one. This has been the one I just wasn't sure. I knew, you know, back in time when we kind of got into it. I knew there was going to be, you know, some alternatives there. I didn't know what we'd be able to find. I didn't know what the student participation would be
044like and I didn't know when the money would dry up if it would make the participation hold. So, from the middle school side, I kind of thought we'd be okay. This is really going to be a bit of an incubator in the sense of let's go see what this is going to look like. But middle school and elementary going really good. >> Thank you. And and and I'll just add a little bit of of my experience as the as the parent of an eighth grader at Wellwood actually. Um I I would say and I think this is an intention uh but it's also I found to be a hidden benefit is it does seem to drive uh encouragement toward the healthy choices because you know in the past I would put money in the my
045school buck so he could buy lunch. Well he would buy whatever maybe maybe this is an indictment of my parenting. I don't know but he he would buy you know what whatever he wanted. Now uh he gets you know the school lunch because I don't have to put money into the my school bucks account. uh he you know because there's there's a free option for him. So the free option is the option that he's taking. And again I think and I know he's uh he's liked it even being a picky eater and he's participated um where he did not participate in uh in school lunch that much before other than the uh the David's small cookies. So >> I think we were going to send a letter out to the top 20 fires. So, you're
046probably not going to be on [laughter] that. >> Brad, while you're up there, just just want to one point of clarification and Brian, you probably know this as well, but I just defer to him because he's always helped me with the numbers just to make sure that we put it on the record. So, we've talked a lot in a food presentation about revenue. Even being an accountant, I'm looking at this while you guys are talking a lot about revenues. But I I think just to set, you know, to make it clear to the community, we've never budgeted here at FM or at least the six years I've been on the board. We've never budgeted to make money on food service. We've always been that's always tried to be a break even proposition. Um, and that's
047really all we're trying to do going forward. So when you hear the presentation, I we're talking a bit about revenue. It it's more about we're not trying to make money uh off of parents and or student lunches at $3.50 a lunch. we're really just trying to break even and and trying to hold that um as we look to potentially transition into the program. So, I just want to make sure that we get that out there so folks understand that. >> No, it's a good question. I I'm not sure if it was you or Dan whoever reached out and they asked a really good question about it might have been you Jason in regards to how does the costing work. So um it's interesting having been an auditor my previous career and audited school districts including
048school lunch and then working you know my previous almost tenant telling you're really just trying to break even many districts what I would go through as an auditor where you're going through try to peel apart the expenses and see do you really truly have just school lunch or food service items in there is your labor all in there are your benefits in there are your overhead costs in there things of that nature many districts you know frankly they're not and it's not to blow anybody in it's more of just they can't get it to the point where they truly have a self-sustaining food service program. We have that. There's no goal really to generate any kind of significant profit. If anything, you put it back into the pro program. We everybody knows we've had a
049ton of upgrades here with construction and capital projects and there's more to be done. So, anything he asked me like when he jokes around and tells you he's going to ask me about an oven, his oven numbers aren't my oven numbers. So, I learned how much economy oven was. What's the magic number, Brian? >> $54,000. I was thinking five grand. We go maybe there's a scratch and dent program like at Home Depot or something. I get the floor model. We put that in and then we drop the 54. I'm like, "Oh my goodness." So, they're not cheap, but you know, they're high-end. That kind of thing. So, when he comes, he usually comes pretty heavy. I mean, the uh the freezer itself, I think, at the high school is almost 100,000. These are not cheap
050things. That money will go back into it. and it's, you know, certainly we'd love to be able to just take care of kids and do what we can from that aspect, but that is, it's a good question. >> Thank you very much for the presentation. Um, I'm glad to see that it's become a reoccurring appropriation in the legislature for this to be funded. That doesn't guarantee anything, but it makes it a lot difficult to undo it. Um, I think with the cost of families living in FM, this is a really good thing for our community because we're hearing from so many people who worry about just being able to afford to live in our community. So, I'm glad that we're doing it. Um, I look forward to seeing what kind of a creative choices we
051come up with for the students to match the guidelines and I'm really thankful to the students for their participation in this um, work to decide what we would do. So, very glad we're making this decision. >> Thanks, Marissa. I knew you know you were probably here back when they first got out and at the time was a different time and you know and now it's a different time and it you know I know I think a lot of folks have probably received their assessments and I'll save that for my next presentation with the budget. So certainly anything we can do around here to try to help from that aspect uh it is recognized. >> Um to kind of add on to Merc's comment I guess I would I this is great that we're going to
052try it and see how it goes at all the all the buildings. I guess I would look to see if there are things that we're thinking about in terms of collecting student feedback um and parent feedback along the way over the course of you know from both elementary and middle for this year and then next year as we expand into the high school to see if there are um options that we can engage our students in helping to be creative on different offerings and and those kinds of things. >> For sure. I think student voice and choice needs to continue. I think it's probably one of the besides the free lunch is one of the good things that come out of this debate. Uh I think technology is definitely the way to go. Um the
053folks at the high school, they're so receptive to doing surveys with the kids, which is easy. They can do it from their phones. They're on their phones, you know, hopefully not during school hours or maybe on their Chromebooks, but uh you know, things that make it easier for students. You know, we can do menu chats where we're guilty. I don't know. >> But um things that we can capture the most amount of feedback uh with minimal effort like surveys are great. Uh I'd like to have ongoing discussions with the agents of change in the middle schools. Uh they're great. I love those kids. Uh they keep me honest for sure. Um so there's a lot of opportunities. I think going into next year we're going to take what we learned this year and build on
054it and go from there. >> I I think I'm sorry. I think at its core that's going to be the most important thing that we do is not just implementing the program but continually not just getting but listening to the feedback from the students because at its core the participation number is what drives whether this can be successful or not. If the participation rate at the core meal is very low, then the reimbursement rate is very low and we end up in a negative scenario and that's where it does have a potential tax impact because the general fund has to make up that balance. This is this is the area where there's you know we still have allocart offerings. We're not going to do away with all of offerings but the core compliant meal itself
055is what reimbursement is based on [clears throat] the number of meals that are served drives the reimbursement. So that this is look when we talked about this in the prior year to do this year. This is why we talked about doing it at the middle school level first to be able to study it. But we also know that the importance of this upcoming school year is we have we have a huge new change at the high school. We have not had a mandatory lunch period at the high school in a very very very long time. We did that very intentionally for a lot of mental healthbased reasons and nutritional reasons for kids to have the time during the school year, school day rather, to deprogram, socialize, and eat. and we need to make sure that
056they're able to do all three of those things. And so having the right choices that they're actually going to choose so we don't go into the scenario where we were last time we did the free meal program at the high school where we were chucking lots and lots and lots of food away. That was it was not successful then. I think there's there's reasonable data that suggests it could be successful this time and I hope it is. Um, it's a it's a tremendous benefit to the community if we do this, but we have to do it right. And and so I I I I wonder I know Sarah asked back in September and and I have the same questions is what are we doing proactively now to talk to the other local districts who have
057done this this year to find out what are the meals that are getting the highest participation levels? What are the food products that are getting the highest participation levels? There should be local data available on that today that will best help us start the school year at a position of success instead of trying to catch up. So I mean we in theory should be able to go to JD and say what are the meals that you are serving? What are the food products you are serving that have the highest participation rate? And and so I don't know if that's being done or not, but I I I would I would love to see that done as part of the data collection process so that this can be successful so that it can continue for so
058long as the funding remains available to us. >> You hit some good points. Um it was interesting pulling this together and sitting down here with Brian and Dr. Parvey and Cheryl going through and we had such a pile of data to give you. We had bags of it and then we were trying to figure out you know how far do you kind of do the you know death by data but at the same time try to keep it streamlined and you just hit on an interesting one. So I think we've got three different districts I think that where we've reached out to and talk to the unique part with FM we're different I first question I think it was Dr. probably may have talked to a superintendent from one of the other districts, skinny house
059maybe, and they talked about not having to truly really abandon their program much to go into the federal program. I was kind of like, ah, she got bad info. You know, he didn't really explain it or whatever. And the more I thought about it, went through it, I'm like, I think what he was saying was they don't offer a lot of different different products that are out there that are not compatible. They already had their product lines and their meals and things of that nature. they were already going to meet program requirements, so they didn't have to do a lot for a shift. We're probably more unique in the sense of what we offer and the variety of what we offer that we might have been a bit more of a change from that aspect.
060I think my home district and my kids, you know, West any high school, they're in college now. I I that's kind of what I recognize or recall from that aspect, but I know, you know, I think we've got some info from some of those other districts. So, that's one of the big things. We are different from that. To Dan's point, I'm a firm believer that if you take care of the customer, everything else falls into place and the student is the customer. That's where the success of the checks have come from. Um, we looked at it from my background coming in here, I looked at it in kind of a different way than maybe a career food service director might look at that from a school district. How can we capture sales? How can we
061respond to what the kids like and don't like? Uh we have so as far as reaching out to other districts, I'm constantly speaking to the folks um in the Boseies network uh food service directors who meet once a month. Uh they've been great whenever I've called them and I've called them quite a bit. Uh folks that have gone at for example uh I spoke with the food service director there and said, you know, hey, how's it going? How did what did you lose? How do the students react to things you had to take away? So there is a great network there. Um it's and it's readily available. It's a great community of folks. Um, I think what we're doing now to see what the kids like and don't like, you look at sales daily. How
062many lunches did we sell? What didn't sell? So, what won't we put on ever again because the kids just didn't like it? Don't waste your time again with it. What went really well? I mean, fried chicken's a prime example of that. Um, that sold like gang busters when it was at Wellwood the second day we had it. This kid walks in, he goes, "Fried chicken." He's so excited. And you lot of things, you know, that okay, that's something they like. So that's a once once a month item. So you look at sales and say, you know, the numbers don't lie. If they like it, okay, if the sales are high, then they like it. If they're low, okay, they're not. We're not going to force it on these kids. >> Um, well, I just first
063of all appreciate the work that's gone into this. I'm delighted to see this as the recommendation moving forward. Um, I was going to ask about working with other schools. Dan, you and I are so often on the same wavelength. Um, but actually, one of the one of the things that has come up that I'm just curious about, a lot of folks ask, well, we live in the middle of this beautiful agricultural area and why aren't we working with more local suppliers? And like with all things, there's a more complicated answer than, you know, then yes, we absolutely should. Could you talk just a little bit about that? Um, our relationship, the the access to working with local farms or local providers versus some of the other um vendors that we use. >> So, there's a
064lot of local providers we do use like Cocoon Farms for apples. Uh there's a lot of great folks. Sometimes it boils down to price. Um where we can get the same fresh fruit from US Foods at a cheaper price and when you're in a spot where you're struggling sometimes to break even, uh last year was a little rough. Uh you think where can we get the best deal? Now, as this program, as it snowballs and you start bringing more revenue, then it bring opens up more options, more options to say, "Hey, we're going to go all local. Uh, we can afford to do this now. Uh, we're going to try these out these different suppliers or they're on the Boseis bid. You're also sometimes bid restricted. Um, but we're going to go through, you know,
065this local supplier that wants to work with us. We can try that now because now it's not like, oh no, got to kind of cross the fingers, see how it goes." Um it it is a very sensitive thing trying to hit the brake even. We've done it very well this year. Uh but you do have to be cautious. So that is something we're looking towards as this program like I said as the sales snowball. Sure. It opens up a lot more options for us. You talk a little about government. >> Well that's the thing too. So government commodities I'm glad you brought that up. So they will send you just cases of maybe you're getting 30 case 40 pound cases of pears. Well, guess what's going on the menu? That a lot of your inventory
066is government commodities. Is the system the the federal program is designed to keep food prices from tanking so farmers don't lose their farms and then in turn it also helps kids get a free school lunch. So when you have that inventory, you have to use that inventory. You can't go all fresh fruits and apples and berries. It just doesn't make financial sense. That would be great if it did. It does not. So sometimes you are limited into what you've gotten from the government as far as commodities because you have to hit that break even with reimbursement and that gets tough to do. So you are you will sometimes you'll use canned vegetables. you put in the fresh fruit where you can uh you try to have a healthy balance but you are on this program
067kind of pigeon hold into using the inventory they send you because if you had to buy your own the cost is astronomical. We ran out it was sales were so good at the middle school this year we ran out probably three months in we're buying our own canned fruit at a cost of 1,600 bucks a week. Uh so it it escalates pretty quick. So you do want to use those commodities that are given to you. But like I said, as a program grows, it opens up opportunity. >> You talk a little bit about how you get commodities are available. >> So it is. So you can ask for something. They give you a list uh before the following year. They say where's your wish? What's your wish list? What would you like? And if you
068you kind of say, what do the kids like? So I'm going to here's my wish list of 40 items. which you're going to give me for free, which is great. But then you might they might come back and say, "Oh, we're not doing um that cheese. You're getting this cheese. We're not doing that fruit. You're getting this fruit. You're getting a different brand." So, you take what's given to you and you make the best out of what you get. It isn't always like I can't just go and choose. I would like fresh berries from the guy down the street. It doesn't work that way. I wish it did. That'd be great. But you take what they give you, you make the best out of it. Did that answer everything, Sarah? That was the piece like
069I I had to get my head around. I know it's probably kind of starting here. I thought it was more of like you check the box of, you know, here's what I want, you get what you want. And then I've learned more about, you know, it's almost like back to someone maybe MASH for those of us old enough to remember like, oh, they give you, you know, case of whatever this is, and you try to figure out, okay, what am I going to do with the case of whatever. So that was kind of something we had to learn where you're almost you may have designed a menu but you might have to reconi reconvene it or whatever revise I guess I should say based on whatever those commodities are but then I think it's like
070your point are you bringing in some of those local farmers and you provide some of that product and obviously with the more revenue it opens up you then you open up your product line and that distribution. So hopefully that answered everything. >> Are there other questions? Um so first off I would just kind of like to uh thank all the high school students who have been actively engaging and trying to make this um and push this to happen. Another thing is um just want to thank um the board um for kind of just the investments put towards food services specifically with the addition of the expanding of the cafeteria itself as well as the implementation of a actual um period at the high school for lunches. I know we were out of compliance for the
071longest time for that. Um just um more things that makes me more confident that business will have a high participation of high school students in this program. Um though it seems like the sticking point is generally participation. My question is is do you guys know how much participation like a percentage wise of students at the high school level we would need in order to make this work? So you you'd have to have it's a tough question. You'd have to have three quarters hopefully participating. Record half would be ideally at first, but the hope is maybe threequarters of students coming into the cafeteria are participating. And I think that would be a great starting point. The hope is that everybody comes in and participates. The hope for me is that all the kids hanging out in
072the morning, there's probably a hundred of them, come and get breakfast. That would be awesome. So then the burden is up to us to provide just quality food for them to come and want to get. You know, it's a loaded question, Jacob, and it's and it's well intended and I know it is from your part. Some of it is um are you talking right now with the program in the sense of you have the federal funding and the free if because that's one answer, but then the the second answer is that one that I'm nervous about is if we don't have that free money, then what does true participation looks like? kind of what we've talked about earlier and that's where it's going to be with what you get government commodities, what you have in
073available revenue and what you have for student voice and choice. Can you marry that up and then what you've got, you know, with your with your shacks and your equipment and everything else, can you produce that that's going to entice that child or that student to come in and purchase that meal? So, I think you're not going to probably have a problem that first year, but when you get to that point where if you have after that and if the funding isn't there and you have to live off truly participation, you're going to study it. But your backup is going to be the fact of, you know, if you really need to take a second look back in point, you know, in 2013 or 14 or 15 or whatever we may first abandon the program
074for that, you got that two-month opt out you can certainly look at. So it sits in your back pocket if you need it. But the meantime, you got a great go-ahhead. You know, it's an opportunity for families to go through this with some of the costs the way they are and things of that nature. But that's something I think you're going to have to, you know, get involved with. he'll have to have some more of what he's doing at the middle school and kind of some of that voice and choice activities with some of the groups and talking through it. So, we're hopeful, you know what I mean? It's one of those that we wouldn't make the recommendation. We didn't believe it could happen. And so, we're looking forward to seeing that. Um just a
075comment. Um I think it's a really exciting opportunity and just hearing kind of the behind the scenes of how you work to make meals that kids like. I I think there's a lot of creativity and um problem solving and expertise in our food service department. So I have a lot of confidence in all of you to to do that work and and to to make it successful. And if it it isn't, we'll re-evaluate. But I think through the feedback you get from our community, our students particularly, um, and the work you're doing every day anyways to keep re-evaluating what meals are working. Um, it's it's a great it's something to really look forward to for next year. >> Thanks. Are there other questions? >> Thank you both. Appreciate it. >> And Brad, you're up next
076anyways. Uh all right. So we are on to item 2.02 our final uh budget hearing presentation. >> We're going to begin this evening with a budget video. Do you want to introduce that Dr. Party? Thank you um Sarah. So we do have a video just really capturing just the greatness that is FM and all the things that we do with students at the core and it is aligned with our um budget just in terms of looking at um the program offerings and how the majority of our budget does support what we do for students and we're quite proud of that. So we think it's timely to just share that as we think about um May 19th. Awesome. He wants [music] to share [music] FM has first of all a great reputation. It's well known for
077its academic excellence. [music] We offer a lot to our students. very student centered. There's a strong sense of pride [music] and many of our staff that include teachers and administrators choose to call FM home. I've had an amazing first couple of weeks visiting our schools, seeing our student performances, our fundraisers, um, dance marathon was amazing and the amount we raised all for a good cause. Being able to see also seeing our teachers go above and beyond for something like Pi Day. Our teachers had all of our students so engaged and interested in math. For me, as an educator, that focus [music] and engagement on our students and our staff really making sure that students feel [music] a sense of belonging really shines through when I [music] go into our buildings and see those things happening
078firsthand. When we think about next steps for FM, we always look to the [music] future. And so our infrastructure has to align with that. And so when we look at our spaces, we have um flexible learning spaces [music] for our students, innovative spaces, students and staff. And that's important in terms of investing in our future. When you think about our budget, the line share of our budget is programming. um 87 million dollars plus are focused on what we offer students and that aligns with our belief that our students are at the heart of what we do. Students are being asked to do things much differently than they had to 201 15 even 5 years ago. And so our infrastructure has to align with that. And then there's also the very basic [music] safety and security
079and making sure that we are investing in those things as well help ensure that our students are in an environment conducive to learning but also that all of our students and staff feel comfortable in their learning spaces. So those are things that we also invest in and keep at the center when we think about um what's important to keeping the system running and also making sure that there's quality offered to our students and our community. I think our staff dedication, our students, the performances, engagement in the classroom, the opportunities are almost limitless as far as I'm concerned from clubs, arts, athletics, academics, all of those things make FM special and also [music] align with the fact that we focus on programs for students. >> [music] >> I just really wanted to take the opportunity to
080let everyone know how glad I am to be here [music] and thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to seeing everyone on May 19th during our budget vote. [music] Thank you, Sarah, and thank you to Joe for all his help to get that done. and it was a labor of love. So, thank you. And so, Brad, thank you for your labor of love as we look to present um our budget hearing this evening. And I don't know if Sarah you wanted to share anything else. >> I was just going to mention that this was um something that we talked about at CRC just I don't know what couple weeks ago really and came together so fast. Uh so very appreciative that you're willing to do that and that Joe was so creative in
081trying to pull together different clips. Um so that was wonderful and that's going to be posted to our website tomorrow or tonight. >> Yes. So we'll be posted um tomorrow or tonight and really just we want the community to be have have an opportunity to see that. So yes, >> back to it. Uh those are neat, you know. It's kind of neat, you know, and it's and it's weird, I guess, for me sitting here watching it and looking at all those faces that we designed, you know, four years ago to see kind of here they are all, you know, it's moving video. You see kids and students and teachers and everything else kind of going through and you remember what it looked like on a diagram and a blueprint and everything else and now you
082get to see it come to fruition. So, uh it was pretty cool to see that. So, I appreciate that. Uh budget development process. You guys have seen a lot of these at this point. This is basically the culmination with the budget hearing. Uh you've been through a lot. These are some of the activities that kind of we've already got involved with. November, you had the budget guidelines established. December budget meetings we've had with administrators and supervisors. March 9th, we went through the administrative and capital components. March 23rd, we had program transportation and revenue. And now uh we had the budget summary back on April 20th with the adoption. And then today being the budget hearing of the 11th and as Dr. Parvy indicated in the last presentation, the budget vote being uh May 19th. So
083overall three-part component. Dr. Parvy uh actually went in and gave you a little bit of an update there in the beginning on the blue section program. So what are we doing all this for? Program $87 million uh represents 71.4%. Capital it's 24 million second largest at 19.8 administrative the third about 10.8 million. The key metric there is really that 702010 principle. You want to see programs somewhere around that 70 and ideally a little bit higher give or take and you're seeing it at 71.4. For capital, you want somewhere in that 15 to 20 range. Administrative, you'd like to see it uh 10% or below. So, in our case, we're really hitting our three metrics that we we're hitting from that side of it. So, uh no further ado, we'll go right into some of the
084component breakouts. This one I've talked about a little bit. The key area is going to be benefits at the bottom, how I've spiked it out in the past. I've kind of rolled them up as part of all three. Uh you can see program overall uh without that benefits portions represents a 0.6% increase. I'm going to talk a little bit about what's driving that as we go through. Capital is our largest increase at 22.6%. That's really increase driven by the capital project with the high school and the corresponding debt coming on. I'll talk about that. Administrative, it's an increase of 2.59%. You can kind of see that asterisk over on the right hand side there in red. And then down below, that's really something where uh we had Matt Cook here and we were talking about
085it, but it's really uh in this case that you can kind of read through there. It's $125,000 capital improvement construction cost. So basically posties goes through they have their corresponding uh buildings that they're getting renovated. Those costs are passed through to the corresponding districts that are using those facilities. And so in FM's case that represents about 125,000. And so if you took that out the overall cost or excuse me the overall percentage increase year-to-year would actually be 0.82 which is a little bit more reflective and comparable to program. And the last one being benefits which is what I let off with. That's really one of those that we kind of segregated in this place to talk about it. So it really represents a 10 and a half% increase overall that's driven by health insurance and
086that 10 and a half% I'm going to talk a little bit about in a second is kind of what's what's the component of that. So the first item being benefits and that 1.8 million. So that 10 and a half% is really driven by GLP1s. The increase alone GLP1s is somewhere between two and two and a half percent. We did a trend analysis on that I think back in February and talked about over the last 10 years you're really sitting somewhere between six and 7% uh over that 10 years. The difference GOP ones again with that two two and a half percent. So if you take that six seven% add the two and a half to it you get up to around nine and a half. The difference between that is really some of the higher
087cost and some of the prices that you're seeing. So that's really what's driving the benefit side program. Uh we had attrition. So there were seven positions we didn't fill. It represents 650,000. Uh some of that tied to the actual enrollment. Enrollment we actually saw a decrease of about 100 students. So in this case we had a reduction of about 650,000. athletics, we had an increase about 100,000. I think section three went through. There was actually uh went through their actual um a change in their agreement. They had an increase in some of their official fees, etc. And then there was also rental fees that went up from hockey to swimming, things of that nature, and some of those costs to use those facilities that represented about 100,000. It we had an increase of 240,000 software
088and hardware needs. Uh you're seeing anything from increases in chips to actual usage. Our one to1 initiatives for Chromebooks, things of that nature. That's driving that capital. We had a $ three and half million dollar increase in overall debt. That's actually going to be offset by 3.3 million in projected building aid. Uh so we're at that point is really tied as I said before to the capital project with the high school. Uh and there's also the roofing safety and security projects. Gas and electric we're seeing an 18% increase there. It's probably in some cases even a little bit higher. that represents about 120,000. Administrative, we had a reduction of one administrative position that represented $96,000. Building insurance costs, we saw an increase in overall in insurance that really tied to some cases being the building
089replacement cost. So basically cost, materials, labor, etc. And the overall cost to replace and then cyber insurance one up as well. And then I already talked about the postage capital cost for that 125,000 with a pass through. So if you took one slide and kind of said, "Hey, what's going on with the district and how do you represent that, you know, from prior year to current year, what does that look like?" Well, these would really be the four items that drive it. So $500,000 increase in salaries. That does have a reflection in it with the attrition. Health insurance and benefit costs a 10.5% increase. Gas and electric with $100,000 roughly with that national grid cost increases. And then debt service with the project high school keing with the 3.7. So if you took the four
090numbers that represents 6.1 million. Uh the key takeaway from this is something I think Dan and I used to go back and forth with this for folks that tell them what do those costs all represent? They're really fixed. Fixed in the concept if you think about from salaries negotiated contracts or uh attrition health insurance benefit costs in this case it's something defined by the co-op. They give you a premium to go out with and that's their recommendation. That's really a fixed cost in that aspect. Gas and electric here's your usage. Here's the volume. here's the corresponding pricing that service here's what basically the interest rate here's what you're how much money you're going to borrow that's really fixed so in all four of those components it's really a fixed cost that represents that 6.1 so
091how do you pay for everything revenue in our cases excuse me in our case we basically tax levy we have 63% of our revenue is generated by our taxes so at 63.2 is the green there as you can see state aid second largest at 31% other revenue of five so almost 2 to1 tax levby to state aid so in our case you can kind of see up there at the top I know it's a little bit convoluted there but the foundation is really your driver so that's really what you call formula based aid so that's something when you say hey how did state a do what did we get you know what's going on with the overall state the governor etc that's the number of folks are usually focused in on that's based on a
092ratio uh a variable an actual calculation to go through and define you know how much would you be able to get that number? We're still waiting for I think for the final budget to see what we're actually going to get. But I think that number right there is probably uh a number that's probably [snorts] conservative represents that 340,000. The remaining components being Bosey's a transportation and building a being the largest. Those are what I would call spend based aids. Bosey's a more services you go out and you get the corresponding eight uh increases as that number goes up. And building a eight being there the large. You can kind of see in the middle with a red asterisk that really represents again that high school capital project and an increase in building aid to offset
093that debt. So the concept is really kind of a if you had a dollar every 80 cents of it roughly it' be corresponding building a to help offset that dollar. So in our case we're going to have building aid of about 7.9. If you follow that asterisk down at the bottom you can see there's corresponding debt of about 10.7. It offsets by that building a 7.9. property taxes. If you kind of focus in on the middle there, you can see 2526 the actual uh increase that was it was put out was 3.56%. It represented 2.6 million. Our recommendation this year with a tax cap 3.12 would be to go out of the levy increase of 3.12. It's less than last year by roughly almost half a percent and that amount represents 2.3 million. The high
094water mark I put in here was $58 on the projected cost for its $100,000 home assessment. I think assessments have went out at the time. I wasn't able to get that information. I think that number is actually going to be uh lower than that. I projected somewhere around $25 give or take with the change in equalization rate projection as well as those assessments. I think most folks have probably seen assessment increases of somewhere around 10% give or take. So that's what I think is probably a high water mark for a $100,000 home. This is a key slide kind of use of reserves and fund balance. So I know when uh Debs was kind enough to come out and do a presentation to us back in February, we talked about how you balance the budget. Well,
095in our case, if you look back in 2324, you have your revenues, you have your expenses, and ideally you have a 1 to1 ratio concept where your corresponding revenues are going to offset the expenses. Any difference in that is usually made up in this case where you'd end up using reserves or fund balance to balance that. Back in 2324, you're kind of still coming out of COVID a little bit. You have federal funds that are there. You have less expenses. You're not having to put forth as much money. from the use of reserves or fund balance to balance the budget. 2425, you're starting to use up more of that federal funds that have come in. Expenses are starting to flow. You're having uh you know, basically co-curriculars are going, athletics are going, the full the
096full activities are going on with instruction. So, you have to balance the budget with about 2.1 million in this case. Now, you get to 2526, the revenues basically subsided a bit where you've already been made whole from foundation aid, etc. You have about a 3.15, excuse me, a $3.5 million gap. So, in 26 27 what we were faced with we actually had to do a $750,000 worth of attrition as well as that reduction of admin and that brought us back basically one to one. So in our scenario we really got even back with last year by going through and having that attrition as well as that reduction of admin and to get to that basically $3.5 million mark. So again, if you take the one slide on the actual uh revenue side of things and
097in this case, you can see the state aid. Uh what's driving it? Again, the $3.3 million increase in building aid, property tax levy, 3.12% as a recommended levy at $2.3 million. And then an actual reduction about $100,000 of less interest. Interest rates have decreased. So if you take 39 to 23 and subtract 100, there's roughly your 6.1 that offsets that increase in expenses at 6.1. So from a tax levy perspective, you can kind of see here again back in that 2223 that postcoid again your expenses are starting to go up but you got the corresponding federal aid. You're not relying on taxes to basically supplement the budget. You're got about a 1.8 uh increase that we actually went out with. So 2324 again less federal aid. You got a high water mark at 3.8. We
098did a pretty good job of being somewhere around three and a half the last couple years. And this year we went out with a projected or recommended I should say 3.12%. So this was an options page that we put on back I think in February to kind of talk about how we go through everything from a budgetary perspective. So the three components are really there as you can see in bold. Other sources of revenue you have state aid. Any significant increase is unlikely at this point. I'm not really hearing anything at the state level. There's going to be anything significant from what was already put out for projections. Property taxes. We recommended to go out at 3.12 which is the cap. I don't recommend going out any higher than that. uh that was basically reflected
099as you got your your tax bills recently with you know those increases again and I think you're probably over the last four years probably well over 50% probably at this point. So you have assessments that have increased again that 50% mark. I think the tax cap being what it is at 3.12 that makes sense to leave that expenses reduced staffing or program or what that looks like. So attrition our case we went through and you had seven uh different positions that went through and for retirements uh those we didn't refill and then was also reduction of one administrative position that was a savings of $750,000. The other option would have been the use of reserves or fund balance. uh in our case you can use that but it really isn't going to be sustainable. So
100in our case we sit with probably somewhere around $20 million in reserves if you went through and used the reserves and you didn't do anything from actual uh reducing of of positions or or attrition or anything to do with taxes or something to that nature and things grow they are with a 10 and a half% increase in health insurance salary costs and some of the high costs we're facing in other areas you're probably looking at somewhere about a threeyear difference that you can actually be sustainable. So this is the scenario we went out with. I'm going to show some other propositions that'll appear on the budget. So in this case it be 671 passenger school buses, two students transport minivans. That should look pretty familiar to what it was last year. Uh represents 1.5 million.
101The key note here being at the bottom of the asterisk. If the bus proposition is voted down, the district would use current buses for another year. So basically at this point you're putting something out there that really needs to be retired and you're just going to have incur more costs. I think one of the questions we get every once in a while now will be electric buses and kind of where does that stand? I know there's an initiative by Senator Ryan to go out and expand that date to push it out a couple years. There's still some recognized uh deficiencies in the sense of our districts ready to to basically incur some of the costs and are we really you know at this point at a capacity or capability to take on some of that
102initiative. Uh it's one of the things I'll probably see at ASP when I go up in a few weeks and I think again the big thing here for our standpoint would be the 9:30 concept. Uh we ran a bus out. We ran it a year ago back in the January. We struggled in that point to have it go I think 45 miles came back with 5% left in the battery. If 9:30 was called and Dr. Carvey had to for god forbid call something whether it's weather or whether it's other that bus would have been ready to take those students home at 9:30. Our current practice with the diesel buses always has a half a tank of gas at least for each one of those buses. Those children would be brought home at 9:30. So until
103something like that can get answered that would be my concern. I [music] know there's you know some goodwill tied to it. The other side of it for the governor, there are other options. There's hydrogen fuel cells, central buses have run them. Other bus, other uh vehicles have ran them. You know, from that point, tractor trailers, etc. I know districts that have run propane. So, if it's carbon footprint related, there's certainly other ways to do it, but at this point, unfortunately, just elected. So, that's the recommendation from that Fville free library there. You can see that uh the dollar amount there, $2.1 million give or take for the uh 26 27 year. and Manly Library at the 1.548 candidates for the board of education. A little bit unique for our standpoint this year. We only have
104two people running. We have three seats open. You can kind of see what I have there with the aster at the bottom. That third third seat will be most likely be filled by a writing candidate who has received the most right in votes on the day of the budget vote. So if a budget is defeated, what happens? So you can present the same budget to voters the second time. You can present a revised budget to voters. We can adopt a contingent budget. So with the contingent budget, it usually represents a 0% tax levy uh increase. Those are some of the examples of the areas you'd have to do a reduction in. Community use of facilities, capital expenditures, equipment, salary increases for confidential employees, things of that nature. Voter information, the budget vote will be May
10519th at Wellwood Middle School between 7 and 9:00 p.m. You can see there for absentee and early ballot. They can be obtained from the district clerk and a voter for qualifications at least 18 years of age, a resident of FM school district for at least 30 days, a US citizen, and no other disqualifying circumstances. Next up will be the budget vote May 19th. Are there any questions? It's always a try to figure out how fast do I go, how slow do I go, because sometimes I want to go quick and sometimes I want to go slow, but I know you've seen it a lot, so I didn't want to I didn't want to short change you, but at the same time, I know there's other things to go. >> Thank you, Brad. I think this
106was probably the fifth or sixth time we've been through it. So I think does anybody have any additional questions from the board? If not, we'll go to the hearing. Go ahead. >> I think the only thing I want to add is we talked about last time is there may be some adjustments to the debt service number and to the building aid number because of the adjustment the at the high school that we may have slightly less debt, slightly higher reimbursement. Um, but we don't have those to my understanding final numbers. So, this is what we have to work on. But, but that may provide us with just a little bit of safety buffer as we talk about the nonsustainability of pulling from reserve funds that can help us with that a little bit. That being
107the biggest one of the biggest drivers of the the increase. The other thing I just I'll say it every year till face because of the way the timing works with our towns and villages. We understand that assessments can't run out again. The school district has exactly zero control over assessments. We're not in the business of assessments. We don't do the assessments. We don't control the assessments. For anybody who has any issues with the assessments, by all means go talk to the villages and towns, but the school district has nothing to do with those. The only thing we set is the tax levy, the total amount that we need from the taxpayers. The tax rate is a product of total assessed values in each of the municipalities and how that's divided across those and that's set
108by the municipalities again, not by the school district. So that always by timing an issue that we we have because the assessments come out just before our budget vote. That's really poor timing. Um we did not do that. We are not responsible for that. I love it when they do that. [laughter] The timing couldn't be better. Uh again, yeah, it's really that bottom line. Thank you, Dan, because it's a key component. Uh, like I said, I wish, you know, I would have had a little more info to maybe get folks, you know, some information what we're kind of walking into, but in the end, I think it's probably the same stories what I've been hearing for the last three years when when Pat was there was basically homes are selling, you know, at the amount
109that they were asking for and they're selling pretty quickly and that's what's driving. I haven't had a chance to confirm that, but that's kind of what I'm assuming from that side of it. The other comment what Dan was talking about with was building a looks like we're kind of walking into the capital project for those folks that weren't aware. Uh we had an opportunity where when we had everything scoped out, there's there's the project and what the maximum cost allowance is going to be and it looks like maybe pieces of that we might be able to take in more under that maximum cost allowance to get additional revenue back. So therefore, you wouldn't have to borrow as much or incur as much debt. So that's good news from our side of it. So thank you
110for that. Sarah, I think you had a question. Yeah, there just a a few points that I think would be helpful with this platform to explain to folks. First of all, um I think there are a lot of um graphs going around showing about the decline in enrollment in public schools and the decline in enrollment in FM and you mentioned it a little bit. There's some attrition, >> but that doesn't immediately translate to reduced costs, right? Because you might have fewer students in a building, but you still have to provide security for the building. Um likewise, unless we see a really strong reduction, we still need the number of buses we need for bus runs. >> I think it'd be helpful if you could just talk a little bit about why enrollment, you know, a
111decrease enrollment isn't necessarily translating to a decrease in overall costs and then I I have just one other point that I'll mention the conclusion. >> Yeah, a lot of it I mean, you know, it we're we're going to we're going to take in what we you know, what we currently can, you know, from that aspect. I don't I don't I can word it probably prettier but you know when I was here well back in 2009 and 2013 our enrollment was different but the overall building footprint and kind of what we do to heat it and whatever you don't heat it less for less students basically at this point those costs are going to be there Brian's going to produce you know the food from that aspect if anything I think you might be able to
112offer in some cases more AP classes or more specials things of that nature because if you have space FM's a place where we don't have a lot of sitting space if anything it's filled with some kind of either new initiative or an opportunity more for students from that side of it. So, we're always going to have a situation where those corresponding costs the piece that we've kind of faced if anything is like the revenue did creep up a bit with the increase with foundation aid, but overall with health insurance and things of that nature, I don't think anybody saw it coming. I mean, the concept of the GLP1s at two and a half%. The big biggest concept is really the fact of will you have a long-term gain from it because the GLP ones will
113be used in the beginning. there's be potentially some cost to it, but people will be healthier, safe, you know, safer, etc. Choose from benefits from that side of it. Uh instruction costs, everything is going up. There's basically a reduction in the in the workforce to the point where I think the governor as well as some of the the folks in charge of the pensioner are kind of entertaining, you know, different thoughts in regards to how do we retain everything from trying to bring back people in the workforce. So, that has changed. Um everything with buses. I think when when I got into this, buses were sitting somewhere around 100,000 and now they're at 220. Electric are sitting at $520,000. If we go through electric buses, that study that was done, that's 22 more of them.
114Um those costs just every district's dealing with it and you're going to see a pile of them as I've talked about with some of the ones that I've mentioned publicly. you know, for Liverpool, for instance, with having the 78 cuts that are going through there, they've got to, you know, I think they're probably a little bit less enrollment, but those corresponding costs are still there, and that's the piece they're fighting with to go through as well. >> And then I think just the final point, Dan's made this before. I think we've emphasized it. We're limited. We have a very limited commercial tax base where we are, right? So the tax, you know, the individual families or the the property taxes, we're limited to that. Um, and I We're all very excited to work with the
115town um as new development comes into manus to make sure that there is sort of increased uh tax revenue that might be able to offset some of the property taxes that we're seeing right now. >> Sure. Yeah. I mean that's the big thing. I mean that's that's the slide right there. Uh you know you look at the glob of green that's on there. That's the tax basis and that's what basically funds 63% of everything we do and that's the hard part with the burden. So if you don't have anything more in state aid from that, you know, from that aspect, that's the burden you're carrying on. You know, some people would say if it's a wealthy district, if you ever really look at the numbers from Westchester to the island and things of that nature,
116we're not even in the same ballpark. So with us, when you have assessments that have went up the level they have been up for the last four or five years, it's pretty hard to go through and have folks go through and put forth even more to car keep everything kind of consistent. And that was kind of that key part where I talked about the slide, you know, here where you're basically putting up a use of reserves and fund balance. That's just to get you even. That's not even to get you ahead. That's just to get you even at that standpoint. What's driving it? It's the costs. The costs are higher. The revenue has gone up some, but it just can't keep compete with it. So, we're having to actually face that. We're probably four years
117different than maybe some of the others who have already started to do some of the cuts and reductions, but I think almost anything you're going to see publicly, I bet you every number is tied to another variable. What do I mean by that? So, you're going to see Liverpool, you'll see the reduction there. Other districts, you're going to see a higher tax rate. So, they didn't have to do a reduction. We're sitting at 3.12. We had to do seven. I'll take that against a lot of the others that you're going to see. I wish we didn't have to do it, but unfortunately, we kind of knew we were kind of coming to that point. >> Greg, can you go back one slide? >> So, I just want to emphasize to to folks, Dan kind of
118touched on it earlier, but I just want to say this pl English as best I can. If your home assessment goes up 10%. It does not translate one for one to mean your school tax will go up 10%. It's not unfortunately the system is very convoluted. I think it's the nice word to use it. It's not a one for one. Uh it really depends on how everyone else in your municipality got assessed. So if all everyone in the town went up 10% the only increase you would see would be the 3.12 that we uh have proposed for our budget increase. Unfortunately, because assessments don't go up evenly, uh it's that 3.12 times some factor which we don't know because we don't know how each house or property within the school district got assessed. Uh so
119we can't give you the exact number. to your point, I think you do a great job of trying to call out we estimate it and guesstimate it to be $58 uh per 100,000, but we don't really know. Uh if we did know, we tell you, but unfortunately, the way the system is set up, we we can't calculate that. Uh so, I just want to make folks aware. I I saw some things online uh with folks very nervous about their assessments going up, and I completely understand. Mine didn't go down. Um, and so you but you don't really know what the tax impact is going to be until that school tax bill comes out later after you find out. Um, as Dan mentioned earlier, we don't do assessments. Uh, I will tell you the town of
120Manas, their tax grievance day is the day after Labor Day or Memorial Day. Uh, so the fourth Tuesday in May. They would love to see you. Um, >> There's a plug. Shameless plug. I think they start at 8 in the morning and by law they have to go until the last person is heard for however long it takes them. Um but if you are concerned about your assessment there is a grievance process and reach out to the town assessor and they can give you more. >> So it's funny uh Cheryl I think texted me over the weekend I hope she is uh and said oh good news you know the assessments here's the assessments are out and here's what the numbers are and so before I came down here I dumped in what I thought
121my projected information is. So to tie this in and you did a good job with the segue that number I think is going to decrease significantly. I think legalization rates are going to go down. The concept I tell people to my wife or friends you know like that I'm like if you think about it with assessments I said the line I guess I could use for you is you go out to dinner and Dr. Harvey probably heard this now seven times from me. You go out to dinner with a bunch of people but more people showed up to pay for the bill for everything. So that number will go down with those assessments. I know people don't get excited to see it from that aspect unless maybe you're selling, but from that side of it,
122you will see a lower tax rate from that side. So, yes, you are right with all that. >> Are there other questions? Just three real quick things. Sarah mentioned there's obviously been some talk about enrollment numbers going down this year. We have no control over what happens in later years as Micron comes in and others come in and and where people are going to go, but But I also just want to mention one other thing related to enrollment. Enrollment going down and maintaining all services and staff levels is a really good thing. We've heard many many many times especially from our elementary and middle school teachers about class sizes and needing to wanting to reduce class sizes. So if we're at the same time as enrollment is going down eliminating positions and programs, we're not
123addressing class sizes. This helps in many ways or some ways at least to address those class size concerns that have been raised uh by by many of our teachers. So So that's that's a really good thing for what we are able to offer as a district in our buildings and the way that we teach our students. So So just I want to just hidden that as as an issue. The second is that the tax levy, again, the total amount, the total bill that we're sending out to the municipalities is a 3.12% increase over last year. Correct. Which is the lowest increase we've had in the last four years. If everybody looks at their home budget, I would venture to guess that everybody's home budget for the most part has gone up in the past year
124more than 3.12%. So there has been considerable cost management in the district to keep this to that number. >> Correct. >> When you compare that to current inflationary rates, that is a very low increased number relative to what's happening in the general economy surrounding us. So just that's the second thing I want to >> can I I want to just jump in on that one for you because I think it is important to say and I probably should have done a better plug than I did for you know program for instance. So we're going out to 0.6% for program that's how much you know from those building level leaders to the teachers etc went through and trying to figure out different ways that they can help to go through it. You know admin is 0.82
125etc to have taxes there. So your point of, you know, as Sarah was talking about the increases that we're seeing, how are you doing that because you're still keeping everything open to class sizes, etc. We're unique. I think if you remember those of you that were here when Dev presented, there's some bubbles that are going to go through. I don't know. I know we're getting closer with the 300 unit apartment complex coming in and then Micron being the wild card. and we're going to have to figure out, you know, kind of what do we look like in in that aspect. But if you're talking about running lean, I've told you I've ran this lean for the last two years, leaner than I ever have in my life to get it to that level. We've been
126able to maintain, but they've done a great job as far as, you know, doing with what they can and that whole, you know, reduce but not eliminate concept. So >> my my last thing is Dr. Harvey gets to be the face of our district and in in our our video and and and out publicly talking about the budget. Brad, you get to do all of these presentations. I know you love them so much. Um I want to thank the person who's sitting behind you, Cheryl, and our business office who just do an unbelievable job and without whom we might not be in the business of education. So um thank just thank you Thank you. >> I don't know if there's any other questions. >> Okay. Thank you. Now, we're going to um open our budget
127hearing. I don't think anybody officially registered to talk about the budget, but if somebody who is here would like to this will be your moment. Um so we'll first make a motion. Uh be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Mania Central School District hereby opens the public hearing on the proposed budget. May I have a motion? Thank you Sarah and Jason. All in favor? Anybody opposed or abstain? Is there anyone who would like to speak um related to the budget? Yes. >> No, you get to come over here. [laughter] >> If you could just state your name, that would be great. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> Sure. Uh Dan Ryan. I am the father of five. Uh one graduate from FM who's graduated from Courtland on Saturday. So he also
128subs within the district. um two Wellwood daughters, one FAL daughter and then another one that's two right now. Um I just wanted to say like there's a lot of talk about, you know, numbers and everything, but the educators at Wellwood, at FAL are amazing at the high school been great. I moved here in 17 and um everywhere I go, I'm originally from Chicago. Everywhere I go, people talk about that FM has and people come here for the schools, stay here for the schools, leave and then come back for the schools when they have kids, right? So, I just think it's like the best investment possible. So, thank you all for the work that you all do to help get it to this point and just wanted to say a big thanks. It's the best way
129I could spend my tax dollars. So, I'm happy for it. Thank you all. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Chicago is wearing a Red Sox hat. That's funny. [laughter] Uh, anybody else? Great. Thank you very much for taking the time to say that. Um, all right. So, we will close. Um, so be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley Central School District hereby closes the public hearing on the proposed budget. May I have a motion? Thank you, John and Dan. All in favor? Anybody closer seat? Great. Okay. Uh item 2.03, president's report. So, um I believe most of you recall that last Thursday we had our first um pilot board listening session. Uh we had four board members. So, Dan, Christy, myself, and Sarah attended. Um we had a small
130but mighty group of community participants who came and we just wanted to say um thank you thank you thank you for everyone who came out. They um it was really a great session for a pilot to see if this was something that um how it would work and see what the reception might be. uh the folks who did attend I think were really appreciative of the opportunity. Um and so we're talking in CRC about may how we can maybe roll something out on a more scheduled basis with different time slots because I know there's not a good time for everyone um for the next academic year. But um some of the themes that kind of popped out um were related to AI and the use of technology in the schools. So related to the board
131work um I know that might be something that from the policy committee. I know that Laurel Kza has a technology committee and a group that's kind of been trying to work on things related to AI and technology as a whole. So that might be a future topic for a policy committee. Um but um there were and then related to technology specifically they were conversation about the use of technology mostly at our elementary and middle schools and um maybe that's something that we there should be a policy or guidelines within each building something of that nature. So they were very thoughtful questions um greatly appreciated. it for those of you who were there any other pieces of feedback you want to share? >> I think the appreciation was you wanted you had to turn your light
132on at the exact same time. That's what we've been doing all night. Um was the appreciation for the setting versus coming to a formal meeting having a stopwatch running and that that there was just a general appreciation for having relaxed forum in which to be able to have just an open opportunity to express concerns, questions, whatever the case may be. >> Yeah. And related to that, and apologies for those of you who are waiting to do public comment, but one of the things that was brought up um was when you are do register for public comment, sometimes it can be a while before the public comment period. And so maybe something in the future that we might want to look at at shifting things within the agenda depending on the particular topics that are um
133coming up. I think I just I'm so appreciative of the folks who did um come and speak with us. I also want to acknowledge that, you know, the listening session was a direct result of feedback from folks saying they wanted more access to the board. Um, a bit more transparency and even clarification about exactly what the role of the school board is, right? So, um, I think sometimes folks think it's far more operational than say policy or governance. And so anytime we can come up with opportunities where we can um sort of help educate about the role of the board um but also hear directly from uh you know families um staff you know I I think it's outstanding um Dr. Harvey really appreciate your support of the you know of the listening sessions as
134you conduct your own across the district. The more that we can hear from people the better we can serve people. And then um The last thing just as a heads up, so we are meeting on budget day. I hope you saw the updated meeting notice now. It's we're going to meet at seven instead of six. Um and we're going to just be talking with Dr. Harvey about how it's been going so far and talk about how we um move forward and put plans together to kick off the next uh academic year and goal setting and all those kinds of things to date. So, um if anyone has any questions on that front, let me know. And we're going to try to um have some kind of focused areas of conversation around um things that we've
135had in super eval the theme areas so that when we do the first evaluation that we'll be kind of building towards that as well. And that is it. Uh item 2.04 4 superintendent report. >> Thank you. Am I clicking or you're clicking? >> I clicked. Thank you. Just need to remember that. Thank you. Okay. So, thank you. Um and welcome everyone. So, my superintendent's report this evening. Um I always like to share some of the great things I see in our schools. Our schools, no matter the age, have some really great murals on them with some great um statements. This one is from the high school, though, and I think it's kind of self-explanatory, but I do think it's something we want to lean into um in terms of being curious and asking questions and
136starting with a question as opposed to a judgment because I think that we're all guilty of that, starting with um some kind of judgment before asking a question. So, um I like this one and it's right at our high school for our high schoolers to see. Um, so my agenda as it is for most of my reports, it starts with my school visits because I think it's really important to just share my, um, actual visits in our schools and seeing what our students and staff are doing across our district. Administrative happening. So, um, while visiting our schools is a priority. I'm also running the district at that time as well. So, just sharing some of that. And then community engagement, which I think is very important. And we finish last but not least with our
137FM pride because we have so much to be proud of in different ways in our district. So, I'll get started. Um, we had on April 28th, we had our unified basketball game. Our students played against JD. They did an amazing job and it was really just great to see our students so excited and actually they made quite a few baskets. So, they did a really nice job and it was good to see that firsthand. And I had an opportunity to go to Norwich, New York um to see our mock trial students um perform there, the regional competition. They did an amazing job. we do have future lawyers in our midst. It was interesting that um when the judge asked them if any of them would like to be lawyers, they said no, they were not
138interested in being attorneys, but when I tell you our students did so amazingly well. I mean, I they deserve the win that they got. And I thank Mr. Joe Worm, our social studies teacher at the high school, for supporting our students in this work. But it's it's worth seeing. They did an amazing job and thank you for that. Um I had an opportunity to um do a listening session with our um staff at FAL. I thank the many teachers that came out to share the things that are important and front of mind to them. Um but on that day we also had um a visiting author, Mr. Jared Lerner, who was speaking with our students about stories and he was saying that it would be very boring if you had a story that didn't have
139a problem. And what makes stories interesting really is the problem the main character is looking to solve. said, "If you say that you're hungry and then you get um a banana, well, there's no story. But if you talk about the trials and tribulations to get something to eat, well, that makes a good story." So, it was great. And he also showed his um personal illustrations. And so, that was a great experience for our students. And he went to all three of our elementary schools. I just happened to catch him when I was visiting. Actually, I caught him at when I was visiting at FAL and at M Road. Um and M Road had a great science um fair for our youngsters. They did a great job. I the history of the chocolate chip cookie was
140a really great one which the one that said she had a great time doing and talking about um the process with that. And then we had another young woman who was just talking about the importance of um pH with potatoes. She had different potatoes and just shared what the impact of different pH levels have to do with potatoes. So they've had some really creative presentations. Um and I see Ann there. How are you? and Ann Messenger was there actually watching her grandson and that evening as well. So it was a great evening um for parents and staff, students alike and I had an opportunity to be at Enders Road and again I just I'm always amazed by how engaged our students are with our educators doing amazing things every day and our educators do a
141good job of keeping all eyes on them and the learning and so again students don't they're not even curious about the superintendent. they're busy doing their work and I personally love that. Also, we had a I had a great visit at um Eco Hill just the other day and um again I also had an opportunity to see a podcast cafe. Great job by our teachers there who um really just had students doing different unique topics. I got to hear some of the podcasts firsthand and really just a well done job. And I thank Bridget um Wovich for inviting me um to this um it was a team effort but really being able to see the culminating hear the culminating podcast and each student was listening to their colleagues um classmates um podcast really well done
142and then I got to see also a shop class and our teachers again very engaged with our students they were making tic-tactoe boards and they were doing a great job with that and some administrative happenings in our district. So um I really on our FMCA monthly meetings with our um FMCA president. We've talked a lot about just things that we can work in partnership on when we think about the work that we do with our teachers and our administrators. We also had administrative council and opportunity for all administrators to come together and really continue to plan and also talk about some problems of practice that may be in our schools. Also, we had a great workshop um I attended a great workshop with some of our staff members and um thank you Dr. who was
143also there for um a Bosey's workshop on portrait of a learn portrait of a graduate and talking about the next steps in terms of getting this off the ground. And I think this is a great opportunity to share that when we talk about um a portrait of a graduate, the work is really meant to be done with the community. It's not meant to be just done internally, but really bringing the community on board. So, we talked a lot about that during our workshop and the next steps and making sure that everyone is aware about portrait of a graduate, but also helping to define what makes a portrait of a graduate in um FM. So, we're looking forward to the next steps in this work and I thank Dr. Dorton for her leadership and getting this
144off the ground in our district. Um we had our presentation to parent council on Friday, May 1st. And um again, thank you to Mr. Corbin for all of his work. I just tagged along for the road shows, but I think that there's a lot of learning there to our community based on what is presented. And then we also had a I had a great session. Um it was a webinar with um NISPA leading the charge around artificial intelligence and I thought that that was a really great session and it was talking about policy necessary around AI but also how to make it public enough to our community what our work is and what um opportunities are there out there for artificial intelligence because for most people it is a bad word and we [clears throat]
145want to make sure that there aren't any misunderstanding about that. So we'll be working on um internally to make sure our community is um going along the journey with us when it comes to AI in our district. Um I was happy to host a meeting for all of our um district union leaders. Great conversation about the different things happening in our district, but the biggest thing is really working in partnership with all of our union leads because they help us to maintain partnership and keep the district moving. So we were I was happy to have this opportunity to meet with all of them and talk about next steps um for meeting next year. And then we meet regularly with our principles again because we are actively actively planning for the 2627 school year and that's
146certainly work started before my arrival but we continue to do it to make sure that we're prepared for the next school year. So thank our principles for their engagement in those meetings and um this community engagement. I continue to um engage the community in different ways. I've had my office hours that have been pretty well um attended and I do thank um our parents for participating. My Mont road office hours. It was really good to have our parents from other schools. So I think I had one family from Mont Road that attended that session. So parents did take the opportunity, parents from other schools that take the opportunity to engage and participate. So thank you to those who attended and they were not a bunch of Mont Road parents, they were other parents in our
147district. So I want to make sure that I continue to offer those opportunities because people certainly are taking the opportunity to meet with me. And then um I will be having my f my um FAL Wellwood um coming up in June. So on June 2nd, I'll have my office hours there. And then I've had dropins separate from my office hours where it's open to everyone including staff, but I've had specific superintendent dropins at um our schools for different departments. On the 24th, I had an opportunity to meet with our technology and our building and grounds department. And on April 28th, again, I did have an opportunity to be at FAL and hear our staff there. And again, each group has um really come in and to have conversation to get to know me, but also
148share some things that are front of mind for them. So, I do appreciate that opportunity, and we'll be continuing to do that. Um what's coming up as I have Wellwood next week, no, this week, Wellwood Middle School, I'm doing my um superintendent job there. I'll have enders road on May 28th. And then at the high school to wrap up the school year on June 12th. So, I thank everyone for their engagement and look forward to continuing to offer opportunities to engage and part of that engagement has been that I've met with the chief of police. I thank um our chief for coming to meet with me and he came there and gets so that was very nice. Um we I also had an opportunity to go to the Fateville free library and the Manley's library
149and really to be able to see the history um of Fateville High School before we were um before we were um centralized the colors were purple and we were the purple eagles um before we became the faithfield landl during that visit um I presented at the Jack and Jill of America banquet um on last Sunday which was great again an opportunity to build bridges and connections with our community and then we presented the budget um Mr. Corbin and I at the Manley Senior Center and I'll just say shameless plug when I was at um one of our local diners, one of our senior said, "Hey, hey." And I said, "Oh my goodness, I just saw you the other day." And he introduced me to his daughter. So, thank you, Jack and Jackie, that I had
150an opportunity to meet after um our time at the senior center. He remembered me and said, "Hey, she went to Kenisha's college." He was proud of that. So, it was good to see him. And so, thank you to our community again for engaging and being so welcoming. And um FM Pride. So, we had our showbo 2026. great, great, great opportunity to see our students do different things. And thank you, John. You talked about how great it was and it was great. Really had um a great time seeing our students perform and um the funds raised was meant to benefit our FM food pantry. So, thank you to our students who I believe are always thinking are always civic-minded. So, thank you for that. Um and then we have athletic pride. We had our softball team
151who won their first two games of the season. The team currently ranks 13th in the state, but they've had a great start to the season. And then also two big wins to start the season for our girls lacrosse team, the Hornets. And um great artwork from our students. Congratulations to Matthew Brennick and Meline Davidson. I think you can just see why they are being highlighted and recognized by the Edgewood Gallery. Amazing work um by our students. just really great to showcase um the talents that our students have in so many different ways in the district. And of course, we had our congratulations to our rowing champions, our boys junior for both coached by Meredith Andrews. Thank you, Meredith. Our student did a wonderful job and they were successful at the Scholastic rowing championship. So, thank
152you to our coach there. And here I'm going to I mean there's a lot to be proud of. Sorry, folks. Um but um here I'm going to turn it over to um Jacob because the these pictures were provided by Jacob. And Jacob, if you want to talk a little bit about the robotics club and that opportunity, I appreciate it. >> Sure. Thank you, Dr. Party. Um just want to kind of put out there um just a first thanks to uh Anthony, Zyla, Luke, Evelyn, and Mosie for helping out at this event at such a a very short notice as well as to our adviserss um Andrew Liry and Josh Buckman. Um so thank you. Your help is greatly appreciated. Um Mr. Liry is one of the people who helped to coordinate the micro the micron
153expo and is one of our connects to having our team rather than just go and look to see what's being demoed but actually participate as well as to teach other students from the greater Syracuse district. So, it's a great opportunity for our robotics team and it's a great opportunity for students to both learn um at robotics meetings and at competition as well as to be able to engage and teach other students of similar age at other districts. So, it's a fantastic opportunity. They had to um get a bit of food. They got to see a bunch of different um venues, all sorts of different stuff. So, it was fantastic. So, we hope to be there again next year. >> Thank you so much, Jacob. I appreciate that. And thank you for sharing the pictures. We
154like to highlight all the different things we're doing. And last, but certainly not least, I want to just have everyone join me in acknowledging the region 10 assistant principal of the year. We are so proud of Tom Chers. He was recommended by um his principal, Lisa Jeri. But we are also very proud because we have seen firsthand the great things that Tom has done for the district, supporting our schools and really being a great up andcoming administrator in our district. So congratulations to Tom for his recognition and achievement. And that is all. [laughter] Thank you very much. [clears throat] Does anybody have any questions for Dr. Harvey? I just have one thing that Harvey that I just just want to raise and I don't I'm not asking for any answers tonight but just something good
155to be reviewed or or looked at as as we as a district continue to dive more deeply into dependency on online systems um for our school district. So last Wednesday night, Thursday morning, there was a nationwide hack of the Canvas school management system. Took down roughly 9,000 colleges, universities, and K12 systems. Um for many of those schools, it was in the middle of finals week and caused mass confusion and issues and disruption and and just huge issues. >> Fortunately, not our district, right? So that's a good thing. Uh but it was a really good reminder. Some schools recovered very quickly because they had regular snapshots of their entire system and backups that they could fail over too quickly so that they had minimal disruption of their learning processes and exams if they were having them
156grading systems etc. Other schools did not and that's from K12 to some of the largest universities in our country. So, I I'm curious if we could get an update, whether in a Thursday memo or a discussion at in a meeting of just what our current processes are in terms of how we're managing backups of our most critical systems and the the frequency of and the how and and just because, you know, I'm just mindful as as we're approaching finals and exam time again that the the more proactive that we are on our systems internally, the less disruption we have as these things happen and these things are going to continue to happen with increased frequency going forward. So just in light of that happening I just if my request again it's just me it's it's
157I don't can't request on my own if it's board is this willing or majority I just I think it's a it's a good time to just take a glance and review that >> well yeah and that's something that is one of the BOSI services I believe that we pay for so that would be good you know just clarification >> some of an update um um you know how the backup happens and what kind of protections we have. Anybody anyone else anybody else want to >> that's a good idea. [laughter] >> No just a tad bit ironic that um currently I'm in our supera policy studies we are actually are briefly discussing um electronics and computers and at one point AI um so I that just constantly humorous and really well timed. So, >> so maybe
158you studied it and you could [laughter] give us an update. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh, okay. Reports. So, item 2.05, um, legislative liaison, any updates? >> No updates for me. I believe we have to put in any requests for if we want to make a resolution. Isn't that coming up pretty soon? So that is something that if we if you haven't we should have gotten something in your email I believe um about the resolutions packet and so we should be looking at that and seeing if there's something that we would want to propose or um add in. Um so we that always seems to kind of catch us right at the last minute. So if there's anything on anybody's mind that they we could maybe even discuss it in a future meeting if that's of
159interest. Um OCM Boseis update. Okay, Jacob. >> Oh boy. Uh it's a bit of a long meeting, but here we go. Um as many of you many of you know right now we're in the middle of our of the APs. Um this is the LA believe should be the last week. So our students are working hard and um hopefully not too stressed out. So beyond that, um there should be the upcoming junior prom on the 16th at the drummings as per tradition. Um let's see. Um we will be having our annual career day on the 19th um this month. Of course, there's going to be a voting which we did um do a posting um for the for the news um just so that students who are of 18 or older are aware that they
160can vote at this upcoming um election and budget on budget. Um we also have the upcoming Memorial Day parade on the 25th. Um hope to see a lot of people there. Very exciting. Um the FM um band and also the middle schools will be playing there. Um the StuCo as well as the class elections are coming up quite soon, so we'll hopefully be able to figure out who will be replacing me next year. Real exciting. Uh well uh make sure to vote. Uh so another thing is um the AAPI they will be having their assembly on the 18th. Um so that's also quite exciting. That'll be during the school. So I think Dr. Py might be very interested in attending. Um um a lot of students are also counting down the days for school. So,
161we're we're getting kind of getting down to the wire. Um, believe it's 22 days. So, at least as a senior, so Oh, boy. Um, and finally on 5th of June, there will be that out of the darkness walk. So, that might be something Dr. Harvey might want to mark your calendar for. That's all. >> Does anybody have any questions for Jacob? Thank you so much. Okay, now we're on to public comment. Uh I believe we have several folks, so I'll just call your name one at a time and you can come on up to the podium. Um Anki, so just as a reminder for public comment while you're coming up, everybody gets three minutes and um we would not be wcoming comments about a particular student or faculty member in that perspective and the board
162typically does not respond. So just don't be surprised. Thank you very much. Yeah, good evening everyone. My name is Ani Gang and I'm currently a junior at our district's high school. So I just want to preface this by saying I'm super grateful for having such a great food services department and with the Greek presentation that was shown tonight. I am so happy that we are opening up dialogue for the possible incorporation of the free meals program. So recently I've been working alongside my fellow peers and the Syracuse Anandaga food systems alliance to advocate for our school's adoption of New York State's universal free meals program. I would like to verbally pledge my support tonight and give you some more insight onto our school. So food insecurity isn't a secret. In fact, it can be one
163of the most observable consequences of financial instability. But even though majority of FM lives in a financially stable household, there are still a considerable number of families that are struggling and will only continue to struggle as the cost of living skyrockets. Many of them are not able to qualify for federal aid, which excludes their children from free school meals. Next year, this will be more clear than ever during the mandate lunch period. Cafeteria culture is not something that the school is currently having to deal with, but it is something that we should be aware of for next year. FM is already known to be divisive in terms of a student's financial status, and the school is not immune to forms of financial discrimination. By normalizing participation in an affordable lunch program, economic disparities are less
164likely to be noticed and students are less likely to feel social stigmas. Last year, the school brushed off this issue by claiming high school students needed choices. What this statement fails to acknowledge is by pushing students away from buying full balanced meals, more of them often are buying snacks as whole meals. So although federal guidelines may lead to a restricted list of alternatives, I believe that we have talented food service staff who have the ability to make appealing school meals. Now, each student will always have their own individual opinions on what is served, but the choice to bring their own food is always open. Also, federal regulations only last from the beginning of the school day to the last scheduled lunch period, which means it does not affect food sold during after school activities. For
165the general population, there has been a lack of transparency surrounding the overall food situation. From decisions being made to about the meal programs to even the lack of pricing labels on the snack chat, the school and district have not made things very clear to participating parties. Students are oftentimes the most unaware and uninformed even though they are the group that is affected the most. Now, there's sort of a running rumor that there are $7 salads, which I can't verify, but I know that it is a big issue that a lot of students don't know what they're buying. And additionally, I would like to note that the universal free school meals program also includes free breakfast, which is a big concern among high schoolers who are busy and often don't buy breakfast. Thank you. Thank you
166very much. Uh Elliot here. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Uh Gabrielle Gabriel >> also. Sorry. Well, this was part of the feedback that we received. Angelique Oh, it's not on. Thanks. Thought you had it. Um, Angelie Bass, we have two students in the district. Um, I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to speak this evening. um expressing my strong support for extending the New York State funded FE free meals program to our high school students [clears throat] and to urge you to renew the district's part uh participation for the 202627 school year. Um thank you to Brad and Brian for your presentation um and the positive feedback I've heard this evening. So some of this may feel a little moot, but I still wanted to put it on the record. Um, with the high school now
167requiring a scheduled lunch period and extending the school day to accommodate it, we have a responsibility to ensure that no student goes hungry because of financial barriers. Providing free meals only to certain grade levels creates inequity and confusion, particularly for families do not qualify for free or reduced price meals, but still struggle with the rising cost that lots of folks have uh spoken about tonight. According to the budget report, the district has seen a $347,000 surplus in the food service program this year, while state and federal reimbursements increased from approximately $125,000 last year to more than $911,000 this year. These numbers suggest the program is financially sustainable and has strengthened district revenue since implementation at the elementary and middle school levels. I'm not sure why anyone might assume there will be a deficit in the
168future. The first year of implementation has shown that it's been very successful. The statewide coalition worked hard to lobby for universal school meals and has had success in the legislature for years. The governor finally added her support in early 2025. It didn't even have to be about asked about in the budget cycle. It was a given and would be politically untenable for anyone to advocate to eliminate the program. Following strong advocacy from students and community members, I urged the district to engage with the community and ensure a transparent and collaborative process. Students themselves have told us they would eat school meals if they were available at no cost. Many currently skip meals, share food with friends, or go without because they cannot afford lunch or did not bring one. A mandatory lunch period can unintentionally
169expose socioeconomic disparities, especially among adolescents whose nutritional needs are high and whose financial independence is limited. Our students have already shared these experiences with you. This is not hypothetical. It is already happening in our high school. Our community expects us to care for all children, not just some. If we approach this issue with creativity and commitment, which I know we can do, we can find solutions. Incorporating more New York grown menu items has the potential to increase reimbursements per meal even further through the state's 30% initiative which SCSD just reached. As a big dairy producing state and milk is a required part of the federal nutrition programs. New York has a big advantage of reaching that threshold. I'm going to wrap it up. We need guaranteed nutritional to support our students. I trust the talented
170school food service departments to build compliant menus that are appealing to students. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Christine left. Hello. Um, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. I also spoke at the September board meeting advocating for the high school to participate in the program for free school meals. I'm really happy to see the recommendation uh to have the high school participate in the program in the upcoming school year. And I also appreciate the work that goes into the f food service and budget presentations. They're always very helpful and very educational. Um, one board member asked tonight how is the program doing at the elementary and middle school levels? And I wanted to share some of the numbers from the analysis of the profit loss of the FM schools school lunch fund
171found on the school website. It's really I appreciate this document being available. Um, it was really neat and broken down beautifully. Um, the average daily breakfast meals count went up 63% this year. Um, now this is for the district, not for a specific school or for a specific level. Um, but I think that does speak to that being a free meal for much of the district. The average daily lunch meal count went up 44%. The state and federal reimbursements went up 86%. The um total revenue less expense for this year was uh 347,296. Last year it was a deficit of $68,753 which means the revenue for food services went up 120%. Um, the school lunch fund balance went from 5,400 five43,515 to $819,338. And that's very encouraging. It seems like the timing is perfect to
172try out this program at the high school if cost is the only concern. But I want to be clear that even if the program was not profitable, I think that the high school should participate. I'm so glad that the program has been successful, but even if it might raise our taxes, we should keep feed the kids in the district for free. I have no inclination to vote yes on any tax levy if we aren't offering free meals to all students next year. Luckily, this doesn't seem to be an issue according to the district's numbers. So, that's fantastic. So, the Last thing that I want to advocate for is offering walking tacos every day, which was a semi-serious topic of discussion among some parents uh this afternoon. Um I do have complete faith in food services
173to come up with a menu that kids will love within the nutritional guidelines of the program. So, thank you again for your time. >> Thank you. Okay. Thank you all for saying appreciate your patience. Um, was there anybody else who had intended to speak that I did I did not call? >> Okay, thank you. Always good to check. >> Sure. I'll be super quick. He had just wanted to ask for clarity about when a formal decision would come from the board. So the board doesn't make a decision on this particular topic. It's from the administration. >> Okay. So that will is that that you'll adopt the recommendation. >> We did share that. Yes, that was part of the presentation. Our recommendation is to um apply for the program. >> Okay. So officially that the recommendation
174is what will happen for next year. >> Yes. >> Okay. Great. Excellent. Thank you. >> Okay. Item 4.01. We're moving into new business now. Um approval of minutes. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley Central School District hereby approves the minutes of the April 20th, 2026 meeting as presented. May I have a motion, please? Thank you, Chrissy and John. Uh, any discussion? All in favor? Anybody abstaining or three abensions? Okay, thank you. Item 4.02 of our proposed schedule for next year for the calendar for the board meetings. Um, be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manly School District adopt the proposed 2026 27 board of education meeting calendar as presented. May I have a motion? Thank you, John. Nobody wants to come to meetings next year.
175[laughter] And a second. Oh, Rebecca. Isn't that interesting? Any discussion? I know Chrissy, you I just um I know we often talk about that first meeting because it falls on a different day of the week typically. Um, so I propose that we just if we could consider um not having it on July 1st. Um, but I will bend to the will of the board. >> Um, depending on everyone's availability. >> Yeah. So, >> does anybody have a Wednesday, right? >> July 1. >> Anybody have any days within that first? Let's see. Fourth of July is Okay. Um, >> the first 20 days >> first 20 days. So, even if we did it like the seventh since people took a long weekend for Fourth of July, that's can't do that. Okay. How's the 8th? 7. Okay.
176So, six would work for you. I don't know if anybody is planning to do a long Fourth of July weekend, but how's the six work? Are you back on the second? >> Okay. Better than the six. >> Okay. Anybody have a problem with the second? I think we're at July 2nd. Seems okay. Yes. >> Oh, Sarah can't. Okay. Well, that you get to say. >> Oh, no. You get to say um Okay. So, Ann, you're back with 14. Sorry, we're discussing your travel. Six. The end was questionable, right? >> Six. Who can go for the six? >> Yeah. >> Me. Yes. Okay, >> great. Thank you. schedules for nine people, but okay. So, any other questions or comments regarding our proposed schedule for next year and the agenda topics? I think they'll probably shift a
177bit um as we get into the next academic year, but more importantly, the dates. So, there's any players in there. Okay. So, anything else? Otherwise, >> all in favor? Anybody opposed or obstain? Okay. Thank you. Um item 4.03, the SRA. All right. So be it resolved that the board of education of the Fatville Manlas School District approve the SRA type 2 resolution bus lift replacement as presented. May I have a motion? Thank you Dan. And a second. Any discussion? All in favor? Anybody abstained or opposed? Okay. Thank you. 4.04 approval of something. Um, be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Mania Central School District authorizes the district treasurer or designate to authorize wire transfers in the amount of 3,782,228.13 to banks as designated by the dormatory authority of the state of
178New York DSNY for repayment of construction bonds. I have a motion. Thank you, Dan. Second for John. Any discussion? All in favor? Anybody opposed or thank you? Okay. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley Central School District hereby appoints Randy Ray Espire at the rate of $150 per hour to conduct an investigation under policy number 0115. Any discussion? Any we have a second any sorry motion. Thank you Jason. Second from Sarah. All in favor? Anybody close their statement? Okay. Item 5.01 upcoming meeting. So, as I mentioned, we'll meet on the 19th, special meeting or we'll go into executive session. Um, consent agenda. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fville Manley Central School District approves the consent agenda as presented. May I have a motion, please? Thank
179you, Rebecca. Second, uh, Chrissy. All in favor? Anybody oppos? Executive session. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley Central School District enters into executive session for the purpose of discussing matters related to the employment of a particular person. May I have a motion, please? Thank you, John. And a second. Thank you, Jason. All in favor? Go ahead. Um and you're right and the second topic was um related to a student discipline matter. Thank you ma'am. All in favor? Anybody opposed or seeing? And so we will adjourn after executive session. So, thank you all for coming and for saying and I hope you have a wonderful evening.