001Gates Chalai Central School District budget hearing. I'm assistant superintendent for business Mitch Ball and we're really happy to have you here as members of our community and board of education. Um looking forward to sharing more information about what's in the budget and answer any questions that you may have. So with that, maybe I'm not going to be going here. One more time. Okay, here we are. All right, so as for the agenda tonight, we're going to talk about budget goals and priorities, um state of the state, um expenditures, revenues, the propositions that are on the ballot, next steps, um a summary, and then some opportunity for questions and answers. So, that are budget goals and priorities. Um what are we trying to accomplish with this budget? We're trying to maintain our current programming and staffing,
002acknowledging that the district is doing some really incredible work. Um, and we're trying to continue to implement district goals, um, address academic needs and provide continued mental health support. Um, which has been something that has continued to be an area of focus over the last four or five years. um continue to provide multiple opportunities for student engagement, acknowledging that when we can provide those opportunities, um we're more likely to see the results that we want to see in terms of academic achievement. Um create some administrative efficiencies. This was something that um we've been working on over the last couple of months to try to um reduce some cost in order to put more money into our instructional programming and provide student support as well as add additional staffing to support academic and behavioral needs. So,
003we have um included in this proposition some additional positions um in terms of academic intervention services and and some things relating to our student support services. So, in terms of the state of the state, we currently do not have a New York state budget. Um, it is still under negotiation at the state level and so we're hoping that we'll have that budget in the next couple of weeks, but there's no certainty around that and a lot of conversation um relating to that. Uh, one thing to point out is that if for some reason we don't get and I think my mic cut out. Should I keep going? Um if for some reason um we do not get the state aid we anticipate, we would look to use additional appropriated fund balance and reserves um we
004do have reserves uh that are in place in case we don't get the aid that we anticipate. Um we would look to use some of those reserves in order to cover any budgetary gap. In terms of the proposal proposal itself, looking at 139 approximately $8 million um with an increase of 4.5% budget to budget. So when thinking about expenditures, um our process is a modified zerobased process. What does that mean? We really start from the bottom up and build a budget. Um this is a very laborintensive process that includes a lot of work by staff members, administration. I'm really looking at what are the needs of our school community. Um what are the needs that need to be addressed or that could potentially need to be addressed and also um how are we going to
005fund those things in a way that's most respectful and responsible in terms of taxpayer dollars. Um it's a no frills budget. Again, that increase uh 4.85%. We do believe that that's um a responsible number and it reflects um the goals and vision of the district in terms of where um we're hoping to fund um the educational programs next year. So in terms of highlighted increases, these are the the budget drivers essentially the things that are increasing um more than a lot of other areas um would typically be increasing and they're also areas um that are larger buckets of the budget. So what are those um higher cost items that really drive a school budget? Um generally speaking, school budgets um generally are our benefit salaries. Um those first two things, ERS salaries and TRS salaries,
006those are our salaries for our staff. ERS's are employees who are support staff members and TRS salaries are employees who are certificated staff members or teaching staff members typically and some administrators. Um, so there's some detailed notes on the side. Um, would certainly be willing to answer any questions if any arise as you review that information. Um, some other areas up here that are increasing our operations and maintenance. Um, we are anticipating increases in those areas and there is some uncertainty relating to federal legislation currently that are driving some of those um, anticipated increases. um security of plant. Um we have added some additional security features over the last year and so we would be looking to incorporate those into next year's budget including the tap app which is an app that staff can use
007in the event of an emergency. Um as well as some security cameras and security camera software. Um in terms of pupil services um there is some increase there but um the generally generally speaking not huge increases in that area. And then transportation services, again tied to anticipated increases in cost um that frankly we're not quite sure where the market's going to go, but what we do know is that there is a lot of uncertainty and volatility right now. So overall, these buckets alone account for about $5.4 million increase and they are budget drivers as we think about the budget as a whole. So any any questions on that slide before I continue? Okay. Um, so one of the things that we're required to do under state law is break our budget into three parts. Those
008three parts being administrative, instructional, and capital. And so when thinking budget to budget, um, a slight increase as a percentage of the budget in instructional cost, and a slight decrease in capital costs. I'm going to go over those in a little more detail now. So, in terms of instructional programs, um I know there's a lot of um different boxes up there and the wording gets a little small, but did want to say that we are looking at a $5.6 million increase in um instructional costs, things that are tied specific to instructions or programs for students. Um and as you can see, there's a lot of detail there. Um I don't I probably won't go through the whole thing except to say that um there's a number of drivers including um looking to increase um supports
009and services in terms of um students with special needs, looking to um increase some services in terms of academic intervention services which is um math and and um ELA. And then in addition to that, I'm looking at um some uh increases around um general instructional programming. So I'll give you a minute to look at that and then I'll continue. All right, I'm just checking the pulse of the room to see when it looks like we're in a good place. Okay. Um so in terms of administrative costs um the first line there board of education the um percent increase um seems large but it's not a huge dollar value when thinking about the budget as a whole. Um generally speaking this increase is tied to supporting professional learning of the board of education um to ensure
010that they can provide high quality governance. Um there's also some increases to um central administration. um there is additional reclassification within other areas. So if you were to look back at the prior slide, which again this will be posted on our website, you would notice that there's some decreases in some areas. Um that also has to do with this reclassification because although um some members of the administrative team fall under central administration, many members of the administrative team fall under things like um the student support services department or teaching and instruction. And so some of those areas have been reduced but this area um is going up slightly. In addition to that you can see for instance that um finance is going down. And that again is related to the um restructuring as well as
011employee benefits um as we've continued to move um new members of our staff through negotiated contracts over to the high deductible health plan. Okay. Um in terms of capital cost, capital costs are generally things related to operation of our facilities. Um just a point of information um under the instructional programmatic area, transportation is in that area. However, in terms of um the capital cost, this is more of your facilities staff, security staff, and then what it takes to keep the lights on and the heat on um those types of things, as well as our debt service, which is our principal and interest payments on our capital work that we do. um both prior and current. Okay. So, one small example under um central services, you can see that reduction is we reduced a director of
012facilities position. Um so, we're seeing some savings as part of that um reorganization plan. In terms of the 2526 expenditure breakdown on a per dollar basis, we spend about um 66% of our budget or 66 cents on the dollar on salary and benefits. And then we spend an uh a good amount of money on Boseie services and that number has been increasing over the last few years as we continue to try to shift costs that we currently have and purchase things through Boseies because when we purchase um services and goods through Boseies, we're able to get back over 70 cents on the dollar in state aid. So trying to leverage um the the board of cooperative educational services in a way that benefits the district. Um debt service is our again our principal and interest
013cost on our capital work. And then you get down into the smaller items that are um less as a proportion of our budget. So that um that's re that's expenditures. Now we're moving on to revenue. Uh in terms of the property tax cap, um our tax cap is 2.42. Um we are looking to go out at 2.24 and not exceed the cap. Um again, the cap uh the tax cap legislation went into effect in 2011. Um it's a complex formula that ensures that the district um doesn't exceed a certain amount of taxation. And if the district were to do that, they would need to have a supermaajority of the public vote on it, which would be 60% or more. Um, with that, um, local sales tax, we're anticipating a decrease state funding, an increase due
014to a change in formula aid. Um, that formuladriven aid is foundation aid. I'll mention that in a moment. Other revenues being consistent with reserve use. Um, we're attempting to decrease our dependence on it. A good target for reserve use is about 4% and we'll talk about that in a few minutes as well. So, property taxes account for 46% of our revenue. Um, one of the things that's important when thinking about that complex formula I mentioned a few moments ago is that one of the main drivers is CPIU. CPIU is an index, consumer price index on the prior year, so from January to December. And so what that means is it's a it's an index of consumer goods and services and it looks at how much has it increased over the prior year prior to that.
015So last year it was 2.9% increase. It's not a 2% tax cap. What it really is is that if the consumer price index is above 2% then the base at which we calculate our tax levy limit is 2%. If it's less than that then the base is less than 2%. So if consumer price index was 1.5 the base that we start off with calculating our tax levy limit is let's say it was 1.5% the base is 1.5 and then we build our tax levy limit calculation off of that. Some other things that are important when thinking about that tax levy limit calculation are the taxbased growth factor. Um if it's above one that means that we had an increase in our tax base. If it's at one there was no increase and if there is
016an increase in your tax base you're allowed to calculate that as part of your tax cap calculation. Another one is pilots. Pilots are payments in lie of taxes. These are negotiated agreements between the county and um corporations industry to reduce their tax burden. And usually those agreements are over 10 years. And the reason why they have these agreements in place is that the county is trying to attract businesses to build here in the county so that um jobs are created. And so with that, a lot of when these um pilots expire, the full assessment or valuation of those properties comes back onto the tax roles. And so for instance, in this scenario, um we do have some pilots that are expiring. And so they would come back onto the tax ro. The decrease is $315,000.
017And with that, that would mean that we will be not receiving a pilot payment, but instead those assessments will go back onto the ROS. And so therefore, a portion of our tax levy limit, that 2.42, is associated directly with those entities coming back onto the tax roles. And so we will collect that difference, that $315,000 from those entities directly. So therefore, our effective um tax cap increase is approximately 1.96, although the cap is 2.42. Um the capital decrease um is slight. It's um $2,000, but it is something that we're able to um include within our tax levy limit calculation. Uh in terms of um the levy itself, again, a 2.42 increase, I will restate that um a portion of this is being built directly to those um entities that their pilots expired. Um that portion
018is about 0.44% 44% making um the effective tax rate for our taxpayers um that increase approx on on the base approximately 1.98. Um the estimated true value tax rate we do not have that currently because in order to calculate that we need assessment rules. Right now the town of Gates is reassessing and so until we get assessment roles we are unable to give a rate. But we do know that assuming that um the assessments will be higher than they were in the prior assessment, which they will be because property um costs have gone up significantly and therefore assessment costs uh assessments will go up. We will see a drop in the tax rate that's associated with the increase assessments. Local sales tax account for 2% of all revenue. Um, this is money that comes directly
019from the county. Essentially, when you buy a good or a service in the county and there is a tax associated with it, a portion of those taxes go directly to the schools in the county. Right now, sales are down um and there is some consumer fear around what's going to happen with the market um relating to things like tariff legislation um and associated rising costs. And so acknowledging that and the uncertainty, we will be looking to um decrease under this proposal our estimated revenue for sales tax going into next year. acknowledging that there's a significant amount of uncertainty and we don't want to um have to be in a situation mid year, let's say December next year if this budget's approved where we would need to cut staffing positions and programs and services because we
020didn't receive the county sales tax that we anticipated. Uh state funding budget uh state funding accounts for 45% of all revenue estimate of six uh 62.6 6 million. Um, some information on that. Again, I mentioned earlier a pretty significant increase in foundation aid. Foundation aid is our formulary aid. Um, that looks at a lot of things like demographic data in the district, poverty, um, our English language learners, um, gives us a higher waiting for students with disabilities on a per pupil basis. Um, one of the driving factors of this change going into this year is the fact that they used a new poverty metric in order to calculate state aid across the entire state. And so this is um prior to this they were using the the year 2000 census data. Um, we know that
021our district has changed significantly since the year 2000 over the last quarter century. And this um increase is an acknowledgment of the fact that um that those changes have occurred and that our needs are considerable and that we should um have funding to help us address those needs. And so um this is really good for the district. Again, the state budget is not finalized, but um everything that we're hearing suggests that we should receive those funds. Bosey's aid um that's aid associated directly with those BOSIES costs. As you can see, we're anticipating more aid going into next year because we've been pushing more and more um services through BOSIES excess cost aid. Those are um that's aid associated with our students with disabilities. Um that aid comes um over the prior three-year period. So it's
022it's a collection and an average over the prior three years. um hardware and technology, library, um software, textbook. Those aids are a per pupil basis. It just essentially um looks at our our student counts and then gives us an allocation. Transportation aid, those are costs directly associated with our transportation staff. Um we have given some salary increases over the last couple of years to accommodate the very competitive market for drivers. Um we have been lucky enough to um ensure that we're able to fulfill our transportation obligations and our runs. Um many districts have not been able to do that and so we're hoping to continue to be able to provide those services. Building aid um again this is aid associated with our debt service payments. So when you think about under the expenditure side that
023we have those principal and interest payments, we also have aid that corresponds to that at um approximately 82 cents on the dollar to help us pay for for capital projects and buildings. And then high tax aid is something that the district has had carry forward for probably a decade now. And um this is acknowledging um uh communities that have a significant amount of commercial or industrial properties. Um and so we anticipate that to stay. So an approximately $7.2 million increase. In terms of other revenue, um those account for near about 4%. Um there's a list of what those things are, but the estimate in those areas is approximately $5 million with the largest portion of it being that payment in lie of taxes amount. As you saw, it's over $1 million alone in in pilot
024payments. So now um appropriated fund balance and reserves, these are um funds that we use to help balance our budget. Essentially, um, we tap into these things so that we can ensure that we're able to fund our proposal. They are exhaustable funds. We do try and replenish them if at all possible at the end of a fiscal year. Um, but they shouldn't be relied upon long term and they are for very specific purposes. They can only be used for very specific purposes and those are governed by general municipal law and education law. Appropriated fund balance. These are funds carried over from the prior year into the following year. Last year, we um had about $2.9 million in appropriated fund balance going into or I should say this year, we're using approximately um $2.9 million from
025last year's budget that we carried over into this year. Um going into next year, we're looking to carry over about $1.7 million in order to balance next year's budget. In terms of the use of those funds, we really want to target about 4% or under. Um down in the bottom chart, you can see the utilization data. The percentage in last year's budget was about 4.43%. And we really want to get under 4% and so going into next year looking at around 3.3%. The reserves noted up above again are used for very specific purposes. Eilar is employee benefits acred liability reserve. Those are for those are funds to be used to pay for retirees um benefits specifically. That's what the um purpose of that fund is. Um ERS reserve those are um reserves that can be
026used to offset the cost of the employee retirement service costs or the pension system. We pay a percentage of um pension costs into the pension um system every year and so this helps offset those costs. tech certiiori reserve. Um those are specific to claims against the district um by outside entities. Typically they can go back multiple years. Um that reserve specifically is funded to the liability. So we're able to get information from the county every year that says how many court actions are out there, what's the value of them, and how much should we have in that reserve. That amount up on the um screen currently um helps us fund those liabilities. teacher retirement um reserve. Again, this is very much like the ERS reserve. This allows us and helps us pay for pension costs
027associated um with our teachers. The 2526 um revenue budget breakdown per dollar again about 46 cents on the dollar for taxes, 45 cents on the dollar for state aid, and then we get down into our smaller items. Overall revenue snapshot about again 4.85%. One of the important things to note is that a budget has a budget proposal has to be a balanced budget. And so you'll note that the um the change um ties to the expenditure change. Okay. In terms of propositions, looking um to put three propositions out for vote. Uh the first one being the expenditure budget. Um the public is um every year provided with an expenditure budget proposal. This is not an approval specifically of um taxation but is just that an approval of the expenditure budget bus purchase proposition about $2.4
028million on an annual basis. We look to uh replace anywhere from 13 to 15 school buses uh out of our 88 um school bus fleet. Um the true cost of the district after aid is about $646,000. In terms of um a final proposition, we're looking at creating a capital reserve fund for future bus purchases. Um right now we pay for buses by bonding those buses, which means we borrow funds to purchase the buses. What we're looking to do is reduce our reliance on borrowing so that we don't have to pay interest costs, um, debt issuance costs, attorneys fees, um, things like that that are costly to the district. So, we have a long range plan set in place that will take us about eight years to reduce about $200,000 on average um, in in those
029costs if the public approves that proposition. Just in prior to this um meeting uh we became aware that Jamar Elliott has withdrawn his candidacy from the board of education. So um on the ballot this year we anticipate that there will only be three candidates um Tanya Serbanowski Andrea Andrea Mchella sorry Andrea um and Dr. Christine Brown Richards and that would be ballot order. The meet the candidates night is right after this. Um so um please be ready for that. It should be fairly interesting and informative. Next steps. Uh the vote is May 20th from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Spartan Fieldhouse at Gates Charlie High School. If you're looking for more documents, there's um there's a uh website set up gateschily.orgvote. There's a whole bunch of information on there, not just um this
030presentation tonight, but also um all the corresponding budget uh budget documents and presentations that have been um presented to the board to date. In summary, um again, the things we're looking to do are maintain our programming and staffing. We know that our staff here are doing an incredible job of servicing the needs of our school community. And so we want to ensure and and maintain those positions. Um acknowledging again that we do have needs and um we are doing great work and want to continue the path that we're on. Um have multiple opportunities for student engagement. Um create some efficiency along the way. Um, so reduce some administrative costs to help balance the budget as well as add additional staff in areas like AIS and and behavioral needs. So if you need more information, a
031bit of budget is back for the fifth year. Fifth year. Yes, fifth year. Um and uh right now um you can see the first episode, episode two and three will aa be available on May 6 and May 13th. Um there's a QR code to scan if you're interested in seeing that. And finally, thank you for taking your time to be here. And now I'll turn it over for any questions that you may have. Okay. And that concludes the public budget hearing. Thank you again. Have a good evening.