Highland CSD Board of Education Meeting 3-4-2025

001oh yeah if Mike's talking about bridges we're good sir okay we'll open up the meeting can we please stand for to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay it's the budget season we're going to have a special presentation from our business official full yours oh I'm sorry first we'll open up the meeting to uh public comment for agenda items okay close public comment and we're going to our special presentation okay well good evening everybody I'll try to make this entertaining and short and sweet um we're going to start off tonight we're going to talk about um the tax levenue submission we'll discuss the revised state and local Revenue we'll talk about the

002252 2526 draft budget the expenses and the shortfall we'll talk about the bu bus referendum analysis and we'll have the board discussion in terms of the certain topic so last at the last board meeting we presented the tax levy limit calculation which I went through went through all the numbers I showed you how it was to deted I just wanted to make sure that the trustees and everyone is aware that this was submitted to the state on 224 25 the actual due date is March 1st so we got it done ahead of time there were no changes to our numbers we still have the 3399 225 as being our tax fledy number any questions okay let's move on we'll startop then with our analysis on a discussion about the changes in our Revenue our state

003aid Revenue there are two changes we have the first one is a little change at the bottom it says charter school we have a charter school that's in the district and we have one student attending that charter school so we will receive an additional $1,000 y it's short and sweet um and that something will get for 25 26 the biggest change happens to be in the building Aid line if you'll notice the building aid for 2425 is 1,522 413 the estimated revenue for 2526 building Aid is 2, that means we have an increase of 1,262 473 I will puse for a moment because there are some big numbers there the biggest number happens to be that building a that was presented by bernon Donan we have actually sat with your fiscal advisers or our fiscal

004advisers and gone over these numbers this relates to the chapter 97 law of 2011 it's kind of weird when they say chapter 97 law of 2011 it gets a little murky but that is the law in hand it talks about getting Aid to the school districts if you have submitted certain documentation final cost report certificate of substantial completion all have to be presented to the governor in their possession by November at that point she pulls those numbers into her Governor's run that's why they didn't show up in this run the law also allows us to have information submitted on before June 30th and we will receive Aid not only in this year but also next year and that's where Bernard donagan kind of went through the analysis looked at the expens looked at the numbers

005looked at our submissions and came up with the dollars that said we should increase our building Aid because they feel very very confident that we will receive this on the before for the next school year and that's what that big jump is here it's a 1 million 18682 increase in the building yes and that Aid is tied to the expense of the capital projects that we did here that is absolutely correct this is in relation to the 20 $2 million Capital project we have phase one has been completed and with that being done all of the final cost reports and information has to be submitted a month ago we sat down with the Palumbo group we sat down with facilities accounting superintendent was on the line and Bernard Donan was there and we had I

006put this together to have a quick meeting to ensure what documentation we needed to get in their possession so that they can get this money for us and we have a deadline we've got a little bit of a schedule that we're going to work on making sure we provide them with certain information the expenses everything that they will need so that they can file the reports so that we can receive this Aid is all Contin we're working collaboratively to get it done right there's some deadlines but there are some deadlines we had a March 14th deadline to ensure first and foremost that we gave Bernard donagan our expenses of the capital projects specific capital projects for phase one that have been completed we gave them that information they are now starting to craft the documentation

007that needs to go to the state so they can ask for the aid and that's the biggest number on the page so that is a big jump in our Revenue questions PE NO phase two has been submitted yet right because I know we did close out a couple of phases of phase I know there's a second half of phase two which is this summer but the first half which was last summer we did complete some as as the turfield and such were they submitted yet or they're going to be for next year that's a good question we are with phase two if we get the documentation submitted on before November and we plan to do that we're going to work once again we're getting through this first phase of getting phase one information if we

008get all the certificate sub certificate of substantial completion um final cost reports for phase two we will receive aid for that and that will most likely push into 25 see there's a cycle if you can capture it in prior to the state doing the aid months I got right we believe that we will make sure well I say we believe I know that we will work to get those reports done and get them submitted because we've been very aware and staying on top of all the capital projects that have been done um there will be some that fall um because some of the vendors haven't completed all their projects but we have a way of asking the state to give us the revenue based upon some other issues so we are looking at not only

009phase one but phase two and that I did not add phase two into some of of these numbers because I want to make sure that we've gotten past that Ro of getting into phase one so that is the biggest issue here we roll the numbers forward that increases our total revenue by $1.5 million we roll that number forward the new Revenue number we now have is 20, 646 75 I have left things the same from the last presentation Medicaid being flat uh Pilots increasing slightly uh the other Revenue sources which we've t about before include interest it includes um let me go through it includes interest of 250,000 Bose of about 400,000 which is the Surplus it's got 50,000 in Prior year and $220,000 in F I think we went very conservative conservatively on the

010interest you've got a when you look at these year this year's Revenue you'll see that the interest we've gained is significantly higher than our budget but I wanted to be a little bit conservative in terms of that I don't want to put it in the interest we don't know what's happening with the economy so 250 seems to be reasonable we probably we will be higher but I'm hedging my bets with 250 um once again Lowes is 400 that is the normal average that we would get back in terms of br's um reimbursement we running around about 425 430 we went to 400 so there are there is some room that we could possibly increase in that line that says um other Revenue sources but once again I'd rather be conservative than be aggressive in giving

011numbers and they do not materialize um that will leave us with a new Revenue increase of 2 milon 381 609 any questions so far going back to the building Aid when does the State typically firmly cement that or finalize their numbers November it's in November so the estimated numbers will be told those in November okay so normally in November the government gets their numbers she pulls them in and she has everything sa 139s everything that's needed to kind of drive that Aid into the output reports if it's not there based upon the chapter 97 law she will not include that in her well but the numbers that you estimated those aren't official numbers yet those AR offal estim those are estimated numbers and once again those numbers have been vetted by Bernard Don right right

012we are very comfortable that this will be done um the exception of snow rain andow right well and so we hope but yes the weather's been looking funny so yeah so um we will meet all those goals in terms of getting the the a so if there are other questions we're going to move on to the expense side on the expense side budget um the rollover budget has various budget scenarios I took into consideration a zerob based Budget on certain lines um we did a trend increase on other lines and we did a percentage increase on some lines rather than keeping it as a standard zero based budget we kind of did a hybrid on some of the things we looked at uh when I was looking at uh health insurance I looked at the

013increase in health insurance the percentage increase and added that back in if we were looking at The Debt Service we went straight to the debt service that we have including the new debt service we have for the buildings we added that back in if we were looking at contractual lines I looked at the trend if we're spending between 2324 and 2425 are we spending high or low if we were spending equal I left at the say if we're spending a little bit higher I probably increased it so once again there are variables in here in these expense side to take into consideration different approaches with that being said we have the salaries which we took into consideration all contractual agreements all steps raises Lanes increases everything that naturally will increase due to contract agreements um

014you'll notice that the benefits increases by 471000 that's contributory because we have an increase in our health insurance N Ship went up 2% um MVP went up 5% we have a 9% increase in the ER even though our TRS went down slightly we have these large increases in the benefits the other item that went up was bosis as you can see uh 362 I will say for the bosis the district is still looking at the BOS expenditures we haven't finalized them yet at this point we're kind of going through some of the Cross contracts and looking at other variables to ensure that we can bring that bis line down um and I think that's going to happen and of course you've got your debt service that you're paying the debt on that $22 million bond

015that you had that's finally come due so now we got to increase in The Debt Service other items just went up buildings and grounds um transportation equipment the interfund transfers actually went down because we believe that food service the transfer that the general fund would have to give to Food Service because food service is a c they're they're generating a better profit so the general fund will not have to contribute as much as it did in the past and that's reflected here at the end of it all we have a 3,368 471 increase from the prior Year's budget maim it's about 6% increase so these are the major drivers once again your debt service your salaries your benefits and your boes and that totals about 3,040 913 once again we are still scrubbing some of

016these numbers to bring them down which brings me to the deficit I'm following what with the previous administrator did um lindsy and what she presented was the budget estimates around about the same time 14th 5th and I said 25 um we showed that we had a 319 Gap and then we had last year we was 1, 8567 87 this year we are estimating it to be 1,051 266 that is the current Gap that we have so in order to with that Des me you're confident that you can massage the B expenditure bring that down which would in turn reduce that overall deficit I don't believe I can bring it all the way down no in my numbers the numbers are slightly higher and I've spoken to Mr boy we've spoken to the superintendent we've spoken

017to Mr Bill we've kind of looking at those numbers and kind of bringing them down do we need this service do we don't need that service this one goes up this one goes down so I do believe bres will come down a little bit more than the 362 that we have there and the other lines that we're going once again we looking at other expenses we still believe there's a little bit of wiggle room we can do but eventually we'll get down to a point where you can go no further and so that brings me to my slide here where we're saying well what are our options of course I'm going to reduce supplies and equipment I'm looking at the the expenses to try and bring that down I will do my best that's my

018job um we can cut positions what I mean by cut positions do want to startop that mean cutting jobs what I mean is in every school budget there are some vacancies that they put in there let's look at how many vacancies we have and do we really need all those vacancies that's a little tight because if you do employ somebody you didn't have enough reserve for that person to come on board that's one area we can look at we can look at the retirement and attrition we're looking at indiv indviduals who would be able to retire we could leave and then bring new people on board at a lower rate we then come to the allocation of reserves you have a very healthy reserve and the board when I first came on board has a

019policy in terms of replenishing their reserves you've done a great job of replenishing your reserves and you have certain reserves you have a TRS Reserve an ERS reserve a tax aor you have a capital reserve uh and what's also known as um compensated app es you have enough in those reserves that if you decided to to plug the Gap you could use some of those reserves and then finally you've got the allocation of fund balance just to be clear capital reserve cannot be used correct that's correct capital reserve cannot be used so I was just reciting the reserves that we have but capital reserve you cannot use because that has to be specifically for Capital Bill issues you probably we can talk more about it if you'd like we could use ERS TRS and some

020of the the other reserves taxii to kind of help hedge some of the expenses that you have here once again you're bringing down expenses you could use your result well some of those reserves so related to increases in benefit costs so there's a conversation it's a conversation it's a Direction I want something you want to think about not necessarily make a decision as the target become more clear historically we haven't really touched any of our reserves offet budget increases we've used fund balance last year we did last year we did last year you did you used to 250 but that didn't come out of the TRS or any of those it came out of f which reserve it came out of that came out of a reserve Reserve yeah the fund balance was the 1

021Point 1.1 250 out of might or yeah so you have that option um as we Circle back to the allocation of fund balance we're going to look at this expenses we actually as of Monday there are no other expenses going through the district we cut off all POS I'm not the most popular person right now but that's the way it works um we're then going to look at what our expenses are we're going to project the salaries going forward look at the savings we have in those Sal expense lines and try to come up with some type of estimate of fund balance we would possibly get back for this year we do have additional state aid Revenue coming in we also have some state aid Revenue that's kind of countering that go ahead do these

022numbers include retirees who've announced retirements thus far in the school year uh yes yes the few that have uh voed that they will retire we have taken into consideration the swapping that they will be in the moving around but we're also going to look at others who at this point between now and the end of the school year if they're going to make a decision to do so how would that help the budget so these are things to consider the board has to consider do we want to go with the reserves we're still trying to cut down expenses my job in the next two weeks is to whittle down that that 1 million down as much as I can and then give you a number that we feel the Board needs to kind of make

023a determination on so we move into the bus referandum analysis at the last meeting um I presented that we have a bus referendum of purchasing two buses and the board made the discussion to see what was our inventory and what do we have so just a little bit of background you know that the governor has proposed phasing out Diesel and gas School Bus fleets by 2035 all school buses purchased starting after 2027 must be zero emission buses that means no fossil fuels buses um the state does recommend that replacing your buses every 10 years and I left the website if you wanted to look at where we information about electric buses this slide is basically your historical show my slid through this shows our current Fleet in the district we have 55 vehicles in the

024district it's a lot of vehicles yeah now what I've done uh just for informational purposes the gold color um you might call it gold or yellow um represents using the 10year recommendation by the state I said items purchased in the Years purchase will now be need to be replaced 10 years out so the gold basically represents items that would need to be replaced in 2025 and the green color represents items that need to be replaced in 2026 um at the bottom there buses 165 and 164 in your slide and in your presentation there have already been replaced we replaced those in 2024 with the buses that we just purchased so the those have already been replaced I'm just going to move on this slide now shows you the detail of our 55 Fleet we have

025six diesel buses we have 2365 passenger propane buses 1530 passenger bus four Wheelchairs and seven Suburbans based upon the information if you can see I said items purchased in 2015 there will be five buses that would need to be replaced in 2025 based upon the 10 10 year recommendation from the state so every 10 years they feel you should get replace your bus or they become mature there was are three diesel buses and two suburbans in the 2016 purchases there are nine items and those are 765 passenger bus 130 passenger bus and one Suburban once again there are 14 buses there that would probably need to be replaced now I will pause there for a moment to say we should have a conversation about what we would like like to do this is the discussion

026as to we could replace all 14 buses that's a heavy lift for the district do we need all 14 buses we've got a lot of inventory that we have we've got to take into consideration certain other criteria for example um things to consider the district needs to consider purchasing 10 large buses one small bus and maybe three SUVs by 2027 I'm not saying you have to I'm saying these are things to consider we need to take into consideration the population the line in the area or is it increasing we still try to get an analysis of that what's going on um it's important to know that we have a um the population needs of the students of special needs is increasing um and I guess want I said the district must consider population decline that

027must be the students that we have we're declining in students basically when we can see from State a our numbers are going down in terms of the students of the district do we need all those buses um the district also needs to address the potential decline in transportation Aid if we decide to forgo the purchases we build the building Aid or the bus Aid equal to what we get from the state so our debt service it's five years we pay that back in five years because the state gives us only five years of bus a so we kind of balance it two out within a fiveyear period um the district should may consider or the district should consider that they may not need to purchase all outdated inventory buses due to the demographic changes and

028needs for example we may not have to do that because some of the buses we have have not met the mark that the state requires of 250,000 Mi of usage our buses are not even close to that so we'll have a 55 inventory Fleet we decide to buy more buses and that will grow our Fleet we'll probably get rid of the diesel ones because those are probably the ones we should most likely get rid of but now you've got a big Fleet of buses that you'd have to consider I can present to the board um I've got an EXL spr I didn't want to put in the presentation that can give you the calculations based upon the cost based upon how we would look at if we're going to do it to this year or

029three next year or if we do all 14 what the cost will be and I'll send that out to you so you can at least analyze it in your own time to determine what we would like to do I see questions that need to be asked sorry you read my face um the 250,000 miles on the buses how close are they are we at 220 or are we at the last time I looked uh we probably the oldest one's probably at 100 give a take do we have an inventory on where those miles are for some of those buses we have an inventory and all all the miles every bus that we have in the inventory Fleet actually has the amount of mileage that we have so that will be part of the expl I

030could send to you that has you know yours purchased it has the mileage we have all that information that we can send to you sorry I went do you know have an idea of per year how many miles are added on each bus I know that I know some buses do longer trips and stuff but on average what are they how many miles Cathy or Peter have any interest in it so you have report sorry no no no that's fine I just but we have that so we can look at that's another anal our buses our buses typically age out before they mile out okay uh we what do you consider Agee out the 10 year mark no we don't don't use 10 years because basically if we have we if we purchase a bus

031to replace we number of years ago we got away from replacing bu 115 with a bus because 115 may be in better shape than 116 we may get rid of 116 so that's what we we've done so our process has been replacing what needs to be replaced if we have a problem bus or something along that line so it's a conditional assessment condition yes and we we've also it takes into account the maintenance record that's what I'm here we began a little bit last year on hedging against electric buses so that we would have larger inventory as we headed into wherever the state's going to go on this mandate if they move forward with this mandate then we we have inventory to carry us deeper into it so that we can acclimate whatever we need

032to do to make it without having a severe impact on the tax base or whatever because of purchasing electric buses at a very high cost any infrastructure and everything else that's associated with that so our inventory of buses that we currently have is higher than it needs to be but it's based on the fact that we don't know where electric buses are going to go what's the current average for electric bus on the on the large ones 500,000 they're running close to 500 if not worn out regular buses what this year's buses would be about 176 and those conditional assessments are are essentially the the mechanics of the bus or they the inter conditions what drives it basically is the uh bus inspections as they're done what the condition of which by the way you

033typically have wonderful inspection cor so it's it's typically if you know the bus inspectors will tell you when he does a bus sometimes they'll tell you I don't want to see this bus again L okay that's kind of pretty clear at that point in time that in the past when we've encount so there's a bit of a bubble when we've encountered a so we have a two-year bubble here um what if you to took a say if if you in fact need those same amounts buses Styles you chart a threeyear course buy the buses over a three-year period Point well taken I think the question would be then is and I I believe I had that conversation with Mr Miller the Mandate that the governor passed down to 2027 is it January 1st of 2027

034or is it December 31st of 2027 we were not able to determine that even going back that affects that threee going back to the original Law we couldn't even determine that we couldn't determine if it was calendar year 27 or New York State fiscal year starting in April of 2027 our ju okay we were unable to determine that so we're hanging it on 2027 at this point calendar year the purchases are separate from the entire budget right these are these are always a different and they're subsidized by the some well think reimbursement a is about 72% I mean it wasn't it's expense driven so you got to lay out the money to get yeah right no I understand that but but there are I mean when we're talking about these numbers we are talking about

035reimbursable funds that are separate from the budget itself so want to make sure that we're we're keeping these two conversations separate and that's why the presentation actually went to 2026 because there's really no solid date as to when we would do 2027 if I put that on the screen it add more buses to that rad so you know Mr Mill is talking about you know the buses and how you know they're conditioned this is a presentation that's just talking about them aging out of 10 years right and that's kind of the industry standard that the state recommends we can go 12 we can go whatever we feel but once again it then comes back to well what are the what's the condition of the buses that we have and we should revamp that inventory list

036those 55 to say well which ones are really out there that need to be um let go and we can be replace that changes the scope of what you're looking at as compared to just looking at it in terms of strictly here's what's aging out absolutely I just wanted to clarify that this is a separate issue from the budget itself yes so any any decisions we make with the buses will not affect the budget issue no but you're still going out to he going to go out and bond for the buses so it's still going to be something that the the would have to vote on sounds like a few more meetings have to take place and let's see how the conversation deadline for uh propositions by April before April for the 18th meeting one

037year we we missed that date and we got off our cycle we have two meetings in April or one one more April 18th oh it's March March there just to add just to add on the buses that we we went through over the last pick a number 10 12 years we went over a few demographic changes with buses and and the amount of the type of buses we have um when we were doing a lot of homeless transports and things like that we ended up into more Suburbans and then we had a special needs kids and we ended up with more uh 30 passenger buses and then we had we moved into having to acquire more wheelchair buses because of the students that required that service um so right now in those all those Cate

038at all the categories we have we have extra buses okay some of that was driven by the the demographics and some of it is driven by the the fact that we were building inventory in anticipation of electric buses if electric buses goes away that changes everything we do at that point yeah well that's a good point that m m bringing up one of the considerations is where are we the governor has said publicly or in a couple of interviews that she's not opposed to um delaying the Mandate that's one thing we also got to take a big consideration to your current political climate what are we going to do you know things could change in a minute and we no longer have the electric that mandate being available so as school districts kind of move

039towards that deadline they're trying to get buses if they really need them but Point still have all that inventory my biggest concern is not cost with that it's supply chain it's getting the right stuff it's um it's almost like such a new technology at a mass scale is it not or this stuff's pretty standard it's available what's that electric buses yes infrastructure all that right all the stuff electric buses is I mean we've been told by Central Hudson we have 4% of the electric we need here to charge buses okay so that's where it starts okay but the technology on the buses and the issues that are having and things like that if you can go on uh the web and look at lion buses and the issues they're having with Lion buses in Vermont

040and places um it's premature but the the other side of it is is that if we if they delay it then we we have to kind of walk that forward and see where we're going to be because right now we're planning on 2027 so we'd have to walk that forward and look at it and also we're our mentality right now is looking at buses that aren't purchasing buses moving forward for the future that we're going to keep longer would be buses that are less perishable which would be the 65 passenger buses because they're built like a truck they're built like a bus versus buying a Suburban or a uh cutaway shev bus that is a commercial type vehicle that won't have the same life expectancy as the the bluebirds would I think the issue of

041Supply chains and and the preparation for recharging stations it's a mo issue because we're one small District of many districts in New York and if those are the situations that exist it's going to be it's going to be Statewide so they're going to have to make everybody's on the same page so it's not goingon to we don't have to worry and try to prepare for that the state's going to have to prepare for that but do we start pushing the envelope at what point do we start like the Suburbans are available in battery model how what our next Suburban let's buy a electric one the next what do you think about that you get the charging facil the Char I don't know if my neighbor could do it I'm sure Highland in Central School District

042would do it it takes an aw some kind of Outlet it takes a long time to charge a car with a regular let me tell you over 24 hours just to charge my car so picture of Boss how long it's going to take take multiple batteries to charge a bus long time look here's the here's the dollars and cents perspective I can't support the purchase of 14 buses over a two-year period when some when some of your Fleet hasn't even hit 10 years 200,000 miles or whatever 250,000 miles I mean that's just right I mean that's just being proven right and I'm not this presentation not to say that you have to buy all 14 this is this is your Fleet right you have right now these are the ones at maturing we're having the

043conversation that says well what do we want to do do you you know you're not going to buy 14 that number is created by math that number is not created by any form of the data I got I I got you I I have I have my own opinion on what what we should do at least for this year and hedge on next year because by next year there's a very good possibility it's an election year that that whole thing might change you're right so we can take a look at Mr mil saying okay let's look at the condition of these buses the 55 that we have which ones are really close to being falling off the bubble that will change your perspective once again once we get that information we can provide that to

044you with the cost analysis that would say well here's the bus is at 176 or 170 here's a Suburban at this price you plug it in the spreadsheet whichever ones you want to do it will give you the cost that you expect for this year or next year and you can make that determination but what determination like number of buses and stuff plan should be given to the Board of Ed or plan a b and c and with a recommendation be for Mr Miller to to give us a conditional assessment so that R these have a say how many buses you feel would Age out next year how many you feel would Age out in two years and how many you feel would Age out in three years let them look the no I'm saying

045a conditional assessment he has this would be a conditional assessment just a speculative but it would give us a parameter in which we could say we don't need to buy you know seven buses we have say we have three that we plan anticipate are going to age out in a year so we make sure we replace we're not in a normal in a normal situation a normal year we would look at it like that okay we'd say we're going we're looking we're anticipating these buses to drop off we're looking at that from the Viewpoint that we may have buses to drop off and then we may and we're also looking at it in hedging against I know and I I think the need to hedge against the electric issue is I that we' have to

046be as concerned about that right but we I don't we have if you're looking for a recommendation for what we should buy and what number of them we should buy we could probably come back to you with that and say this is going to cost you X number of dollars whatever given that we're being told we have a essentially we have a more than sufficient Fleet if not a surplus Fleet at this point I think we need to just look at the numbers and say these are the numbers we think we will lose in the upcoming year these are the numbers we think we lose in two years we're we're also looking at it from the Viewpoint we're not looking at 2026 2027 we're looking at 2032 33 I know no no I know that

047I know I'm talking about not reduction of the fleet right I'm talking about a conditional replacement of the existing Fleet by the time you get to 2027 we're going to have 22 of our buses 10 years or older looking at just what we are right now that we can't purchase anymore we were doing what if that stays the way it is but we wer and that's half of your Fleet that's why we were looking to had the fleet a little bit to be put ourselves in that position so we're not looking to buy $500,000 or more at that point in time to replace we typically in the we replacing roughly three to four a year wasn't that typically our pretty much a combination of suburb pass 65 it's kind of been dollar driven too yeah

048that was by Bernie Donan it was done that way also to determine how much money we were going to spend on bus no it was also with the know that these are we do get uh State funding to help assist in the purchase and and I understand all that but I'm just we're making a big jump from the three to four now to the the five and seven so I I just I if that's being done in anticipation of readying the fleet for electric I think the electric thing will take care of itself because it's going to be a Statewide issue and they're going to have to be accommodations made so I don't know if we have to prepare a fleet to that extent I think more if we stay in line with what we

049had established for the years you know that making sure that we're rotating we so that we don't end up with a you know 20 buses when you drop out buses what do you base it on do you base it on year in service years in service mileage or physical wear and tear on a bus I mean because you could have a 2017 that has more mileage than a 2015 even though they're two years different in age so in reality it's R it's rarely mileage so they don't get that much mile even though we have Suburbans that had 19 miles on them or 170,000 or something like that um it's rarely based on miles it's usually based on condition we have when I first started playing this game we had buses that had rust issues and

050things and that the um inspectors didn't want they got to the point where I don't want to see the bus you know this is not going to pass anymore so we had replaced those buses now we're not in that s that situation we've also done certain improvements to what we buy so that they last longer and things are not rusing but you know I think our taxpayers are going to appreciate us kind of pushing these numbers a little bit down the road because for example H Park um had gotten a grant I guess for 15 buses electric buses still had to go before the public to vote on they voted it down so are they sending a message they don't want electric buses I don't think they don't want to pay for they what they

051don't want to pay for them but as now as they perform and now they' proven They Don't Really perform properly in this environment in the Northeast that I think we should go in a direction of pushing this a little bit pushing these numbers back and taking a chance purchase less well purchase not be in such a hurry to get rid of our fossil fuel buses understand there was there's not really that's part of the plan the part of the plan was what were we going to do to hedge against electric what the actual number is the mathematical number came out to basically seven buses a year that's not necessarily the number we're going to say that that's what you need to buy we should try to work with that we can give you in that

052direction because every time you turn around there's something new coming about how these don't work I think what Mr Miller was saying was that much into lawn mowers when they were shiting all to Electric and everybody was buying as many gas powered lawn mowers as they could prior to that I think his intention was to buy as many gas powered buses prior to not being yeah but I think I don't think we're going to have to worry about that cut off happening anytime soon so I think we can just stay the course as to what we've been doing and make sure we have just the systematic replacement push it a little but and Mike had a good idea also I'm sorry um with possibly a Suburban or two you know if we want to try

053the electric thing you know do it at that level so would you like us you know as it go forward my goal is to say okay let's get a deadline on this by Friday we can present you with you know condition of the buses and some recommendations if we give our recommendations to what we think we want us to purchase is that way you want us to go I just want to get some direction because you know either way I can present the information to you I just want to be clear as to what do you want to have PR us if it's a give you some ideas of what buses we could possibly purchase we'll do that take into consideration the condition of the buses here's what we're going to head J up X

054for and then scenario one scenario two maybe scenario three but we're giving you some idea as to what we think you would like to look at and then you make a decision it doesn't you're not married to that but those are just recommendations I think that's a better approach rather than me telling you this is what you have to do and then we have a little bit more discussion back and forth and pulling and then we don't get anything done and then we have a little bit of a quy on the 18 let me ask information could be done by Friday let me ask this question and I think Community resident brought this up to some of us in in past years and a lot of them say well we see large school buses that

055are uh quarter capacity or half capacity but is it true statement to say that we are required by law to provide have enough capacity in a case of a catastrophe to evacuate wa all three of our buildings is that a true statement we know you don't have to answer if you don't I mean I don't know if that's a true statement but it is a true statement that we have to supply or have counted the seat for every child on that bus run whether that child drives to school or their parents transport them question it doesn't matter there has to be a seat for that child on the bus that is what state mandates so it's potential a bus route only has 30 students on that route and we're sending a 65 passenger bus we're

056we're only required to have seating for 30 students on that route no no okay it would have to be so there's our buses are full typically the older ones are either going they're driving now the younger ones that aren't riding sometimes are on different buses because they're going to daycares but we do have to hold a seat on every bus a regular bus if that kid goes to daycare or not they have to be on that bus route it doesn't matter if they go on the bus over there to the daycare the other bus has to hold a seat for them as well that's what reinforces that um evacuation Factor all the kids are in school now you element school high school rum it's the same bus running the r it's an annual number I

057hear y I wish it was more Dynamic I wish there was a way to yeah it's only 40 kids going home get the small bus I wouldn't want to get caught short in that situation if we had to do some level of evacuation and and time time of the Run also considerate considering how long you to pick up if you want if you were looking at from the Viewpoint of Maximum utilization of a plus and putting 60 kids on it the Run would be longer than the time allotted to get the kids to school have children on the bus for an hour but the evacuation piece would be these students are are in school yeah we're going to run 55 buses out to pick them up not necessarily take them home take them to a

058safe location that's the evacuation piece of it so it doesn't matter what route they're on we're just loading students on a bus and evacuate and staff so and staff so that's why we need the capacity I mean is that I I thought I heard that somewhere I'm just trying to reinforce that's the reason why we have large school buses because we have to maintain capacity to evacuate to a safe location entire staff and students the answer is yes but in a routine you know you're never transporting a 100% of your kids at any one given time a thous right DayDay run but I'm talking about a an evacuation like that I thought you were going after is our Fleet the right size for the student population right I mean we're down 300 kids over the

059last few years but we need more buses or The Fleets the same number of buses I haven't really looked at we have 39 large capacity buses 65 passenger buses out of a fleet of 55 so we only got 16 that are small capacity yeah and the questions to me at times in the last couple years is why are we why am I seeing you know a 65 passenger bus with 10 kids on it or 12 20 kids on because you're at the end of the run and they dropped everybody that's my answer to them but I I think that also comes that also comes back to the cost of running a bus the age of the bus the sustainability of the bus versus everything you're doing with it in relationship to using like a 30

060passenger Chevrolet bus that is definitely going to last 10 years maybe versus a bluebird that you could potentially get 12 13 14 15 out of it you design your cost in mile and you come out the cost per mile for Bluebird is less than it would be for the makes sense so we need a decision by March 18th or a special meeting before April 1st is that the deadline well there's some unanswered questions first okay but is that the deadline so the legal notice has to be in by between April 4th and 45 days prior to election so I was going to put the a legal notice in April 7th so you have a meeting April 1st so it would have to like that would be like the latest okay so those that's but I

061I mean correct me if I'm wrong the legal notice has to be done it's on the back we could secure all that info Heather you said something about 2027 what's going on in that year April 1 we have ating my was just no we have April 1 here is you know um by you can't purchase anymore and if we look at the 10 year the age of our Fleet by 2027 if we do nothing this year I'm just looking at you will have 22 of your 53 buses over 10 years old yeah I'm not say I don't think we should do I think we we stay by the plan we had originally to replace systematically it's not the April 1 it's 45 days from much meeting no no to to the to the budget vote

062which is May 20th or something like that yes so the legal notice has to by April 4 all the data is available get data to everybody this week and next and then I think we can make this decision on the 18th right just a couple clarifications and I think they'll have all the information they need to go back and do a little bit more work and you know come up with a plan am I the only one what size are those passenger vans those little on did it say 30 30 the suburb are those available in electric model the 30 passeng they are they are they are they are there is uh a bus company that is taking fosil fuel buses and taking the dry train out of them and turning them over to electric

063and selling them makes a l L of sense but that's what they're doing is that my only option or I could buy a 30 so our our electric 30 passenger bus right now if State cont this is my opinion at this point in time that the Suburbans and the and the U smaller buses are more perishable than the other buses and we have enough of them at this point in time that there is probably no reason to buy a Suburban or a um 30 passenger bus within the immediate future because of this units that we have that aren't being used at this point as spare because of demographics change okay being said those numbers could be shifted where we were buying say three Diesel and one propane bus this year and the larger buses and

064then bring 26 down to say six propane buses I'm just saying to to create a certain amount of equity from year to year are any of the vehicles other than the 65 passenger bus diesel so we got away from Diesel and went to we got away from Diesel and went to propane okay we have kept diesel buses so we had some buses that could go long range because you can't get propane on the r Road um we are looking at as we settle this all out that the buses we're going to buy now if we bought them they would be gasoline so they would still have long range okay and the maintenance cost on them is slightly more than the propane buses the fuel economy is better and the maintenance cost is less than a

065diesel just wonder if there's any any benefit to their six diesel buses within the next few years trying to get rid of at least doing away with the diesel pretty much all the all the school bus companies are that people are buying schools districs are staying away from gasoline power I mean Diesel power bus I well I I was you know we may not need them next year possibly the following year I think as far as Suburbans we start pushing electric it gets us to dabble in the infrastructure a little bit pushes you guys out of your comfort zone if this comes down the pike or you know look it's going to be a consideration in the future I mean electricity is not going away nor electric vehicles they're just ramping up so you know

066if we could use this next Suburban purchase this year next year whenever it happens to dabble into some electric vehicle I recommend we do it but in the meantime as far as do you have all the information you need to come up with a plan because it sounds like some of the buses that are on that plan don't aren't necessarily going to be needed for next year I believe we have the information to come up with a plan we have basically my data which is basically straight accounting data zeros and ones here's the inventory here the they're going to materialize XYZ we have to pull in Kathy we have to pull in Mr Miller to say okay let's look at the the demographics of those buses let's really look at it from a different perspective

067and then give you another analysis that says here are the buses that are actually going to they're not going to make it even though they're 10 years or so forth they're not going to make it let's put those on the list and then we'll give you a better analysis of what we think should be purchased I think once you've done that you'll have a better op so the state hasn't incentivized any of the subsidies they're just they're straight across the board regardless of the uh of the mode the state has put out certain grants if you want to buy electric buses and you have to you know go through that process they'll try and entice you to do that I don't know the dollars that they're really giving um I will call my contacts in

068New York who have actually purchased electric buses and see how that works but you'll go through that whole Grant process and then that's them enticing you to do it but once again what's your infrastructure so we buy the Suburban pretty and how are we going to plug it in where did we plug it in we drive all the way down the road and plug it in and they drive back like well no I'm I'm just curious you know given like you said there's a grant I wonder if there are grants available for creating the infrastructure or there State incentivized uh modes of of creating that there is there is so maybe we need to be looking at that as well but we don't have anything to plug it into not the bus the infrastructure no

069that's what you mean because you were saying the grid is only 4% correct right very good you would need a level two or a level three charger connection and I think that was and just to just to to go to your point I think that was the conversation that we had when we met with the Central Hudson uh representative nerta Pete myself Kathy and Lindsay when she was here and at the end of that it did not prove to be something that was going to be beneficial to us cost-wise because of the electricity not being there the grid so to speak um so yes some districts are our nerta is offering grants but it's in Pockets it depends on where the the infrastructure is already out there um and then there are districts that get

070the grants as Mr Miller said that uh there are aspects that still need to be voter approved and if the voters don't vote for it then you lose the grant so um there's a lot more that goes into it than just um applying for the for the grant let let me put this out to the whole board so we can give Desmond Peter and Kathy some direction to move forward will we support a replacement plan that's going to purchase 14 school buses in two years I'm no throw another year on there if we're being told that number isn't you know required and that yeah another year probably could so the board is not in favor of replacing 14 school buses so your proposal coming back to us is going be less than the 14 yeah

071not 13 either I mean I think the first proposal that was there last week was two buses and then the um I forget what the other vehicle was so you know are we going much higher than what that that cost was so I think excuse me I think we I think where we went is we went from the suggestion that maybe we buy more in anticipation of so we put together the data says this is where we are now we can back off of that and say what did we feel comfortable with I think that's where we're our goal is yeah with my recommendation the last board meeting that with that date of 2027 coming around the corner what is our plan to kind of work work for increased sustainability yeah but yeah I mean

072I did some research over the last week and if you Google electric school buses in some of the districts in New York state there's quite a few of them that have already dabbled in research and development but you know it's one or two yeah you're going to be happy bring in a whole Fleet over time are you going to be happy with is the infrastructure going to be able to support it you got all those to answer and then my biggest concern and Mr Miller being a fire chief and knows a lot more than I do about electric vehicles what's the safety factor in these electric vehicles when we're putting possibly 1,00 students on these buses nobody has addressed that piece yet and that could be a s serious concern that's my concern Kathy want

073just want to say and also you know everybody's training from the mechanics to the drivers to myself we would all have to be retrained so I just wanted to there's a lot that I'm sure the governor is going to massage those that mandate a little bit but I don't think she's going to change it much and I think the place to start with be in the smaller Vehicles because obviously we've got a lot of data on electric Suburbans and electric vehicles on the smaller scale we've seen safety reports we know the risk and that that dat has all come out it would be uh a lot easier to create an infrastructure for that for those I think we start to dabble in that fashion and then continue with this plan of replacing the propane and

074Diesel did you say da that's my and I think that that also brings the next question is I think that the next Capital project has to focus on some of that infrastructure if the dabbling is going to happen you're not going to be able to just plug them into what is currently I think we'll have a better view of where the state's going at that point and where the country as a whole is choosing to but we also know how long it takes to plan a capital project so that might be conversations that support services is going to want to start sooner than later I don't know when when we want to do that next project but those conversations need to start now if we're going to get to that end point um we're making

075a lot of these decisions on the electric buses uh relegating them to still being here on this property is there any areas um any quarters anywhere that would be easier to put a garage there less structure infrastructure that has to be built what's there an area where that would be conversation it would have to be with in some degree with Central Hudson as to its proximity to higher levels of power that's what I'm saying another another location offsite storage facility it might in the future be a you know shared service with because I'm sure you know the town's going to go electric vehicles for their and then they create a centralized charging area that's going to be years down the road I think but it's a good good point but I think even Central Hudson

076thank you for being her representative kind of kind of but they've tried that with a couple of their big uh line trucks correct you have two line you have two and can each operate fully every day or is there a tradeoff there's a tradeoff we did install high power that's just a minor example of what these vehicles can and cannot do at this moment in time at this point Central 's focusing on having the apparatus be electrically run not necessarily a full motor right being electric but but you guys also have a I mean a full Fleet of other electric vehicles which smaller Vehicles yeah smaller Vehicles that's correct but you know it's just different thinking you know a location somewhere else partner to tap into for any future discussions I think is what Mr

077yeah and I guess my my just thought for kind of plan going forward right I think two um you know I was surprised at just even looking at this right there's five next five saying that with the 10 years not considering the qualitative factors which is critically important as well but it's five and 25 nine of them in 2026 eight in 2027 I don't think two keeps us where we need to be be do I say 14 no but I think we need to be somewhere a little bit higher just my thoughts all right we're good we're good so basically we've kind of went through the topics of discussion for quite some time think we've addressed all the topics of discussion talk about the about very clear on the next schedule meeting is March 18

078and of course I always end with the calendar that tells us what we have to do I will say thank you I'm glad we had the discussion now we have PR to you I think the last discussion that the board should have give Desmond and the superintendent some direction we only probably have two to three more meetings before we have to make a budget decision unless we have special meetings so uh where what areas would you like to see to close that Gap are we going to look to tap into some of our Reserves uh fund balance we use in the past or are you looking for any other avenues of um any other areas that we can cut that Gap I mean it's unfortunate I've said this many the last four five years that

079we as a board can never really look to uh proceed with any new initiatives you know it seems like we're always now looking to where can where can we make the cuts I know when I first got in the board first good bunch of years we were always looking for initiatives we had the opportunity to do it but fortunately now it's where do we where can we cut to meet the budget but uh if you have some new initiative something that's minor that you might want to throw out there and that could be possibly put into the budget that's one way but I think we have to give tond and the rest of the administrative team um some guidelines of where we might want to be comfortable going to bridge that Gap and then if

080I can just add oh sorry no I'd like you to add whatever I was just gonna add in I know one of the things that uh was mentioned earlier is possible retirements um I don't see many retirements coming my way um if we look at those that are eligible um that date has passed those that are eligible first eligible without penalty um so those folks have not come forward um I do see a larger number of folks first eligible without penalty coming up in the next two years um whether or not they take that I don't know that but I do see some cost savings over the next two years whereas if you remember when we had this conversation two years ago Lindsay said we're going to have two difficult years um the only other

081thing that I would caution the board I really don't think that the district can afford to to go through what we went through last year with and we will go through that process if that's what the the will of the board is but we took um a scalpel to the staff last year and made some major um decisions that uh you know were not easy to do I don't know that we have the capacity to do that kind of savings two years in a row so just as a right no you're right so there was a diagram there that had some of these categories on there I would say that I'm not supportive of really looking at Personnel unless that's an unfilled position and it's been for years and that's been absorbed some other way

082reserves is going to be a last discussion because we certainly like to see let's take a look at are we too conservative in some of our perspectives are there other savings that can be garnered do the aid number I mean the a numbers are pretty firm at this point and then we'll take a look at what we have I mean the biggest number there was the debt but we can't do anything about that that's already there we can't manipulate that just but the exercise is close a million dollars and I believe it's doable without touching I hope so and materials and supplies we have cut that back tremendously we're still running a school for for children here absolutely and I'll tell you about costs they've gone up not down yep so savings just get reinvested

083back into program which is what we'd like to see um and then just really selfishly on my part um we don't necessarily need a full-time data administrator but we do need some data assistance so that would be one thing that somehow whether it's stipend aable something just put that on your radar because that is taking away from the work that we're able to get done in the district office so um not a full-time administrator though so I'm not looking to put that that back in I told you that Administration would take on some of that but it's it's uh I think it's critical we need to look at another clerical up there in central office uh you know this is a con this is not a new conversation certainly between you and I but yeah

084there's some things to look at still but um certainly not as Bleak as last year and you know we've bridged these gaps before you have to answer this tonight but will you have any suggestions as to where that Gap might be Ian given that you're the closest to those books um I'll have to work through that I wouldn't probably do that right now there's no I wouldn't ask you to do it right now there's a couple areas we can make like I said before there are expenses we can reduce but they're not going to come down significantly enough without giving some assistance from other areas and I think that's kind of the direction I want to I need to see if the board is going to go and then I'll chime in also about the

085Bosey number so uh last year again we took the scalpel to that as well so a lot of the services that we were you know if we don't need them we're not going to buy them that's for sure but there are services that we can get Aid on that now we're finding that we're having to purchase without that Aid because we're purchasing an in housee so some of that might be might be beneficial for us to get back in there yeah if we run the numbers on those so that when we when we get that refund from Bose in that following year when the aid flows right now we took a hit there because we cut so much out over the last couple of years but rightly so there were things that we weren't using

086that were in there that we took a hard look at each and every line and cut things but that as we saw those are predictable numbers are you saying that I mean because we can now see what we what we lost in indirect payment as opposed to stuff that would be reimbursable cor we take those numbers and we assume we borrow from reserves and in and in essence return them through the refunds we would gain both we could look at that Dynamic and see if that would work one of the ways okay thank you thank you Des all right our consent items e.1 to C3 as usual if you want to pull one out you can you need any clarification on any of the items our consent agenda shout it out uh otherwise I'll ask

087for a motion uh before we take the vote motion to accept our consent items motion by hether second by Ed pretty simple consent to yeah yeah the shortest right everybody okay yeah take a vote all those in favor I oppose just make sure you recognize Smiley down there any extensions so Carri and um as Mr kopsia said let's recognize Zimmer for 11 years with the district uh moving himself up from assistant principal at the high school to principal and as a super assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction I think 10 years that uh that I've been on the board with you I think um you're well deserving of retirement I think you did a job well done and we appreciate your time here in the district thank you [Applause] think there's a lot of us

088in this would like to follow in your so what's next you're going to Disneyland under de side I'm going to Disneyland thinking about taking a gap year and travel a little myself before deciding what's next right we don't have any new H right now okay Mr zmer you're up excellent I have two items to share with you this evening uh first is the half day superintendent conference day on February 14th uh provided faculty and staff some professional learning focused on instruction student support and Community Building uh some of the high school sessions covered textbook use reading journals and integrating art and daily instruction and department meetings analyzed regions data and special education programming at the middle school the staff explored ADHD and uh and support strategies for students with ADHD and at the element Elementary

089School uh the faculty and staff attended a presentation on student belonging and inclusivity participants engaged in um some pretty good professional development that afternoon was very happy with it um next it's time to talk about the our upk program um it is that time of year that the district is inviting proposals from local preschools who are interested in participating in our upk program for the 25 26 school year so preschool local preschools wishing to uh wishing to apply should submit a letter of intent by Friday March 14th and full proposals are due by the end of March uh it should be noted that existing partner agencies are only required to submit a letter of intent and do not need to submit a full proposal this year uh letters and proposals may be dropped off or

090mail to the superintendent's office where they will be put on my desk um and very important to say that any parents of preschool age children more information about our upk program for the upcoming school year will be available as soon as we can provide that so just as in the past two years um right around April there'll be information that goes out to the the community for anyone who wants to put in for if we have to have a lottery it all depends on how many seats we'll be able to offer I anticipate um that it looks like the numbers from New York state are pretty similar um as far as the um the the grants provided to the district um pretty similar to this past year so I anticipate that um the numbers will

091be similar but we have to wait and see what the our local um participant the preschools um Can can commit to so there'll be more information at upcoming board meetings any questions thank you thanks Bill Dr boy uh we are up and running with our annual reviews um as always uh big thank you to all the staff for their flexibility in planning uh and adjustments on the go as uh you know there's always uh some cancellations and rescheduling um so a big thank you to everyone uh for their flexibility there um each year as part of the state performance plan we are monitored uh in a different area this year we are monitored um they take a look at student uh who exit US uh who are students with disabilities and what they're doing a

092year out from from leaving us uh so we've been working with those families letting them know that the state's going to be reaching out to them and set helping facilitate some of the communication so um they'll be looking out to them getting feedback uh and then we would hopefully in turn get some feedback if there's anything that we can do to better prepare our students uh as they exit from us um as you might have seen on Facebook uh on our Facebook page it is National social workers week so a quick plug uh for all the great work that our school social workers do uh individually with students and groups of students uh and behind the scenes uh to help support the mental health needs of our students so um you know a big thank

093you to them uh and just looking ahead uh I know Mr Zimmer talked about our superintendent conference day from February we have another one coming up in May uh a big part of our May superintend conference day is kindergarten screening so we have started our plan planning for that uh and trying to find ways to streamline the process make it a very exciting day for our incoming uh kindergarten students um and getting them all set up for uh when they come to us in September that's it for me any questions thank you Patrick and our superintendent okay so um you all received an email earlier today um so very excitedly our girl varsity basketball team has uh moved forward to quarterfinals uh that quarterfinal game set by section N9 happens to be the same night

094as our uh scholarship inter or uh instrumental concert so this was a very very difficult decision to make but uh our girls earned um HomeField Advantage so we did make that decision or I should say I made that decision today uh to move our scholarship instrumental concert to our previously scheduled uh snow emergency date which is March 17th um so that our girls can play here at the high school on their home uh their home court they will be playing Marboro uh this Wednesday at uh 6 pm and uh we're expecting pretty large crowds from what the uh the folks have told me so um you know people asked me why didn't we move things to the Middle School unfortunately the Middle School only has half the number of bleachers so that would not it

095would not work there uh also our parking is a lot more limited at the middle school um the same thing came up earlier today how come we don't move the scholarship concert to the Middle School the scholarship concert uh for instrumental is a k is a sorry a grade five through 12 concert where they sit in the round it is pretty spectacular I know you've all attended that in the past um and one one uh me one member of the community said maybe limit the number of folks that can attend I don't really want to limit the number of folks that can attend to see their their children perform so again it was a lot of soul searching today I apologize to anyone who feels that this was a short-sided decision on my part I

096can tell you it was not and I looked at our mission statement over and over again today and at the bottom students are the priorities so I am meaning on and I will take any heat that anyone wants to give me but every student is important in our district and I made the decision so that every student can shine that scholarship concert is going to move so that they have a night where they're not competing with a basketball game the basketball uh team is going to get their due presence here at our high school and uh I'll just take whatever heat is going to come my way because I've been taking it all day well um but with that saidis come to go I support the decision whole I support it as well the rest

097of my uh so again the girls semi or sorry quarterfinal is uh tomorrow night at 600 pm at the Highland High School gymnasium and then just going with the rest of our calendar we have parent teacher conferences uh Thursday evening at the elementary school and then on Friday there are no students in attendance so that parent teacher conferences can happen from 8: to 11:00 a.m. districtwide scholarship concerts uh so with that one moved um our next scholarship concert is on Wednesday the 12th that will be our Coral concert which takes place in the uh Auditorium and then on Monday the 17th the band will be in the round in Highland High School's uh gymnasium uh we approved at the couple board meetings ago now the new cell phone policy I sent that policy out to

098the parents uh that is to go into effect on on Monday the 17th uh the building administrators are uh working on hosting a session for parents to go over those expectations and uh they will be having assemblies to go over what the policy is and the uh expectations and consequences in uh so we're moving those consequences forward because they are in line with our code of conduct when we do the code of conduct review for July 1 we will have a separate section just for this so so it will be spelled out um just the way it is in the documents that you've all received um I know Desmond's already mentioned it uh budgeting is a Non-Stop uh process this time of year so a coordinated effort between Buildings Department central office uh we're trying

099to find the greatest savings without impacting student programming and that was my plea before I don't want to cut into programming uh and programming is done by staff so um we will continue that again tomorrow morning and so some other good things coming up we have a high High School Musical coming up at the end of the month of March March 28th and 29th The Adams Family uh will be going on here at Highland High School and there will be a flyer in my Friday update for you to take a look at and then the last thing the Highland Education Foundation dinner is on May 9th from 6:00 to 10: p.m. at Indian Ridge $65 uh per person this is posted on our website and our Facebook page I know the Board of Education I've

100given that to you in my Friday update so please reach out to Becky oody if you plan on attending and I got word this afternoon that I'm able to announce who the uh recipients are of the awards so that they can join the the Highland Hall of Fame wall in the back here and also outside the uh Auditorium so the Husky Pride award is going to former teacher Mary Beth Sasso was a second grade teacher for many years at the elementary school uh and the alumni awards are going to Fred Deo and Jee Rizzo so did you know that no now you know all right so we we congratulate all those folks and we look forward to having a a funfilled evening of um fellowship and and uh raising money for the foundation so good

101any questions for the superintendent thank you Joel okay moving on board of ation new business um Highland Central School District School Board candidate nominating petitions are due uh to Lisa uh by March 10th beginning March 10th they're due by April 1st um and the following vacancies which expires on June 30th 2025 are to be filled currently they're held by Janine Gill and Tom Miller the term of office three years CL blah blah blah um so anybody out there that's interested in running for a highly paid position and submit their name to Lisa district clerk all right next is the highly anticipated billing use discussion the support service uh met last week uh my myself Tom Miller Ed was out out of town working uh Peter Miller Frank Alonso Desmond and Joel were present and we

102had discussion revolving around uh the community use of school facilities particularly the turf field the new turf field and our concession stand um and we've been having some feedback from Community organizations and I know a lot of board members have been in contact with some over the last year or so of why can't we use some of the school facilities and why are we restricted with the insurance requirements blah blah blah blah uh number one with the insurance requirements uh that's not and I want to be perfectly clear that's not a requirement generated by the Highland Central School District Board of Education or the administrator staff of the Highland Central School District that comes down from our insurance carrier they set those requirements we are abiding by those requirements uh some board members some community

103members have said it and we've heard it that why do other districts allow the community members to utilize fields and they don't have or facilities and they don't have to have the restricted insurance requirements it is up to each individual School District this board of education can wave some of those requirements is it in the best interest of the district to protect our our uh entity I would say no but we can tweak some of it we can re we can eliminate some of it not totally but we can do something like that so I hope the community understands it's not Joel frier not Desmond and it's not every one of us that saying you can't use the field because you got to meet these requirements we're told that these are the insurance requirements that

104are needed to utilize any of our facilities and it doesn't matter if it's an outside community group or a group that's internal to the district so I want to be clear with that because I've heard a lot about it that you know uh our business officials being too tough on us uh we're being tough on the community we are because we're following the requirements of our carrier we had a major disaster in the middle school and our insurance carrier did not blink an eye they didn't blink one eye they purchased TVs they purchased smartboards they purchased everything for didn't blink an eye so um we're just following their recommendation but again it's up to the board so with that being said we met last week um we brainstormed a lot of ideas we asked our

105director facilities to put together a draft um policy and it's a draft and it's not cast in stone yet and like I said earlier to some board members that this is a discussion within the board and we make the final decision on how we want the community to use our Fields so I know you got it on Friday um there's quite a bit here then if you go to our current policy a lot of it reflects our current policy and you know the first statement is based on our current policy that we're we're encouraging the community to utilize our facilities but again we're encouraging them to utilize the facilities within the parameters that we set forth we we're not denying anyone but they have to follow some rules and reg ulations and that's the unfortunate

106thing so we did have some Community groups some come forward uh and ask if they can rent a field or rent a facility I think the consensus of the of the support service at that point was that we're not into rental business so I don't know if that's something that you want to start discussion on if you feel that we're not in the rental business or do you feel that we can with proper restrictions rent some of our facilities but coming out of the sports service that wasn't an Avenue we wanted to go down so we'll open up that discussion did they Define the word rent because I I feel like that's a very loely in it was put as rent or lease I mean if you get an outside group that has maybe 10%

107residents of the district within that group and they want to rent Middle School basketball court for Saturday to have games or whatever or a tournament or whatever are we in the position to do that that's one example there's probably a ton of examples I don't I don't think we're in that position I think we also have to Define in this draft I saw in many places the word local so when you talk about a local group or a local organization what exactly are you CU if there's groups who are ask asking to rent then and they're like 10% of our community then what is what does local represent is it just people from Lloyd because Highland also has platic Hill and Milton and other parts where we have we have students who attend there so

108I think we ALS I think in this we have to define local so that those organization and those groups know whether or not that they're encompassed in the word local um and I also think like again I would like to know what we're they're referring to when they say rent um if an organization wants to come in and use the facility you know every Saturday from 10: to 2 and there's no Highland um activities that are going on why would we not allow that opportunity to that outside organization well I I just thought I we could use an arbitrary scenario um I'm going don't hold me to I'm going to take the Girl Scouts this girls Girl Scouts want to have a fundraiser they want to have a vendor Affair crafts and and whatever they

109want to utilize our middle school gymnasium it's going to be a major fundraiser for them there's only 10 Girl Scouts from the community that are in this organization they want to rent it because they're going to make fundraisers so they're going to come in they're going to have outside vendors sell them goods and let's say they raiseed 10,000 we're going to rent the facility for whatever that's I think is what the the support service is trying to stay away from we're not denying the community group from using the facility but if they're going to benefit from it with a major fundraiser and we're bringing outside people into our facilities I don't know I mean we did it in the past with the Christmas craft fair years ago and that was a tremendous fundraiser but it

110was well organized and and such that it might not be the right scenario but that's the point we're trying to make if if a Sports organization wants to hold a tournament and they're going to bring in outside groups to participate is is that what we're in we're in the rental business or are we're going to support our locals if they want to bring local teams in to have a tournament it's it's hard to to to explain what we're looking at is rental I mean I so I guess that's where that's confused because like say so like say one of our many booster clubs decide that they want to host a tournament here to raise money for the booster club which benefits the athlete an athlete organization within the school are we going to say no

111to them like that's where I'm saying like defining local and defining outside and what qualifies that's a whole different subject we're talking about renting it we're not going to rent it to that group they're going to they're going to come in they're going to organize that fundraiser we're not renting the facility to them once we start saying rent or lease anybody can come in and say I want to leas your facility to play basketball but the booster club is outside of the school like the booster clubs are out it's a separate identity I guess it's just a distinction of what is community what's not so of your organization well we're not on that topic yet we're on the rent lease the booster club wouldn't be paying for the facility they would merely be support rent

112and Le why wouldn't a booster club pay to use the facility they'd be paying for the maintenance there are community group yeah so that's I think this was part of what I took um with the last time was that we we had this we wanted to make sure that our facilities to the best of our ability were available to our community uh whether it be you know whatever facility says the community the taxpayers we want to make sure that these facilities are accessible to them and that's why the issue of insurance came up and I can see very you know the why the insurance is important and I'd like to still further explore how we might be able to uh find a means of of finding an instrument that can help smaller Community groups that

113may not have access to a million dollar umbrella policies or two million or five million um but I think House's Point here is that a booster the booster club is part of our community and they wouldn't be paying the rental fee they would merely have to under the the normal tenants they would have to make sure that the maintenance Engineers that come in uh to clean up or the janitorial Engineers that are here that they would they would be uh accommodated but they wouldn't be actually paying for the facility that's part of their Comm it's covered under authorized events the type of activity starts to lead into the types of groups who would have priori school activities School connected activities and and on top of that would also be ipal use potential cafeteria people yeah

114those on the financial responsibility but that's not I think when we take a landlord tenant relationship then we also have further liabilities and we have responsibilities that become you know that that creates a whole different I'm not in the rental aspect of the schools and I'll tell you why a we're a non for-profit municipality I'm for Access and they should be able to use it um but the problem is we have one School per level if you have a few schools like if something goes wrong because of that use and it affects our Monday through Friday that's a problem it's problem um and you talk about the the policing you're going to you're talking about resources and supervision that's already stretched and you're going to stretch it further without a model of how you're G

115to manage them this additional activity so that's just some words on rental but when it gets to the field particularly I'll tell you this is a new facility to us and it takes a few years to learn how to manage a facility how to maintain it pro how to in keeping and I believe with a district I'm familiar with to the South the first few years of the field were really a hands-off type of situation we wanted it for competition play we wanted to make sure we we learned how to maintain it all the nuances of it and once the capacity increased there was a little more uh openness to renting that facility or making it available for outside of school use and that kind of thing so you know as far as the the

116turf field in that I'm kind of my feeling should be it's off limits it's still under warranty we got to make sure what we're doing stays within warranty that we watch it and address it and learn how to maintain it for a year or two and then you know we'll see where we're at I I I just to go back to the leing I think in the past and I don't know if they still have requested but I think we had that Broadway 90 Broadway production that wanted to utilize our facilities at one point in time but I think discussion for the support service was strictly on the new facil the new turf field the restrictions on that um but I mean we can go right around I mean favor of rening or leasing any

117of our facility any of the turf fac the turf facility really is what's in question right now we can talk about other facilities rent L I still don't understand when you talk about an outside organization so what about youth cheerleading youth lack youth football they're not an outside organization they're they're Highland aren't they high youth football and Highland and Highland Babe Ruth they're Highland community m MERS they're most of them I'm going to say 90% of their parents are taxpayers I understand that so then like are you so is so when you when you say no are you talking about like a a complete organization that has absolutely nothing to do with Highland I guess I'm not understanding what if a marching band you see that the Memorial Day Parade there's marching bands that come

118what if they wanted to use our turf field to practice because they were going down to some football game and they wanted to utilize a field to know where they're positions are going to do are we going to lease it to an organization that's coming from a different Community to utilize our turf field so they can practice their marching band unit because they're going to a college football game and performing at halftime I think that's what we're looking at as an outside group yeah yeah and I get that I think that that's a clear example right I think there's some gray though in terms of what is rent and what is a community group right like you give an example of Girl Scouts not Highland Girl Scouts but it's probably Girl Scouts troop whatever which

119is based in Highland New York so I think that's just where it probably gets gray in terms of what's Community use versus what's rent and I think that's probably the biggest question that I would have but let me emphasize again I mean this draft is for the turfield yep so that's what we got to focus on the turfield that's what our discussion is for turfield I think we have policy and we've dealt with other organ organizations wanting to utilize you know the gymnasium the auditorium for whatever but it's strictly you know right now the turf field and um I don't think we're in a position to rent the turfield there I think the important thing to remember is should an exceptional case arise the board can convene and they can alter you know the board

120can make a decision to change that should there be an exceptional situation that we want to make Provisions for I think to Tom's ear point the idea and and Michael's is the idea is to protect the investment of the Community right now in the in its infancy yeah I'm not saying like we should rent out the fields to anybody in New York state or new or the Northeast I'm saying that the field we put it forward for our community so that our community can use the field I just want to make sure that our community again let's define that from four years old all the way up to 444 years old if they are part of the Highland community they are allowed to use that field because that is what we put forth is for

121our community to be able to use that field so that should be for cheerleading that could be for dance that should be for baseball softball anything any Community member that wants to be able to use this FEI that's what I want to make sure is that our community is able to use that field and item two priority use we addressed that following sets priorities for group using district field school activities School connected activities municipal use particularly for recreational activities for for Children and Youth and other local groups so we've addressed those groups that can utilize it and we're not charging that we're not renting the field to them but we're also setting standards yes to be expected so any local group can utilize that field and then we went into how we're going to prioritize

122you know the use and the organizations and what the guidelines are going to be so forth and so on there's a hierarchy and a lot of it follows what's in our policy as far as what can and cannot be used on the field you know which is our general uh requirements I think the gist of the conversation was that we were going it's all spelt out in this draft that we were going to allow we are going to have no leasing or renting uh Community groups can use the turf field for this year um Saturdays and Sundays for games only the small practice turf field can be used by all the sports organizations as long as they follow the the proper uh facilities use form they carry the insurance and all those requirements baseball soccer

123lacrosse football can all utilize that practice turfield as long as it's not being in use by our school athletic department or fad Department those given days but we also stated that like we said the brand the new turf field The Big Field that is um for district use I think District use takes priority y okay at the same time I think if we were ever to let somebody like plan ahead that we needed you know they we let another group use that field all of a sudden we realize oh schedule's changed within the varsity level JV level we need that field so I think we got the right to bum I think that's common in most other school districts who have a field is that it always goes to the priority to the SCH dist

124even even after the fact that we set something up hopefully it never happens that you gotta write somebody have you know if you get right and Mike made a good point with his their facility down down south of us that the first couple of years they just wanted to get their feet wet and see where they're going with it so I think it's a good opportunity right now that we're not going to deny any of our youth organizations to utilize the turfield for a particular sport or whatever as long as it's a available and they fill the proper building use form facility use form and they carry the insurance and so forth uh that spells out what you want to do for the turf field but even but even that would the other facilities the

125anul facilities like the concession stand and stuff like that even with a community world too there still potentially could be a JS for cafeteria person in that facility um I think we give them a little relief if they come in with a certificate from the Board of Health correct but then there's responsible people that should be there also to we'll get into the concessions here but is everybody okay with the turf field use I mean that's the first part of the draft so in regards to Mike's comment about a school district south of us not allowing other people to use the CH for the first couple years is is that where the determination was made for outside local commun whatever you want to say only to be able to use the turfield for games versus

126practice I don't think we had any discussion if Janine gamble wanted to come in and she's running uh she has a she's coaching a youth soccer club team that has 50% outside girls on the squad and 50% local community grou I don't think we have had that discussion that we're going to Annex you from using that facility so uh I I think once it meets that facility's use form and they have the proper you know and then if it's out of hand that there's only one Community local community girl on the team and there's 17 other ones it's going to come to light and then we tweet the policy for the following year I mean it's going to be a trial and error I think in the beginning absolutely than the the overall spirit is

127to have community members who are invested in the care and maintenance of the field to make sure it's not abused and I think that's the guiding principle The Very people invest in the field we also like you said it takes time to do restoral on these fields and we we're just trying to we're feeling our way through that and around that yes our staff is trained to do that work and everything but it's still it's a work in progress and we don't want to beat it up you know prematurely it's a learning curve so then we got into the discussion with the um concession stand as Tom uh mentioned we we are there's some um guidelines that we have to follow with the use of the concession stand if an organization is going to use

128utilize the concession stand and they do not have an oler County Department of Health permit we are going to charge them for our food service worker to be present who was trained well yeah I just have a quick question under item D it says the Highland Central School District Food Service Department shall operate the concession stand from 4:15 to 6:15 on weekend week nights while the school district's sport schedule is in effect is that every night they anticipate for say say the spring uh season you have track you have lacrosse and you have softball and baseball something going if those facil if those organizations are or those groups are participating that evening in a sporting event then we will have the concession stand open correct contest a game not just practice through our food service

129department y not practices games so there is a possibility I just read that as every night of the week it's every week night it's going to be open from 4 15 this give an idea like this spring okay um there's 18 lacrosse game scheduled on the field and there are six flag football game schedule on the field what we're trying to do from 3: to 630 Monday through Friday um we're going to be practicing on on the turf field Monday through Friday maybe even some Saturday practice that's just the school um you know we had we doubled up a couple games and and what I'm hoping opening is that we do have the concession stand open you know for those 18 games and the 65 football games you know during that time and then we

130consistently be open and then people will know it's there and then obviously when we get to the fall you know that's a different scenario um also with with practice this year we're in a good position for those three teams to practice because track is not using the field or the track the next year that's something we'll have to figure out but for this year you know from 6 to I'm sorry from 3: to 6:30 Monday through Friday they're going to be practicing on that field so that was the discussion we had with the concession stand um and you know we did mention that there's a possibility that it can be open I mean it's this draft is all up to us to make you know any any tweaks to it and then we could finalize

131it because it's right around the corner so I I'm hoping to finalize this my March 18th meeting so any of the youth groups or uh want to apply for use of the facility yeah they start hearing spring and summer is this the first reading tonight this is yeah I would consider this the first roing of this dra I would too I just want to make sure we were the the draft is not much concession the district is allowed to bring in profit on that just curious I know it wouldn't be huge but we are able to do that yes because they're under the Food Service okay just want to make sure thank you and so and hopefully the profit would be paying for the food service worker to be working because otherwise it's going to

132take a hit on the budget so the concession stand would be available if the French Club wanted to do a fundraiser for something they would be able to put in to run the concession stand to have a fundraiser for for an athletic event yeah if they wanted to run the because I know this is this has come up in the past at other sporting events where PTA a specific sport team a booster club again it could be it could be an organization the band anyone wants to raise money part of our discussion maybe we're hoping that would happen and then but you still have to have a food service I understand that you that organization is going to have to pay for that food service yeah definitely think that's exactly what should happen that's I'm

133just I'm having that conversation it should come out and then whatever's left over is a fundraiser for that organization I think the difficult part is we don't know how much this is going to make in Revenue so if we're telling the French Club that they're going to run it and they have to pay for the food service worker they may not make enough money to pay the food service worker so the district is taking some liability there so that's why I think at first the conversation was that right now to start start out it was just going to be run by the district to get some sort of idea of how much it's actually going to be used if they weren't selling anything that was um hot foods it was prepackaged you don't need a

134you don't need a health certificate for that you don't need a food service worker there for that once you have hot food you need the Health Department's certification you're allowed to use the facility just as a storefront even if you brought in your own packaged chips and stuff would that be allowed okay I to be honest with you the concession stand itself in that building is small you better off utilizing the Pavilion with a couple cart tables set up and be able and you're protected from the elements maybe that's enough take a look but along those sides we will know the salary range of the food service worker and the and given the time parameters and the salary requirements that could be communicated to any if it was a school club or something wanted to

135utilize it that would be the overhead that they would be yeah they know they get to know what the targets are sure we're also trying to get away from the potential viability of somebody setting up 10 crockpots with cords and well that's why you have that supervision those but again responsible supervision we don't want we don't want to have that liability minimize that was even events held in the school cafeteria were under the supervision of the cafeteria right supposed to be we're finding out that's not always been the case I don't want to hear that neither do I but it's unfortunate yeah our our rules that that we're establishing for for the concession stand and any distribution of package foods which we don't need the food service worker any any unpackaged foods there has to

136be a food service worker there and the charge has to be associated with the organization that's or your own health department certificate or your own health department certificate uh I think some of the concerns and I've heard this from uh in the past with um some groups utilizing some of the Town fields that they are abusing some of their policies with alcohol especially with football games thinking you know you're going to a professional or college football game where you can tailgate so that stuff is not allowed and believe me uh I I I it's got to be known to these organizations I think that's going to be part of the the letter that's going to go out to them to tell them that you know we are allowing use of the field but there are

137these require they're not going to be able to hide from it because if you ask Mr Miller he's going to tell you how many cameras we have on all our facilities so you're not going to hide from opening up the the back of your hatchback and passing out you know pores light because it will be picked up on those cameras I think it has to be and this is my take it has to be emphasized in that letter that you lose your privilege to utilizing that facility right then and there maybe put a fine on there too yeah well I think the organization the leader of that organization going to get that letter from the school district stating all those things this is the policy and be aware that it is being monitored I mean

138we just I mean we we stress it with our own students and staff you know no no smoking no alcohol no this no that and we're going to allow community members to come in and and do that can I ask a clarifying question about the food so I understand if you're making food but say the food is pre-made from an outside yeah does that do you still are you still required to have yeah Pizza Pizza needs a food service work it would have to be made in a facility that's been approved by and that's part of our policy our insurance policy New York State Department County Department of Health is that only if we're selling it as opposed to just bringing in pizza for the team to eat yeah you're selling it you're selling selling

139selling purp no the of must and handed them out maybe might some if however if you have a kitchen that's Board of Health approved and they've inspected it then you could actually prepare food in your kitchen and then bring it but that's that's the paret it's h you know we're going to have to be patient with one another you're not it's not going to be perfect but I think I I I appreciate the effort to keep to learn the facility to keep it intact before you promise everybody that they have access to it I think that's just smart it because you know it puts everybody who works here at a disadvantage or is going to be responsible for that and we want this to be a positive thing both internally and externally and it's going

140to be you know it's a patient Road this is just one step and many conversations you end up with a Q&A by the way that helps guide this like all these questions do help because you're going to end up with a question and answer that helps the person who goes there to try to figure out if if using the facility is right for them going through the processes right for them it will guide them and and that develops over time I have go to okay I just have just a few little minor comments since this is a first read I know on page one we talk about that on Saturdays and Sundays for outside Community groups it's reserved for competition games only so I would just like to see some language that doesn't roadblock um

141these outside groups because BBE you do have a local group Girl Scout Troop who wants to do something that isn't a competitive game if you will so I I the definitive language there is a little concerning I'm looking for language on use in the summer I did find content here that there has to be staff available which I don't know what their schedules are like in the summer so I don't know what use over the summer is when school isn't in session um one of the other thoughts we have to be clear on is we keep talking about we're not going to rent and lease this and I get that but I I from what I understand it sounds like there might be usage fees so if we're clear on there's usage fees because we're

142hiring someone in Food Services that's different from signing a contract and accepting money to use the field thus giving that party like this is mine I paid for it so I want to be clear on that language and a schedule of fees will be developed because we contingency year you charge for everything yeah well that's what the current so they still do the ma eventually I know um and I think we have to be clear on what we Define as a community group to Janine's Point are we going to ask for metrics of how many people are Highland residents that are participating because I know I'm involved in activities where it's a Highland group but we play games and have these mini I'm going to call them tournaments it's not an accurate word of Sur

143grounding groups Kingston sties hide Park they're not Highland residents these are all children that are feeders and it's great PR for Highland and stuff so I think we should be clear in our language on how we're either defining Community or how we're policing usually a percentage what we do for the community um and then there's just couple of little things like in section five oh maybe it's not five it's the responsible and it gives you the list of the things you can't have I don't want you to limit Yourself by saying no sport strengths you have to offer electrolytes to athletes on the field so you want to to divide that up because that that okay part of that is what's not supposed to be on the field correct but are you saying that if

144some got Gatorade for an athlete they're going to get in trouble but not supposed to be on the turf field that is a turf field rule so where are they supposed so off the field what's considered off the field like beyond the fence track it's not tur again this is where I think we we tow the line because you go to school districts north south east west I can tell you they're drinking Gatorade on the tur Fields that's supposed to be and then it says no vehicles is that also the athletic trainers this is where we get into trouble because we say no we say no I want to get this this is our facility so if the majority the we can't think about the other districts because but they could do whatever they want

145to do they can have alcohol on the field if they want I get that and but and I'm not saying that that's appropriate but what I'm saying is is that we get ourselves in trouble on Highland because we say no or we are stricter and there are other school districts where they are doing things and they're allowing I know for a fact that there are out there was an outside organization who came here to use our facilities we said no because they didn't have the insurance and they went South of us and they were able to use that facility so it makes us look bad to our community community members when we're saying no but other school districts are allowing them in so is it an interpretation issue is it I'm not asking anybody is

146I'm not asking anybody to stick their neck out there I agree I want to protect our district I want to protect our community but I'm just saying it makes it really tough when other school districts are saying yes because we've already said no have one incident at that school district we're sitting and looking at them and they're suffering I mean we have to protect ourselves saying not to protect ourselves but I think that group The wordland hey is that a recommendation by the manufacturer the manufacturer when they put the field in they give you a sign that says most of the things that's on that list we had a football game last year where the Gatorade was on the sidelines and the Gatorade was dumped on the turf at the end of the game that

147causes all the stuff the pellets and all that stuff in the sand that's underneath everything coagulate stick together that's why specific rules according to the maintenance and preservation of the field so that you can get longevity out of it okay that's that's why we have it but again it makes it uncomfortable and it makes it sound like why are we so strict correct that's the reason because it's your entry point every one of those former schools when they entered and learned this facility were probably more strict than they are now 10 years later 20 years later it's your entry point it's it's okay to be conservative that's your entry point some schools don't get the longevity out of the field because of lack of Maintenance and lack of control of what happens on I think

148like Michael said I mean we got to take baby steps right now this is this is this is new to us so let's take baby steps and see how the first year goes and if there's no real issues then maybe we can expand but it's about $2 million that facility as you I mean there's a duty to protect it right to spec the first year or two I understand I'm saying to be careless that's not what I'm saying I'm just saying that you know I think we have to be open-minded that we push forward this project for the use of the community as well as the school district and I just don't want us to lose sight in that that's all the community will of the invest just real quick Jen um we we did

149competition games for Saturdays and Sundays okay from many of our groups competition game so but will we run into trouble if requesting one of those days to be a practice day like anytime there's hard and fast language like this road block some L that we're not allowing practice on the turf field we're allowing practice as much do you want on the other tury agreed but every so often you need a day to be like this is what it looks like with a line field and when you have hard and fast language everyone just closes every door in your face so I'm just trying to be proactive about that I don't want to be abusive of the priv this is the the facilities use is the biggest enjoyment of my entire life okay and we try

150to rationalize that with and we've had a number of organizations that understand how it works and the cooperation fact that makes it work to go forward so there's there's probably no time that as heartless as I am that there is no denial of everything okay so we we we work with groups we have groups that have special requests we have people that are bringing in you know they're playing five different teams from different areas on the same day uh Highland youth football probably does stuff like that so that you know that's something that would be considered normal okay the fact of the matter is is that maintenance free field is not maintenance free and a lot of our a lot of our goal is to be in a position to be able to maintain it

151and the spring sports are the worst and I'm not blaming any sports but uh lacrosse is the hardest on the field much hard much harder than football is and we have to do what we have to do to make sure that we preserve the grass as long as possible without it getting crushed or worn out and keep the field going you can mow football field when it's got real grass on it in about an hour and 15 minutes you cannot groom that field in an hour and 15 minutes so there's going to be a lot of times after games where the field is going to be offline because it's being maintained that's all I can say but there's no head deadline whatever to answer the question on what's local local is the Highland Central School

152District okay um I haven't done we haven't done it in years um we haven't counted kids to find out where they come from all right when I first came here we did have situ ation where we had people coming in with one Highland resident and 20 kids someplace else okay that has not to my knowledge happened too much recently um but that's just I think Jen I think the district realizes and certainly I realize Youth Sports because I was involved in Youth Sports for good number of years and Youth Sports in Highland and Janine and some of the other tomin attest to it most of the organizations youth soccer pop water Little League baseball and softball probably had 5 6 700 kids participating that in the recent years has dwindled down to probably below 200

153so to support those those programs they're bringing in some Outsiders me personally I don't have a problem with that if it's a Highland Bay Ruth program and they have 75% Highland kids and they needed 25 % more to fill rosters and they want to participate on our practice field because they can't obviously play baseball on the turf field I don't have a problem with that so I I I think we as a group have realized that youth sports was on a decline hopefully it's starting to rebuild I think Kevin can attest to that too but at one point in time it was all than Youth and a good number of participants so anyway moving on real quick um I think if you read the insurance requirements and this is from our insurance carrier Desmond yes

154it is all right they spell it out pretty clear all right the minimum required insurance is aund a million dollar and two billion aggregate I think most organizations should be able to carry that minimum if they're requesting the umbrella for organized athletic leagues athletic and recreational camps carnivals and fireworks SL it spells out the additional insurance they need has there been a change in this or this is what it's been for the past this is the most recent one I this is the most recent one yeah it's been somewhat of change Rec a million dollar umbrella polic what's the change on this my wife and I used to car we used to serve hot dogs for the the football games because you know you're always liable and this is going back 20 years ago but

155we had on our home insurance we had a million dollar umbrella for just such a thing someone accused us of something while we were serving I believe the town the million 2 million aggregate common threshold so I have a question about the insurance is there like multiple insurance companies for the school districts in let's say olra Orange County is there like one there's two major ones there's two major ones so are is there much difference in the insurance policies between those two major ones I doubt it you [Music] would we have nicer and there's Jud National I would think Janine if Desmond just reached out to UD National you're GNA see some I again I was just curious like again you know hearing comments that have come back about our um insurance policies and being

156able to go to other districts I'm just curious if they're on a different insurance policy do they have the same insurance policy and you know if they are in a different policy is it that much different that allows them to have a little bit more free reign to do you know whater or so we actually were looking at speaking with Mar speaking to other school districts and and ask them what do they have as I said before you know third a third and a third ner seems to be the the pre prevalent one but UA National was the second one we were looking into see having them just take a look at our policy for other reasons not necessarily to change the policy and just to get an idea of what we have but that's

157a whole another project way past budget that I was trying to get past um but that's something you may or may not wanted to look into but you're still going to have these insurance requirements to answer the question that was from before yes we've always had a commercial general liability of one and one per occurrence two in the aggregate that's always been there that has not changed that's been standard it's the other items below that that we've kind of added or increased over the Year this this year for the past year saying these are the requirements that we need and that's what's causing an issue for most entities regardless if their Highland regardless they're Community Based these are the insurance requirements that we're asking for for them to meet they may not meet all of

158them but they meet they should be meeting the majority of them and when they don't meet these requirements regardless of what they are that's where the issue comes into play they will ask the district to kind of what does the district want to do the insurance company will say it's up to you Highland to make the decision they may not meet for example the participant uh 2 million products and completed operations they may only have 1 million and they'll say what do you want to do at that point you've got an event that's occurring that doesn't meet our requirements we're saying no what do you want to do and now we have to understand we're taking on the liability if something should occur for their event for their event they've only got a million if

159they should sue us for 2 million they get a million from them and then Highland pays the other million as compared to our insurance is saying well why don't they have two million so that's the occurrence and they pay out 2 million they pay out 2 million and nothing happens to Highland and the last rer I heard for a million dollars for a 4our event was something like $75 on one event so what have we added you said over the stuff under the umbrella access we had actually just the commercial the 1 million 2 million occurrence and then the participants and some other the auto the workers comp the umbrella excess all those were kind of added and so those have caused a huge issue for organizations to yeah so I'm I'm sorry I'm not

160following you in J just as to so on the on number four where it says minimum required insurance the commercial general liability insurance all of that has been what we've always had and then we recently recently again loose terms Insurance compan not was oh well then that's that's so then the insurance policy has changed because I feel like that was not necessarily clear is that the insurance polic so the insurance policy has changed to add in the workman's comp and all those other umbrella excess Insurance aspects School insurance policies in the last four or five years have changed tremendously we do school construction work and what they put us up against for policies is unbelievable and it's also passed down to you're looking at five six1 million umbrellas that changed just recently but it didn't

161change from the individual District it changed from the insurance company our policy didn't change the insurance requ re so that's I think those are important I think pieces of information we're communicating those are the points that I think need to be made in that manner so that all understand but I am again I am going to go back to this so Desmond what I'm hearing is is that this sounds like that yes I understand that this isn't the only player out there right there's two different players out there maybe a third um but at the end of the day it is up to the school to make an adjustment to take on that liability if somewhat because that would explain right if if there's probably not much difference between our school district and another school

162district whether they have the same insurance or they have the other one that that other school district potentially is making a liability call right corre okay because they have the same guidin just like letting Gatorade on the field correct same thing again these are important points to make when people are trying to understand why something has changed from like oh two years ago I was allowed to do this and now I'm not and I just went down the street south of us and they said sure no problem I think these are just important points but we're still vulnerable for any issue of negligence or property neg you so even if somebody comes in carrying their own insurance if there's something on our facilities that we haven't maintained we have that leaves us vulnerable yes I

163get there's lots of gray I get all of that their insurance becomes primary and it right there's an award beyond that then our insurance is affected AKA we want to be insulated right we have we have student groups that lose the ability to go on certain events like at the end of the year um like the crews on the Hudson because our insurance company has set a standard that that group can't meet other you got to have a $2 million the cruise line won't meet it's not that they can't meet they refuse to they won't go there correct so and sometimes they can't a group might not be able to um do that world of insur organization the global events especially environmental events have really tilted the tables for insurance companies they're dropping a lot

164of individuals they're changing their they they're basically been losing money so they're trying to re recalibrate so their I get how insurance I'm not I'm not this is my point is just saying again outside community members who've been able to use our facilities and do things here are not getting that same answer back and they're going to other school districts where they are able to do those things and that's I just wanted Clarity think we have to get away from other school districts I you're you're prefacing every other school district when in your travel I've done the same thing I I say the same thing but we're serving our school district I understand that but when you have community members who are trying to understand why they can't bring their commun their group of Highland

165School District students to do something and they want to know what's going on and they have to go somewhere that's what I'm we need to be able to explain and to communicate why something has changed and why they were maybe able to do it in the past and they can't do it now that's all I'm saying but I with all due respect we do communicate that to the vend is calling they're saying well I used to do this before I've got a lot of phone calls before you got here I'm like okay I get that so you used to do this before why can't I do this well the rules have changed and these are the rules and then we get past that and we say well do you meet this criteria do you meet

166all of these items and most of them come back yes ones that don't come back with meeting the criteria we have to now make they're saying well could you give me a break could you I need two million I only have 1 million it will cost me more to go get more Insurance could you give me a break could you help me get through this this is what happens and then the district is now once again picking up that liability the insurance company ner is going to do what they do to protect the district and that's all they're trying to do it then falls back on the district what is the level of liability that we're willing to take because other school districts may be letting it go or Let It Go in the past

167and that's what we're up against so now you have an an organization that will come into this area and say well I'm not going to go to you know Highland I'm going to go to Kingston because they're going to let me do it and so that's that image we get of what well Highland will say no but it's all about the insurance requirements I just want to make sure I'm driving that home these requirements if they meet them that's you know that's what we say you can have the facility but if you don't meet them that's where we're saying no and it becomes a question so for the purposes of my own education and understanding some of the language here and my experience with a few of the roadblocks is the language in here talks

168about two things like workers compensation or things that they refer to employees and all of the organizations I work with are 100% volunteer does that count as an employee when having to get all these additional Riders like we're trying to understand and interpret some of the semantics here so you can help me with that one and one of the workers comp one of the workers comp um disability that insurance that nyso wants or New York State wants is a form that you can fill out online for free we're actually just asking basically for information okay and so that's free and we've had situations where we've told individuals or entities fill this out here's the website it's free just go ahead and do that but you have also other things like you know Li Auto liability

169maybe they you know driving their own car or maybe they're not they have a bus but then you have the umbrella excess which is kind of the big area if I want you want to look at something where we have different type of occurrences at time so you can have an organization that's an athletic league and recreational camps they start to fall into these categories and that becomes where the excess they have to that's a higher excess value that they can't meet so you know somebody could say oh I'm just general useage a million we say no you're really an athletically need to be 3 million and suddenly they're saying well wait a minute it's one three I can't meet that3 million dollar Mark and we and nier says well you're considered to be a

170camp or an athletic league you should have $3 million insurance if you don't it's on the district that's where you're having a good portion of your difficulty and from a district standpoint we're trying to protect our our liability our assets it's just like your own person you get homeowners insurance you have the are you you're going to base it on the value of your home but then you have the opportunity to increase your liability you might have a lot of money a lot of uh jewelry a lot of this that if you don't meet with they can come after that and take your your worth if you're not insured properly same with your car you could have a million 100 a lot of they recommend 300,000 for to liability on it to protect yourself otherwise

171you can be liable God forbid you get in a serious accident they're going to come after whatever you got plus more I think that's where and I can't fault Desmond for that he's protecting the district but if we want Janine as a board you're going to refer to the district down the road I think everybody thinks that I'm trying to be careless with our new facility or what we that's not what I'm trying to do I'm trying to understand so that when people in the community come to me and be like hey can you help me with this I can try and be able to help them more to understand the situation I am not trying to be careless I am not trying to be Reckless I'm not asking for anybody on this board to

172stick their neck out in terms of that's not what I'm I'm just asking for clarity so that when community members come to me or come to anyone in our community to ask about these things that we have the appropriate information to share with them that's all I understand that and I and I compliment you for that I I think I thing that I'm would like to know is if a local youth sport organization is applying and they say and Desmond says no nicer says you got to meet the three million I'd like to know what that 3 million looks like looks like yeah if it's another $150 and you got 200 participants what is that you raise the participation fee 75 cents right Wonder that's that's the big issue what is the cost of that

173three million is it is it $1,000 and you got 200 participants what is that but $5 more but there's another side to that you may have the smaller organization that will be doing the same thing and can and cannot it will right into their dollars so you know you've got big organization that could do it and that's like $175 or $ 250 well this small organization that's kind of that same bucket that 250 is going to cut into their profit and maybe too much of them to eat now you goty organization and now what do you make the decision on you've said no to both but you really want to make sure that you know the individuals have the space all right I think we beat everything so this is our first reading if you

174want to take it at our first reading let's try to you know brainstorm this thing digest it and we'll come back on March 18th and hopefully approve a youth facility in the youth facility of our CH field for the insurance issues and I'm not it's not an issue of favoritism or anything but do we have uh people perhaps in the rotary that we could guide individuals towards that might be able to I mean to local businesses that might be able to help them to help sponsor sponsor or or even but even I believe there are community members who have insurance agencies or run insurance agencies and if they're familiar with this they might be able to guide those members of on what they need to do what what it would cost them and how to

175don't get into referring people to businesses so search for insurance 12 I same like I'm saying this not referring to a specific business but saying they can help help everybody wants to listen to the president I do yeah I I do I do see what you're saying however I do think that if we were to guide them to let's say Steve laach over someone else we could get nailed that we are favor favor giving him business and not I'm not saying I'm just saying perhaps if we if the rotary is aware of our of the requirements and we just rot is one of them that was needing to meet the insurance and okay not the rotary but someone from rotary so just as a point okay the biggest problem is is that everybody called up

176their insurance company on Tuesday and said I need a COI and they got it on Wednesday they brought it in and they here on Thursday okay doesn't work like that today okay between the business office and operations of Maintenance the amount of time that we've tried to get people to understand that this doesn't happen quickly because it's got to be approved and number two that when we give you the information and the information that the business office has that's on the website is complete totally and we tell people don't try to do this on your own give it to your agent and have your agent walk through it and as a final part of that we give that agent the ability to talk to our insurance company to iron it out so you're already assist

177but it's not something that takes a day no I know yeah and to his point A lot of times we're getting it on a Wednesday for something that's happening on a Saturday particular writers can you already have a COI to a degree and you need to make a modification that can happen in COI that we grew up with is not anything close to what you need today but if I need like say say they're missing the parameters like Des was saying if you have a million dollar you have to bump it to $2 million that that can happen in a day you can call your insurance carrier and they can make that correct but they're not but but what I think Mr Miller is saying is it's takes longer through an approval process today as

178it did before even if you're able to get in day there still is a process that takes longer people that to be available to make that decision and look at whole process is identified in our current policy that's been in effect for the last I don't know how many years dead to reading deadlines for each each the next do we say like no requests within an X period of time will be considered no read read page two uh item four I see that but it just says when deadline so like so there so that's it so if I want for the for September through November so if you know you're going to use a facility between those dat those months put in the request so if I wanted to do something for spring between March

179and June I'm done February 1 you should put it in last year yeah okay yes you're done okay that's that's all I want to know I just want to know I wanted to that's the current policy we haven't changed that our policy committee reviewed that the full Business review of board of admissions St we took up a lot of time today and I know I have some comments on that do you want me to share on the uh uh yeah I sent this mission statement I know you sent it okay Jen did also No not tonight I sent this a while ago to me no I think I I don't know if you were on it I sent it to every I thought I sent it all itent stuff too yeah probably two months ago

180get I didn't are you ready you want to discuss some we don't have to I I talk so much all right we'll um bring that up at the next meeting bis board sheet vacancies uh I believe there's that's only if you two at large which we can nominate but district is not open for nominations I think it's new pults and two at large so it's only if you have if you want to nominate if not want nominate for the right now Sue Gilmore represents us directly to our district but we can nominate for an at large position I think there's two available right now atge we so Highland could take one or both of the three members serve on the board three me anybody interested in that no any Community member they all put their

181heads down yeah I I noticed that I was looking at Kevin he's not doing much to look at their shoes at once it seems all right fa enough thank you all right how another dist what proposition we already we already discussed that but don't right miscellaneous El County School Board meeting March 13th that's next week um you're going please respond to Lisa by that's the meeting that State Education Department officials will be uh at olster bosies for any expa member any of you that want to go that evening unfortunately I cannot make this meeting this time all right uh anything for the good and Welfare of the district just next month we'll have we're going to have the bus proposition discussion uh the uh final dra draft of our uh uh turfield use and we're

182going to start on our district goals and mission statement and have that board goals and District goals all right open up the meeting to public comment for General ID um I just wanted to say good evening to the board members thank you guys for your patience tonight and superintendent Freer assistant superintendent Zimmer Dr Boyd and Mr Barnett please my name is Laura Finch I'm an HTA member Highland Community member and a parent of two students here at Highland schools and tonight I have my parent hi on each year at about this time I come to speak to you to thank you for your continued support of the music programs and the faculty here at Highland Central Schools um it's at this time because over the past few months I've had the opportunity to attend a

183few of the olster county music educator association's All County Festival including the all count Coral C festival the All County band festival and the all count jazz festival which was held here at Highland high schools and chaired by our high school band director um at those festivals the caliber of musicianship exhibited by the student performers was a inspiring standing ovations all around as as always Highland was well represented and well prepared by our Highland staff my own daughters count these experiences as highlights of their year for many reasons the ability to perform with musicians from around the county the experience of playing with a variety of conductors and the opportunity to advance in their musical skills so I wanted to share with you today not only why it's a wonderful opportunity to advance the reputation

184of our schools but also why music education is important for our students um I have copy of these studies but in in 2020 rather there was a study published by the Journal of research in music education which linked music achievement and reading and math achievement it means that regardless of other factors socioeconomic status income um all the other intervening variables there was a statistically significant evidence that participation in music programs contributed to success in reading and in math and in 2023 a new study showed a pvw study linked musical preferences and the development of morals which is interesting and suggesting that students preferences in music can predict values and loyalty care and fairness so having the caliber of Educators we have here at Highland lead our students in this area can help them develop a

185strong sense of morality I can't think of a better goal for my daughters even above academics so the amazing musical faculty here at Highland um as on boarded to guide their moral Compass um I just know that wonderful things will happen with them as you can imagine music education and Festival participation increase the students social skills they can learn about different cultures work in groups and challenge one another within the musical program and festivals when I asked my two daughters about the highlights of their weekends at these festivals they reported not only their favorite songs to practice and play but also the friendships and connections they made both with peers and with the adults that were supervising them uh music education has also provided my daughters with a must much needed excuse me source of

186stress relief when facing pressure from academic expectations sports team peers and Technology through the music education program they've learned how to handle life stressors in a healthy and constructive way they've learned time management skills perseverance and the pride of hard work done well finally according to Bankrate music scholarship for higher education music Alone are on average music and my husband and I disagree on whether or not that will happen their participation in music in these festivals demonstrates social skills creativity problem solving and determination to learn outside the classroom uh my daughters are my everything and I thank the board and our music faculty again for having them um get this invaluable opportunity and for supporting music programming here at Highland thank you you you weren't even asking for anything you were just thank you no

187just thing thank you we waited for the whole meeting for thato I I can scan that put it in the Friday update so everybody has a cop are they both the same thing St and one is the achievement studies so I can scan them and incl them Friday want say thank you for being a caring parent and a caring Community member time here tonight anyone else for public comment yes hello my name is Dana toacy I'm the secondary annl teacher I'm the varsity cheer coach um I've been the varsity Cher coach for nine years I am also a for each leader in our local um community and I'm also a parent of three children within the school district um I also can answer some of the questions that were brought up about the uh Insurance

188um as some of you may know or may not know uh Highland varsity cheer for seven years now has been putting on our annual um cheer competition that brings in many many many people to our um community and it is rant for a huge fundraiser um so that is the main purpose that we do it because unfortunately cheer is one of the most expensive sports out there so I try to raise as much funds as we can so it does not deter kids from uh trying out and wanting to be a part of this community um with that with because we have so many funds that we do get from this very large uh event we're also able to support other uh clubs within the school um scholarships for our students and things like that

189so this event is very very near and dear to me um I started it here at Highland and I'm very proud of it and I want to see it continue to grow uh this year we faced many many obstacles um but thank goodness for Desmond and his his expertise and patience with me and we work together um the writer that uh Mr vatas you had spoke about um I did purchase a one day Rider um I had to purchase it through me um I used my own personal social security number to purchase this riter and it was uh roughly about $2,500 um for the day but how many that was a pretty big event how many guests were there uh we sold 992 tickets okay so um big event R yes um so that was

190um for the writer the we have a DJ and we do have other outside vendors um you know unfortunately this year we weren't able to have all of our outside vendors because of the insurance requirements um I kind of washed my hands with most of them but our event our competition cheer you you can't have without music we need music at the competition so I sincerely needed a a DJ and I went back and forth numerous times with my DJ we we reached out to him we said you have to go to your agent your agent has to talk to our agent um I personally reached out to our insurance company um you know I did all the things uh that Desmond was uh expressing what to do and what not but the insurance the

191the 1 million the 2 million that wasn't the problem it was automobile that is expected even though he just has his own car that he brings his stuff in um that was the issue the workers comp for him being he's an out of state person um he's based out of Pennsylvania and he didn't feel comfortable doing New York state workers comp so there was an issue there and then the umbrella and the district was not willing to bend with the umbrella which we UND I understand um so you know to have this event occur and happen we had to move forward and I tried making ends meet and I ended up paying an extra $600 for the DJ to be able to up his insurance so he could actually participate in our event on top

192of the one day Rider that we spent on $2500 so that there you know put us in the hole that much more for our event and again it's you know going back to that mission statement that Mr Fair had stated ear earlier that it's you know it's for our students and I feel we're just taking away from our students when we have to pay out so much so I get the insurance I get why we want to protect our facilities and I I understand that wholeheartedly I do and like Mr Miller said this is not an overnight process I am well versed in that I understand that this event this event specifically I sat with Mr Miller last year at the end of the school year and I said please show me how to do

193this I want to get this booked and done and set up so we have no issues moving forward but we need we need a more streamlined uh I don't know the words to say that I had said Desmond and that a process we need a more streamlined process to help us with making sure that we have those necessary requirements or a a vendor's list to choose from or something so moving forward we can still have these wonderful events for our students Dana you said um your a DJ is is is basically a requirement you need for cheer obviously uh could a DJ donate their time do they require insurance coverage I think that's something that should be looked at so if I may jump on the subject then I want to say thank you Dan

194we have had numerous conversations back and forth spent many of time in my office going over the issue that we had to do with cheer there were multiple problems that occurred with this and it it started off with the vendors now having the proper insurance and then it started to escalate even to more issues um one of the things we had Dana talked about is the fact that she had to go out and get insurance because ner had asked for that insurance that became an issue and the next thing was the DJ which to my understanding since I've never really participated in cheer and my grandkids are now in cheer I understood okay they need a DJ and we had to go back and forth with having the DJ with his insurance and making sure

195he had workers comp as we said the workers comp is free on online but you'll run into the issue where some an individual may not want to do that and now we ran into a problem we did work it out we did eventually get to the point where the DJ was going to show up but um Cher ended up paying a lot more for the event than they anticipated this kind of circles back to Janine's kind of point where we're saying you have an organization that is large enough to support that charge or an organization small smaller that it's going to hurt them in this right now and so we have set up processes we are setting up processes to make sure this runs smoother one of the things that Mr Miller did point out

196is that we do have the insurance companies talking rather than going through the chain of going through individuals because that takes even longer the two insurance agents will talk it's easier to flush that out that's number one number two we've also um set up the rules of what you need on the website and we will speak when we talk to individuals we are very clear as to here's the information you need you know we're trying to get it down to and I hate to say this dumbing it down to the point where we're actually circling the levels on your COI of where you've got to put your numbers I mean that's what we're trying to do so we're moving in that direction to do change the processes however these issues occur Dana coming up there's

197another event coming up that she's planning and I she called me and said we're going to meet tomorrow and I said the first thing you need to do is put it on the schedule of what day you want and we will work aggressively backwards to make sure you have the proper insurance and have your vendors have the insurance if it's going to happen in May if we start now going to the whole Insurance problem it will be resolved so we are working with those individuals we're also looking at our insurance and determining what it covers and what it doesn't cover and so those are the bigger issues that we're looking at to make sure that we have chair we have um faity letter we have uh booster clubs we have extra classroom clubs how are

198they structured to ensure that they have proper insurance for their events that they're covering and I'm sorry just one that the insurance compan is definitely pointing out that there are for example extra classroom there's a range of things where certain extra classroom clubs have more activity that are more prone to injury than others so cheer if I may or wrestling or the other clubs that have a little bit more physical activity are not and are more have a bigger liability than the chess club and model un but they're in the same category of extra Club classroom Club so we're looking into that just to brainstorm a little bit curiosity Dana is is your is that particular DJ self-employed yes doesn't it's basically not a bu I know for a fact in our business workers comp

199for self-employed is not required and I don't see why nicer would say he needs workers comp because it says if this came from ner it says for organizations with employees right so why would they require workers come from Individual that self-employed and these are the issues that we ran into with this particular situation where Dana where we said well what why are you making this guideline how is it applicable to this particular DJ and this particular situation so we did work through that we did eventually resolve it but yes those are the issues that when we speaking with nicer and we get the complications not just from Dana or any other organization that says I don't meet this requirement we're asking why not what is the issue here why do you need workers comp or

200for a DJ or a person selling candy do they really need a workers comp so we're challenging that and saying that shouldn't be a requirement from ncer when we're actually asking them to approve the vendor to come in not to open up a can of worms uh just came to my mind through section nine are all the officiating do they carry the section 9 officials carry the insurance requirements that nyser is requesting I believe so I mean everything's everything should New York State I like to research that because i' like to throw that back back in the face and nicer then they would require $10 million do we get it work as comp certific insurance in section 9 for officiating get that so if one of our baseball players hits a line drive and hits

201the first base umpire Square in the head knocks them out who's responsible for that yeah good question I'm curious just for my own personal edification why was the DJ not covered under your policy I mean if you personally used your own you created your own policy and he was he's not dispensing anything he was just functioning for your I'm I'm surprised in the situation that occurred with if I the situation was they were hosting the event he was a vendor coming in he's the vendor on any vendor coming into the the district has to have the appropriate Insurance even though we're hosting the event those individuals are coming into the district are not under the umbrella of the host they're under their own umbrella because the host is the one sponsoring the event and they've

202got certain coverage but you've also got individuals for example I'm not trying to say this is going to happen and the the DJ or somebody else comes in and they hurt a student or they do something inappropriate it's on that individual not the host and that's how would start the liability in terms of if they sue you go to that person then the entity and then us yeah I'm just surpris you know any other I can understand a vendor of goods in terms of a vendor of Services Under the employee of I'm just surprised the policy wouldn't cover that it it was a back and forth with NI yeah yeah I would think there would be an argument that she could make but I we were arguing on a minute by- minute basis it's hard

203to get community members involved in that back and forth though I mean eventually a firm set of criteria will emerge and I think to your point of a vendor list I think as this goes on and as it evolves we'll become more and more aware of uh not that we'd be recommending vendors but we we'll have knowledge of vendors who meet the Criterion you yeah I mean my my DJ is our section n DJ so he does our sections and he does all section 9 competitions so having a vendor list to choose from if we can't use use our our section like that would that would be helpful it's not recommended but vendors and I think unfortunately you're a Trailblazer in this as we enter these new territories so we do have a vendor list

204for certain things like we do have a vendor list preferred vendor list for buses to take off students we've got a couple of vendor list so we they don't anybody who wants to transport students they don't have to go through the whole process of getting Insurance again we've already had these two vendors if not three vendors vetted by nicer so you can pick one of those three so that do we'll grow we Lear DJ at the prom the DJ at a prom PS under that same category why you looking at me because you're the superintendent am I good to go here so like I said I've been kicked twice and told I'm eating leftover so it's going to be quick and I'm sure you're in the same boat what are you blaming on her for

205cuz that's what she she's here member of a town board I don't mess around so first thing I want to say on behalf of my family I don't know if my father knows yet but we're incredibly uh believe he knows the guy wouldn't have been able to announce it and oh and I got a problem with him that he did so and I'm sure when he found out he said there's plenty of other people that are more deserving of the award and so on and so forth but we're those calls were made by Carol crey is what I was told so I would love to be up fly on the wall that um on a side note second thing Joel We St with your decision today like myself my wife with your decision that you

206made and any runt that you take will'll take with you um and we wish the girls tomorrow incredible luck as they go to beat Mal brro and uh and move on in the section they've worked hard and they're incredible Role Models I haven't missed a home game and I've taken my daughter and her friends every single one and and they've just been incredible Role Models um now on to the to the conversation that you're having tonight um we're throwing out words like a conservative policy and restriction on the field use and such this is a field use that we should want people to use and instead of looking for ways to cover ourselves we should be looking for ways that we get these people onto the fields onto the premise and we have to look

207as a as a group at what we want to invest our time and our money and our effort into because it's not just Sports and it's not just girls um uh cheerleading it's our it's our clubs our model un and our student councils and our science olympiads that also want to use the facilities that are now running into roadblocks with insurance um I for 10 years ran the Boston trip at the middle school where I took every single kid that wanted to go in the eth grade there is no possible way under this insurance that I would be able to take that trip I would be able to facilitate that trip we joke that Highland in Central School District doesn't look at Water I took the kids on a dinner cruise and on a duck

208tour not a chance chance would that have ever happened so we have to look at what do we want to invest in for these kids what are what are our what are our goals and what are what is the district willing to accept as a risk to to give these kids the experiences that they need um on a side note from that a lot of our boosters and our clubs they don't have a budget they get their budget a lot of times like Dana putting out $2,500 for insurance you know our booster club is donated $25,000 to the district you just approve some of it tonight they don't keep a dollar of it and everything goes back to the students what is like we want them to use these facilities and keep giving that money

209to our students so in I I know it it's real nice to have a policy an all-encompassing policy because then you can stand behind your policy say this is what we're following but we can't in in this in this day and age each each entity has to be looked at as an individual and what they're providing for the district and what they're providing for the students and then decisions need to be made based on those particular entities to deny a group that's that's given thousands of dollars access to the facilities would would be counterproductive to what we're trying to do and you made a comment earlier we are we're building the sports program we're working our taals off football basketball softball baseball lacrosse soccer all these boosters and parents are coming together yes we're following

210the footsteps that you and your and people around you Tom as well that did this for us as a generation we're we're trying to take that over but we keep running into these roadblocks and I think the frustration is people want to use the facilities people paid for the facilities and they want to have the same support coming from the school district to use the facilities so we can continue building what we're what we're working on as this project and I promise that's all I have to say we'll have grilled cheese tonight right anyone else just a quick comment regarding insurance and my mind's always running uh I'd ask Desmond uh I know we do it in our business and we do a lot of Municipal work and a lot of the owners school districts

211Library fire district whatever on our insurance policy they request additional insured which would be the architect uh the engineer blah blah blah blah does nyser entertain us as putting on as an additional insured onto our policy all our inhouse clubs so what I'm asking for if we do that and let's say the additional premium is $500 and it covers all our inside clubs I'm not talking about the outside organizations I'm talking about the Highland Central School District clubs and any of their functions that they are covered and they and we don't have to require from them additional insurance I'll answer that question by saying yes we've explored that and we are talking to ner to see what they come back with in terms of uh information dollars or or just in general and we're going

212back and forth with um nicer to trying to make sure that's clear and that's once again why Dana and you know individuals are coming because we really want to clarify that we don't want to go another school year or go another day by saying oh this one does and this one does NER has to kind of give us the clear answer if you're on board this is what it's going to cost us and if it does it shouldn't cost us anything then we'll we'll take it from there but we are in communication with them to get that done if there is a cost I think that's a further discussion um as again somebody who wears many hats and a member and a director on two of the booster clubs it is possible that some of

213the booster clubs could help like offset that for all of the or all the activities that would participate like like we've football has donated a lot of money so football and soccer is up and coming there are things so you know that might be something to think about if there is a way to share that cost so that it does cover all of the um School boosters and um clubs and organizations and I and I use the word booster due respect there's Varsity letter which is helping with the Athletics at spe specifically for Varsity letter and then this extra classroom which are by themselves with their own tax ID their own audit part of what we have to sign off on every the year end when we say booster clubs I know that there are

214Booster clubs outside of pil booster clubs we have are have their own entity they're not associated with us so with the way I look at it it's either you're a varsity letter which seems to be the ones that are on our books or the extra classroom when we say booster clubs I I just want to make sure the terminology that we're using because sometimes that gets a little bit muddled the concept is the same they're raising funds to help the students but they're really the ones we have on our books right now are really just varsity letter clubs which then opens another Pandora's Box why are they not included in our natural insurance that we have if you look at tera's uh treasury report she has a list of yeah so that's and all the

215clubs are on there not theost CL that donate money not exactly those are outside the organization question support the football insurance is a question tonight that's been due is there a I'm not going to say an agent but is there a representative from ncer that comes down and sits down with your staff to review our policies on an annual basis I know you're you're you're new to it but I would think that's something that should be done because in our business our insurance and and we pay a lot of insurance between workers comp liability a lot of insurance not as much as the district but a lot our carrier or agent comes the representative comes every year and goes through our general liability policy and our work and and when our workers comp is Du

216comes through and sits down and reviews all that on an annual basis that is coming up in about a month and a half they do come down yeah okay they're going to come down review and then I hate to say the sales pitch and say sign off on your new policy and in that moment we're saying wait a minute we need to review all of these things that we have here this is what Highland needs and if it can't be done as we said before we're just kind of exploring UDA National as what can they do as an option just a look because looking at this if this came out of their book I think they need to explain you know work as Compass say in parentheses for organizations with employees right so if a

217if a vendor doesn't have any employees self-employed by New York state regulations they don't need workers come right and so no just and then who falls under organized athletic leag is that what is an organized athletic league is it the Highland Youth Soccer is the Highland youth football is it and they have they have their definitions as to what would put an entity into those categories and we can get that from them what would make you know cheer a club not an athletic league depending upon the type of events that they're putting on and what they're doing kind of puts them in a certain category you can have a you know a soccer club that's teaching soccer or is it just a soccer team that's just doing practice they're two different things out of curiosity

218where was Dana's cheer uh classified under General use or the organized athletic leag I think they put it under excuse me a moment we put it under they moved it to organize Athletic League moved it from they were trying to move it from athletic recreational camps really yep they went from 5 million to 3 million all right I'm curious about section n in their their their insurance policy for all their uh officials and if we have that in house copy of the certificate Insurance all right any other public comments good I don't mean that negative motion to adjourn motion by Tom second by Jen all those in favor oppos no opposition good