HCSD BOE 2 12 26

001Good evening. Welcome to the February 12th regular business meeting budget overview of the Horstead Central School District Board of Education. I'd like to open the meeting, call the order, and um would you usually do the pledge first? Yeah. Would you join me in the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance 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 very much. It does it looks like maybe on our agenda it was slightly out of order because that's listed as after um executive session, but we do open with the pledge. So we now per our agenda for this evening would adjourn to executive session for the purpose of conducting tenure reviews. There's no action to

002be taken in executive session. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Any comments or questions on the motion? All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppose? Nay or abstensions? >> If I can. there was supposed to be potential future litigation and also uh individual negotiation. Okay. So just to clarify the scope of executive session is for tenure reviews, potential litigation and negotiation related discussion but again no action to be taken on any of those items. So the board will now adjourn to executive session. We will reconvene to public session at approximately 6 p.m. Thank you. Okay, good evening everyone. The board is returning from executive session. We did open the public meeting at 5:15 to executive session for the purpose of discussing tenure reviews, potential future litigation and individual negotiation.

003There were no actions taken at the executive session and we are now returning. Uh in terms of uh the agenda, just for awareness, our unfortunately our student representative is um ill this evening and is not present. So that will be an agenda change. There'll be no report from the student representative. And I think we're having some intermittent Wi-Fi issues and so uh if that impacts the live stream, we'll make sure the recording gets, you know, fully posted. So we will move then to item 2.01. 01. I'm sorry. Item two, minutes. And we have two sets of minutes for review and approval this evening. 2012. Is there a motion? >> Second. >> Any comments or questions on the motion? Katrina. >> Um, yes. On 202 the minutes for the retreat, my mom and I came together.

004So, we were at the same exact time when we were arriving, I believe. Yeah. Didn't we? We carpooled. >> Yeah. Um, so when it says absent, >> I was there. >> You came late. I brought mom. >> Oh, you brought mom. Okay. Um, but also with those minutes, I think that um, we're doing a big disservice by not having a lot more detail about what happened and took place at the retreat. I think that when we're talking about education and curriculum materials and start times and all of that stuff, that is something that should be public information. So, I will be voting no on the acceptance of those minutes. And I will also be voting no on 2.01 for reasons I've stated previously at other meetings. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions on

005the motion? >> Yeah, you should be voting. >> Okay. Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor of item 2.01 and 2.02 say I. I. Any opposed? Nay. >> Could you hear that? Um, can >> any abstensions? Okay. Okay, the motion carries. We will move to the next uh item in the agenda, section three and 3.01. This is the first meeting where we have put into effect the new board policy around association speaking to the board of education and I understand we do have an the um Dr. Tebus the Haps president would like to address the board this evening. So please um feel free to approach the microphone and there is a five minute time limit per board policy. So um if you're at risk of running over I'll give you a wave

006but I don't think you're >> there. Hi. Uh, my name is Alicia Tenbas. I am president of Horse's Association of Professional Support Staff. My unit includes cook managers, social work assistants, occupational therapists, physical therapists, licensed practical nurses, senior food service helpers, student behavior monitor, and school social workers. The occupational and physical therapists have been working on developing the various levels of MTSS support for all grade levels throughout the school district. We have participated in the training and development of activities for the motor circuit at the pre kindergarten through middle school levels. We continue to work on sim procedures to correlate with various levels of MTSS and to provide appropriate support to students. Two OT's and both PTs work at both elementary and secondary schools in the district with differing start and end times. This has

007created the need for increased flexibility with the scheduling of our students and services. We have worked to accommodate the needs that this has created. The social workers, OT's, and PTS work on a weekly schedule with varying days to accommodate the 4-day cycle to meet the service needs of our students and to push into specials as necessary. The physical therapists have been working closely with Special Olympics New York to host a regional junior bowling event on March 4th. You all are welcome to attend. Um, it starts at 10:00 a.m. Opening ceremonies are 9:50. Um, just off the top of my head, there are currently 113 students from horseides registered to attend. And this is going from kindergarten through the high school, Corning is hosting a Special Olympics track and field event in the spring. And there

008is a Polar Plunge occurring. Um, and Unified Raiders has a team if you would like to support us. Um, and Special Olympics helps support unified sports and has developed the unified sports program. Please be on the lookout for additional information. Uh, unified bowling is in season right now and both teams are doing great. We have 47 students playing um from the high school and Phoenix Academy. Um, unified basketball will be played in the spring. Registration opens in March. Horseheaded Yak is working on some big news for next month. So, watch social media, please. Uh, horsehead social workers are providing individual group services. Sorry, I am the PT sessions handle crisis. Um, provide social emotional learning lessons in classrooms covering bullying, prevention, responsibility, empathy, gratitude, conflict resolution, and respect. The social workers have focused on many

009lessons in kindergarten classes focusing on an emotional regulation and coping skills including breathing techniques such as star breathing and finger hand breathing. The social workers led the charge to help families during the holidays by providing gift cards, baskets, holiday shop vouchers, and adopting a family. The school social workers organize and distribute the backpack program throughout the district. The social workers have special groups at various schools including a grief group. >> Yes, sorry. >> How do they register for the March 4th event or how do people register >> for the special Olympics? >> Yeah, for the bowling. >> The bowling. So, that has gone out to every um special ed teacher in our district. And then I've have a spreadsheet that I keep adding to >> the board member. All you have to do is just

010contact Terry. Sure. >> I'd like to know a little bit more about that polar plunge that you talked about. Where and when is that and how do I nominate people? >> Oh, I think I would love to nominate somebody to plunge in. Um, so we have in the past we have gone to Titanic Falls. Um, and we have gone in. Um, certain administrators have joined me in the past. Um, this year we might have some really big news that we're working on. Um, we might be the first to do some special things. So, it's not finalized yet, so I don't want to jinx myself because you know me well. Um, but we're working on some big things. >> Well, that's great. That's you know the plunge ice water plunging is all the rage these days.

011So, I think we maybe the whole board should do it once you get the details. >> That would be wonderful. So, the >> go ahead >> or donate donate and I'll come and watch Dan take the >> There you go. And so if you wanted to Google Polar Plunge Unified Raiders, we do have a page up. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Well, in all seriousness, Dr. Seus, we greatly appreciate the service that you and your colleagues in the HAPS unit provide to the district, to our students. Thank you for sharing all of this information with us and um it does sound like there are some interesting things coming up that hopefully the board can participate in. So, thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. Have a great day. Okay. >> Thank you. Okay, the next item

012on our agenda is section 3.02 community questions and comments where per board policy members of the community can come up and address the board uh for up to five minutes similar to the earlier policy. Are there any community members that would like to address the board this evening? >> I don't think anybody signed it. >> Okay, seeing none, we'll move along. And as I said, item 4.01 is uh removed from the agenda this evening. And so we will move to section five, the superintendent report and presentation. And first will be item 5.01, the state of the school's presentation from Dr. Douglas. Thank you very much. Test. Test. Test. Can you hear me? Okay, good. Just want to know how close to get. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, you may want to come around to

013this side. I'm not sure if it's there, but if it's in front of you, that's okay. I just am controlling this one differently. Well, it's February. The legislature is in Albany and hopefully they're going to do some good work and maybe help us out. But as we kick off our budget season, this is when we usually perform sort of a review of the state of the schools. It's kind of important this year because many of the board members have changed over the years. So as we go through this, you know, our kids are wonderful. The activities you heard from Dr. Tenbis, you heard from uh a lot throughout the year of different things between our shop with a cop program from the county to our state championship baseball team to our veterans day to students

014out and around working our junior plays, our music programs, our art programs. And there's so many things to go on in list, but we really have to sort of start so that people understand how do we compared to where we were and that's looking back a little, especially with the change over in the board. Roughly, I think the only member of the board when I started in 2015 that was here is Warren and Christine Dale just joined the board at that point. And then I think the following year Mr. Christmas came on and there's a big gap. So we wanted to give you sort of a look back horse sort of circa 2015 sort of an understanding of educational programming district finances academics arts and athletics are three our staffing levels district technology and infrastructure.

015And the biggest thing about that time uh in educational programming was common core. Does anybody remember common core and what that brought out in everyone? But you know educational programming we had mandated modules and different things. The board at that time had already adopted a resource-based curricula which is basically we got our curriculum from a resource or a book. We had a resource-based assessments that were linked to the New York State Common Core and they were done according to the vendor and that was Pearson at the time. There was a major emphasis across not only New York State, this district and the nation of refusals to sit for state assessments with a sit and stare policy that was adopted prior to my arrival. We quickly got rid of that the very next couple of months

016once I came. uh we really you know had disconnection between our response to intervention, our academic intervention services uh especially from the social emotional and behavior learning and we sort of took tact to work on that over the next several years. And ultimately we also had a lot of lack of alignment in the grades from prek to six and 7 through 12 as well as special education curricular areas. in the district finance piece, and this is one of the biggest things, the great recession of 2009 through 2012. And so, instituted what was known as the gap elimination adjustment. And most people don't realize it, but that meant this district lost over $18.9 million in state funding, roughly $4.2 million a year that was in the budget. and was swiftly removed by the former Governor Cuomo

017with a promise to put it back in. Unfortunately, that promise was never delivered. So, if you look at our budget right now, no matter what, any budget since that time in 2013 to 15, there should be an additional $4.2 million in it on top of whatever we have in state aid right now. that would have solved all of our problems over the past several years. In addition, the district for its finances was conducting a merger consolidation study. A merger with two districts or a consolidation study within the district itself and it had been doing that since 2012. Financially, the district was under uh severe stress from a comprollers's audit that indicated several errors and issues within the district's operational budget and financial procedures. Also, the district was known not to settle contracts on time for

018multiple decades for all units. That's sort of what the district finances were like when it came to academic arts and athletics. The recession also brought about, you know, adjustments in programs. Various programmatic reductions in music, art, PE, swim, and across the board, extracurriculars were sort of reduced because financially when you lose $4.2 million, it's going to make an impact. Uh there was attrition reductions of staff across the district but they tried to keep as much staff and program as they could but I think when I came in I think there was almost 64 reductions just before I came in. Departmental grade level leadership people that do the work day in and day out for you know administrative role which is a quasi role and relationship liaison roles between the staff and administration. All those positions

019were wiped away. Extracurricular activities were also reduced. Some stipens just absolutely gone. Others reduced in half while other people kind of donated their time to carry on for the kids. staffing levels at that time. You have to understand losing that much money instructional staff reductions were done through mostly attritions or cuts as much as possible through ad attrition. There was an administrator reduced through attrition at that time. I think it was at the high school. Support staff reductions were also in all areas. But one of the biggest hits that we still suffer for even today is 50% reduction to maintenance and facility staff as well as their supplies and their codes. At that point the district infrastructure and technology were very much lacking. When you look at district technology wireless connectivity was very limited across

020the district and sporadic. We went through boseies at this time. Student devices were also limited and only shared among student populations. And those students never brought those computers home. And we had across the district a technology desert. Rooms at that point utilized interactive whiteboards with projectors. We had analog phone systems. We had very limited safety and security systems across the district. As a matter of fact, the district was trying to address some of it in light of the national discussion around school safety. The infrastructure obviously was in disinishment. You can see from the pictures. This is why Horseheads 2030 was actually developed. Maintenance and facilities services could not keep up. There were building structural failures. The athletic facilities were worn and overrun and unable to keep up for the demand and use. Classrooms were having

021structural issues. Tiles missing, floor parts missing. And I will tell you, our maintenance department stayed on top of it as best they could, even going way above and beyond even with a 50% reduction. Large gathering spaces took a hit because they needed to be used. There was also deterioration in district property. My second day as the superintendent 2015, Mr. Coglin came to me and said, "Uh, we've got a problem." The floor in the pool collapsed because of structural rot. That pool is still there. We fixed that with an emergency resolution at that point. But that is the same pool with no updates except for where it had a failure. Every single roof in the district was out of warranty and worn. Parking lots were crumbling. Heating and ventilation was there to the point that the

022set point was roughly around 65 to 67 degrees to save energy because of the money. But yet through the hard work of the facility staff, we ended up raising the temperature because it was actually costing us more with what we were lowering it to. And that deterioration goes on, but this is not to paint a bleak picture. It's really to give everybody an understanding of why the district, the administration, the boards have done what they've done over several years to get to where we are at least today. And there's still more work to do. As you can see, backdrop is a snowy backdrop because that's today a picture right outside with what's going on. We sort of look at 2526 with educational programming, district finances, academic arts and athletics, staffing levels, district technology infrastructure, and

023postpandemic realities which many people do not realize that we still have to contemplate and make sure that we're ready for educational programming. You've heard numerous times and now the board understands where we are. Multi-tered systems of support is our main thing. We have a district-wide learning on MTS framework. Our horseheads teacherdeveloped curricula continuously is updated to address current New York State nextgen standards. We have a district-wide focus on essential New York State standards work. These are not options. These are musts. And the good part is it's our staff along with administration that are leading that work. We frame MTS as the vehicle to ensure all students achieve the horse's portrait of graduate. And the reason why that's important is you've heard New York State say we're going to pass a law, the portrait of the

024graduate. And they did that last year or two years ago. We were already way ahead and we are currently about three years ahead of where the state intends to go. And that's a compliment to all of our teaching staff, our administrative staff, and our professional development. We have been implementing social emotional learning screeners to assist in that learning development as well as to assist students in need and crisis as well as to learn more about our individual backgrounds and our individual settings. We've aligned the student day which is a mandate to meet the New York State minimum hours and days to assist with this new tiered intervention. We had the shortest day in the southern tier. It was actually going to cost the district well over a million dollars in aid if we did not

025address it. The district worked with the state, got waiverss, which everybody got for a little bit. We worked wonderfully with our collective bargaining agreements and leadership and we addressed it to make sure that we would no longer have that issue. where last year we couldn't close because of heat days because of the number of hours. Now that we've made the shift, the hours are not the issue. We need to make sure we just have the days. And right now the district is compliant very well and has options where it did not have them before. As far as district finances, state aid is now reflecting sort of somewhat inflationary pressures. You've heard me say over the past couple years that local revenue and state revenue hasn't been keeping up with just the rate of inflation. The

026past two years technically the state is above the rate of inflation that we see in the percentage that they're giving us. They are not using that percentage in their formula which would even add more assistance to us. But at least they're heading in the right direction. The reason why that's important is because lower down you'll see local revenue share is unable to reflect inflationary method. And you'll see that later tonight with Katie when she talks about the 2% tax cap. We all know inflation's at 3% right now. If the tax cap calculation has to be 2%, we're already 1% under. So there's no way we can ever keep up with the costs. So, it creates creative financing over the long haul. One of the biggest things me and my team are proud of, and I'm

027proud of our uh labor leaders, is our contracts, and we have 13 different ones, are primarily settled on time or ahead of time. Now, we are the only administrative staff in Horsehead's history that has ever achieved that. And I hope that will always be the case because that's a working relationship that should always be maintained because it's a one based on mutual respect and trust. Our district national health care and energy costs are increasing. That is concerning. You'll see that later. The district also has to look and be aware of our reserves and our district bond rating and we need to continue closely monitoring that. We have had some financial stress. Even the comproller saying we have some stress growing. It's because of our position with our reserves, cost of inflation, costs that are not

028necessarily within our control. And ultimately in the future, the district is going to have to address it. As far as academics, arts and athletics, the one thing that we have done throughout all of this is we have tried to maintain being staff strong as far and long as possible. That becomes challenging each year. This is my 11th year and I've said that every year. Each year now the budget is getting tighter and tighter and thankfully the community helped support a challenge. But no matter what, unless the resources that we get from the state and the local keep up at minimally at the rate of inflation and we can control costs, we are going to face that challenge of whether or not we can stay staff strong in the future. We have brought back a full

029range of class offerings and many we have students graduating with many years of college credit from our ranks. We now have regular professional and curriculum development. Although it is significantly hampered because we have made cuts of late to that area, but we still are moving forward and that's thanks to a wonderful team and a wonderful group of teachers and staff across the district that are working making that happen. We have restored the needed departmental and grade level leadership because no matter what those are the people that help administration and the teachers get things accomplished. In addition for academic arts and athletics, our extracurricular activities for the most part have been restored with significant increases in participation. We would normally have just in athletics alone around 300 kids participate in our biggest season, which is fall.

030We have virtually doubled that amount through the work of the board, through the opportunities to provide kids those opportunities. We regularly have student award recipients for art, music, and extracurricular activities across all genres. Our commencement students, the biggest thing is commencement. Our students that stay with us and graduate, and it's roughly 95 to 96% I believe after the six-year mark that the state tracks, exceptionally excel in the region with mastery learning concepts. That means their grades are primarily 85 and above. We won't have 100% graduation. We'd love that. We are not a small district that may only have 20 to 25 kids. So, we can't say we're the leader in it, but you have to look at size. And I believe we're the leader, one of the leaders of that large size in upstate New

031York. And then our commencement rate, as I said, is regionally strong and in line with the state staffing levels. Throughout my 11 years now going into my 12, I've been fortunate enough I have not cut any staff with my team unless it was through attrition or open positions. We have maintained and expanded the instructional staff from 2015. We have maintained and expanded the support staff. We have maintain and expanded extracurricular staff. We have even maintained even though it was already cut at 50% and expanded the maintenance and facility staff, but there is still room to grow there. But the one thing that I don't think people realize that they need to understand, we have drastically reduced the administration via attrition and open positions in the past, I think, two years by 5.5 positions. We are

032doing more with absolutely less. And there is a time limit to what that can keep up with. As far as district technology, we now have 1:1 computer technology fully implemented for grades 2 through 12. Grades 7 through 12 can take their assigned devices home. This is part of that post-pandemic part as well. We have a complete wireless network connectivity, although we're having a little trouble with it tonight. We have interactive boards upgraded for interactive flat panels and a replacement cycle instituted so that we do not get behind the way in um our replacements. We have a huddle camera system to assist those that are in the district or those that are outside uh across the district for I believe almost every sport at this point. We have updated safety and security upgrades including building access,

033security cameras, digital phone system, bus tracking, and go on and on. Safety is one of the biggest things that we do and look at. Even though it's not district technology, we are one of the only schools, maybe besides Elmyra, that has a school resource officer in every building. We have various parent focused applications, and we've moved this into the biggest route, my ride K through 12, which allows people to understand where their buses are, where their students are, and their projected time so that they have GPS location. We have parent portals so that they can always be in contact and also understand where their student is performing academically. If a student isn't performing, it's much easier now for a parent to call the teacher and say, "I need some help." Or for the teacher to

034reach out through either counseling or to the parent. And if parents don't know it, that's how we help educate them so that they can see that access. We also have pay schools and other programming that we utilize uh regularly. One of our weaker areas is our website, but that's a budgetary constraint. As far as infrastructure, this is a major place where you spend money to eventually save money. As far as infrastructure go, you saw from the deterioration of what was going on over several decades and honestly a sort of uh we'll do it later attitude in the past or we're okay right where it is. It just couldn't keep up. So we completed horseed 2030 starting the build that hit just about every school in one format. Uh it may not be renovations but it

035was trying to address roofing. It was trying to address parking lots and so forth. We are currently in completing horse 2030 continuing the build where again almost every building has been touched. The one that's the weakest is in heating and ventilation and air conditioning which is middle school is that will be coming up in the next slide. and we've completed various annual projects to try to regularly keep care of maintenance and upkeep, but we also took that out of the budget a couple of years ago. So now that we're finally updating, it's up to the board and it's up to the community to keep track and move forward. Otherwise, they'll have to return to those annual projects which is directly to the community. Also on infrastructure, the majority of structural issues have been addressed. We

036still have a few. We still have that pool. We still have some roofs that need to be updated. We have gone through a major redistricting and it's completed. Although not everybody's going to agree with this. This had to happen and was authorized by the board and by the community. Drop off and pickup lines were adjusted because in horse heads we kind of do above and beyond what other districts do. If you go to Corning, you just wait on the road and wait your time. We were able to through maintenance, through building principles, through our staff work it out that we can at this point get people off the roads and make it as safe as possible. But it's something we have to look at in the future. Post-pandemic realities. The biggest thing is we're managing

037New York State mandates and no matter what those regulations came and they came swiftly. Not many people liked them. We didn't like them as administrators. But what came out of it was remote learning and it really forced us into that onetoone computing computing because the state mandated that we must be able to shift to remote learning whenever they deem it necessary. So we have to be prepared regularly to rapidly shift and we also have to during that time address student and community social needs. So the last line is a little joke but officially pandemic means snow days are no longer needed. I'm sure you all agree with that last statement. Not we are going to use our snow days. Then after we've used our snow days we'll go to remote learning. I know that's not

038the case in all districts, but I think our kids, our community deserve that uh as well as part of a tradition of going to school in New York. Now, looking forward, isn't this a great slide with the little kid on our playgrounds? But looking forward, where do we head? We're going to focus on four main areas for 26, 27, and beyond. Programming, finances, technology, and infrastructure. educational programming. We're continuing investing time and resources to support our curriculum process. We have to make sure that it is implemented with fidelity and we have to continue to keep up with the nextgen standards. This is important as whenever you implement some there are going to be people that are gung-ho and go way out. There are going to be people that will be sort of catching up but

039still moving forward. But there will be some that will say, "I'm not going to do it." I have to let the board know that's not an option for any staff member. This is a priority in the district and a requirement of the administration, the superintendent, and the state education department. We are also going to continue to provide time for teams to engage in essential standards protocol and analysis of common assessments. This is not so people think, oh, they're judging how I assess a kid and if I got a class that's low with achievers, I'm going to be punished. It's about how we learn and how we adjust. And it's a trusting relationship to make sure that we can learn from some of our areas that maybe we're not thinking about, but it comes by looking

040at those assessments. Implement protocols for data analysis, which is similar to what I'm talking about. We have to be comfortable that we aren't perfect in anything, just like our students aren't on our assessments. But sometimes maybe we miss something, too. And sometimes maybe we don't even know we're missing it. That's what this data analysis is for. It's so that we provide our best. The use of data to inform team responses to support students needs academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. We're going to continued refinement of the master schedule PK through 12 to ensure equity in access to tier one instruction and support for all students. We have gone through a major shift. There will be some tweaking of it. I know our staff, I know Mr. Kohler, Mr. Gil and the building principles and the department

041and grade level chairs are starting to work on that for next year's schedule. But the schedule is not going to be changing. It is moving forward because it is required to move forward to meet the needs of our specials, our special programming and our instructions. Educational programming continued establishing rubrics that measure the seven indicators of the portrait of the graduate for horse across all grade levels. This is that work the state isn't even at this point. Engage in district-wide learning to establish common understandings of social emotional behavioral components of MTS. We are also working on promoting the wellness and positive school culture for students, staff and families. In order to do this, people have to understand that it takes everyone to promote wellness, culture, morale. It is not anyone. It's your own personal position. We

042have to continue to monitor cultural and system aspects of the redistricting, which you heard me talk about already. As far as district finances, we are focused on an effort to help long-term stability and sustainability. Managing future labor contracts and costs are going to be most important come 2829 when most of the contracts start in another full round of negotiations. The reason why it's important is because if costs aren't controlled, the other option to align to those costs if the funding isn't aligning to what you need is going to have to be considered strongly by the board. Maximize the ability to bring resources back to the district through boseies, grants, and other state aid opportunities. We regularly do that, but we are going to have to continue more. So, we have to continue to find efficiencies

043within the organization as well as through capital updates. You've heard the Fram oil filter. I've used this several times. The Framm oil filter biggest commercial was if you forget to change your Fram oil filter, you can pay me now to change it or you can pay me later when it breaks down, but sooner or later you're going to pay me. The moral of that is the same for the infrastructure here. We have started two of definitely three needed projects. If those three projects are put into place, the financials for when those projects come and the district can reinvest that initial investment of the three projects, the district will be able to take care of its capital infrastructure for probably the next 30 to 40 to 50 years. Some people think I'm nuts going out 50

044years, but remember that's only three additional capital projects on each set of money. So that is a good structure. That's what Elmyra has done, Elmyra Heights has done, Corning has done. But horse heads during the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and 2010 buried their head in the sand. And that's why we're in the position that we are doing all this work. Again, it goes back to Framm oil filter. It might have cost $50 million to do the hund00 million that we're doing now. Just like right now, if say you had a $30 million project, five years ne down the road that $30 million project is going to be about 54 to $55 million with construction escalation. We know that. That's a fact. So, that's the return on investment. You can do it now or you're going to

045do it later, but sooner or later you are going to have to address it or you're going to have to change what you do. Using the pool as an example, we don't have to do the pool, but sooner or later that pool is going to fail. And it's already failed once, which means you have a choice. We don't do the pool. We have no slim program, no PE program, no fourth grade swim or fifth grade swim as we're transitioning. Those are just decisions. But I think this community wants what's best for its district. We also have to uh look strategically to build our district reserves. If all of a sudden we find that our budget is right sizing through either attrition or retirements down the road or increased money, we have to be mindful just

046not to spend but to also save for the next rainy day. We have to also, which I want to give credit to Ann and Katie for strategic investment of our annual cash flow dollars. This raises significant amount of funding that would normally not be there. It's revenue. The hard part is you really like it when the interest rates are high, but right now the interest rates are starting to come down, but I know they keep their eye on the ball to do the best they can. As far as district technology, we still need to make sure we really focus on a replacement plan and maintain it. We need to upgrade technology, infrastructure, and connect connectivity as well as that replenishment cycle. And we also need to be mindful to build in true redundancy within the

047network. Currently, we have one MDF. It's the main hub. If that goes down, all of our connectivity goes down. We need to develop a backup. And as we go through a next project, if we are fortunate enough to do it, that needs to be done and completed at the middle school complex. As far as infrastructure, you've heard me say it. This board is in the process of discussing, but it strongly needs to consider horse 2030 finishing the build. That was the discussion almost 10 full years ago that it would take at least three projects. is probably going to take four because of cost and infrastructure, but the fourth project would be funded with the funds from the first project when it comes off the books. So, that's what we're talking about of using the money

048and making that one-time investment and carrying it through many years. The district right now still has to plan for New York State electrical vehicle mandate. It's kind of interesting because it's been all over the news with the recent cold weather. districts up north, say about 30 minutes along the throughway, who have five and 10 electric buses, all of a sudden had to rent buses because their buses couldn't complete their trips or even start. So hopefully that that information is going to Albany, but we still have to prepare for it. It's required by law until they change it, and there is no movement this year at this point. Again, this is sort of a caution to the board uh in the board in the future. You need to maintain a five-year cycle of construction planning over

049the next several decades for the reoccurring debt structure and capital improvements so that you never really have to go back majorly to your community to always keep the district moving forward. You can see some of the pictures here. That's currently in the bottom lefthand corner is one of our roofs. Remember the windstorm we had about a month or a month and a half, Mr. Coglin? It was really cold up on that roof, wasn't it? That's what goes on. And that's one of our older roofs. It's never hasn't been repaired. So now we have to repair it and it really needs to be replaced. District points of pride. This district is a district of distinction on the academic roles, especially for our scholarship athlete teams. I think for three straight years, a 100% of our teams

050make the academic honor role. We are also one of the few districts that have people moving into our district of regional preference regularly. Our houses do not sit on the market long. That's a great thing to have, but we've got to make sure that we keep that. We have a positive labor relations with on-time contract settlements. We are ahead of the curve on the porch of the graduate. We are leaders in MTS and curriculum development. We have a very innovative, fine, and practical arts program from music to arts to businesses to our plays to our green room players. I mean, our kids go out and perform. This past weekend we had Legally Blonde the musical. We also had uh a now a developing musical at the intermediate school. We have wonderful programs in the communities

051that help feed into our programs here and that makes horseed shine. We also have a very low employment turnover rate versus many other districts. We also have academic assessments ratings in the region that remain relatively high especially at the commencement level which is the most important level. We always have work to do at the lower levels. I will tell you our first major increase has come at third grade and that is the group that is beyond co. We now are starting to have 21st learning environments. The board has seen them out on the tours. We have favorable athletic offerings and participation across the board. We have one of the largest unified sports programs. And I know Dr. Tennis is over there trying to me get me to increase something else, too. Uh but more to

052come on that because that's a budget item, right? Uh we have regionably comparable competition and performance venues. Now, we did not have that at the start some 10 years ago. We have area leaders who are magnificent in the areas of transportation and maintenance programs. Ladies and gentlemen, we also face challenges. The district challenges coming up and this is the hardest one is the first one. You heard me say it last year. Our community desires to maintain services for educational extracurricular excellence in horse heads, but it has a cost. But that's our challenge. We face continued rising Bosey's costs, rising national energy costs, health insurance costs, and a 2% tax cap legislation, which is our local revenue stream that does not keep up with inflationary needs. We also are in a time of very much uncertainty

053with national and state political climate. In addition, key educational staffing shortage make our work difficult, especially in the areas of secondary special education, technology, and world language. The hardest part about this is ever since the great recession when we did that gap elimination adjustment and 35,000 teachers were let go over a year and a half period, guess what the parents told their kids? Guess what teachers may have told kids? And that's not no fault of the teacher. Their livelihoods were just cut and never restored in several places. That's what's causing this shortage and we have not ever really recovered from it. In addition, we lack teaching and administrative candidates. There is going to be an educational loss because of the amount of people in education and those getting towards retirement or leaving the field. A

054challenge still is that New York State electric busing. I do not expect anyone here to pass us purchasing those buses. We've done that in exit polls. We've heard it. I think you all know it. We know what the outcome is going to be in our type of weather. Could it be reasonable and be some? That's what we're hoping that they will finally wake up to. Another challenge on the horizon is reduction in administrative staffing. We can keep reducing the work isn't going to get done. In addition, you have to have every part of an organization to be successful. No one does it alone. Another challenge, capital construction needs. We still need heating, ventilation, air conditioning at the middle school is. Our elementary schools are partially finished. Our high school still needs a little more work.

055And all of that requires a return on investment that ultimately will come back to the district in their property values. But it has a side note of property taxes. That is something that ultimately the board's going to have to decide. Should kids, based on the luck of the draw, have new facilities or old facilities, have access to the latest and greatest, or not in the same school building or district. Ultimately, we'll look for your decision on that and the communities because ultimately the community decides. They've always been very supportive about wanting to make sure that this community's children have the best. Biggest challenge on the horizon for Horsehead's district is senior leadership transitions. Over the next two to three years, maybe four at the most, this district is going to lose upwards to eight, nine

056to 10 leading administrators. That means the district's going to have a major shift and major challenges. That isn't the scare. That's going to happen. We're going to also have a major shift in teaching transitions because we have two rather large groups that eventually all came in about the same time that are all going to say I want to retire at the same time and that is nearing. We said a couple years ago it was three to four years. We think it's about two years. So it may start next year or the year after. But that is the big thing is when that happens to make sure the board is very cautious about any breakage to try to rightsize the budget. We've got to get to that point. But those leadership transitions, you try to make

057sure you have succession plans. So as we go through this, my final parting message to the board and to the community, leadership transitions come and go. The length of your leadership determines the absolute success of the district. I have been here now 11 years. Next year will be my 12th. I am here to notify the board that I am intending on heading into retirement sometime during the third quarter of 2027. The reason why I say this is because I care greatly about this district. I've been living here now for 12 years. Superintendents are always seen as the outsiders. This is my home. This is where my son graduates. This is where he will have his home base. Whether I retire or not, I am going to be here and active in this community. And I

058want the best for it. So, by making this announcement tonight, it's to help the board to start to prepare because it's not this board. It's next year's board that is going to have to start preparing to develop a little overlap between the next leader of this district and the questions that you will have during that time, which I will help you through to get to that new point. But I know unless something drastically changes or the board says, "Hey, we can't do without you." But everybody can be replaced and everybody will move on. It's just how you move on. And my job is to make sure that I do the best for this board, this community to make sure that's as smooth as possible. It has been an honor to be here and do the

059things that we have done. It is heartbreaking when you have to do the things that a superintendent has to do. I am not the most liked person or the most loved person, but that's the challenge of being a leader, especially with something so precious as your kids. And no matter what, we have always tried to do what's best for the kids, even at times when it doesn't seem like it. So that's my notice so that you understand that we need to start having discussions probably July, August, September uh into what would be a plan to put into place so that we can try to effectively make that transition. but it's to give enough notice so that we can also develop some things within the budget as well because there are potential costs uh and we

060want to try to be straightforward. So, I've appreciated working for all the board members that I've worked for as well as the boards and doing what we've done. And although I've announced it, it doesn't mean I'm a lame duck. I think anybody that knows me, I will be the superintendent until the very last day that I'm here. and I will still be a wonderful community resident the very following day. So I want to thank you for your time. This is our state of the schools. Our state of the schools is good but we have to be very mindful to try to stay staff strong if possible throughout this process. So any questions for me before I shift to the next portion of my presentation. I want to thank you all. Appreciate it. I want to

061thank Hy for doing such a wonderful job in putting this presentation together and some of the highlight pictures. She's getting really good even though I don't know how to use this presentation device. Uh at this time Oh, go ahead. >> Um I had a couple questions on the material that you just uh presented to us. What was the sit and stare policy? >> The sit and stare policy for Common Core. Um what happened was is New York State required the students all students to sit for the 3 through8 exam when they entered the room and say it was I can't remember how long it's been so long but was it >> two hours three hours? >> It was a two-day event at that time. >> Yeah, two-day event roughly three hours of sitting. A child

062could come in, they'd do their English once they're done with all the questions they didn't get to leave. They had to wait till every other kid was done. They couldn't read a book. They couldn't do anything. They just had to sit there and stare. Some districts violated New York state law and put a book in their hands that violated the testing protocol. >> They was a refusal that opted in instead of >> Oh, >> they did not take the exam at all. >> But in addition, that's what they had to do to stay there. If they opted out and said, "I'm I'm refusing to take the test," they would have to also sit and stare. They couldn't talk, but they had to be in that room. See, sit and stare three through eight is much

063different than required assessments at the high school. And for years, administrators said, "Make it part of the assessment. They won't do that." But they didn't want to listen to us. So, they had that policy. Notice at the high school, everybody takes the test. Otherwise, they don't graduate. >> Okay? And then um you mentioned the comproller has said uh you mentioned financial stress for the district. I was wondering if you could um elaborate a little bit more on the specifics of the financial stress. >> It's a excuse me it's a calculation the comproller does. We've gone up on it and what they say is non I think we're non-desated but we can see his indicator number has gone up. I think it was 10, 20, now it's 30. Uh, and it's a year-to-year calculation. 20. Uh,

064in between one of our years, we went from 10 to zero the next year, even though that was the year we had the challenge. So, his formula isn't necessarily the most accurate, but he's looking at trying to give public bodies the ability to understand that they are facing headwinds. >> Go ahead. So if there's >> Yeah, please. So the people here, >> we will show it in a future budget presentation. We just didn't show it to >> So just for context of what this um report indicates. Well, it's it's an indicator um and something to pay attention to. Um I personally don't put a ton of weight on it if I'm being frank and honest with you. So 671 districts are included in this fiscal stress assessment that the comproller does. Of those 671 districts,

065638 of them have no designation. We are one of them. So most districts per this analysis, there's environmental and there's there's fiscal or financial factors. The vast majority fall under no designation. There are four that are moderate, two that are significant, four that 25 that are susceptible. So the vast majority of schools in the state have no designation >> and we have no designation. >> We have no designation. Even with the 20 points, we are considered a no designation school. >> Okay. >> It's just like a scale. >> I just I was just looking for clarification because he said >> so we do look at it because we have >> our score has changed. So we are mindful of it but we have not um tipped the scale that we are on a watch list.

066Um our scores are comparable to the vast majority of scores across the state. >> Okay. Thank you. And then I just have two more questions. Um you mentioned we are one of the only schools in the area with a resource officer in every building. And so I'm wondering if you can speak to how like um you know if you know if Corning has one in every building or Almyra or Waverly or if you have any idea about Rochester or Buffalo or Syracuse schools what they do for their resource officers. And um then my final question that I have is >> I can take that one. So >> Okay, go ahead. >> One at a time. >> Yep. Uh, as far as Syracuse, Buffalo, Rochester, I don't pay attention to them. Uh, I just know that

067like most inner city schools have some type of security resource, usually with their local police department. Whether it's every school, I can't say. Uh, I know Elmyra has somebody in every school because I talked to the superintendent there. I know there's one up at Bose at Bush campus. Uh, and I know there's one over in Elmyra Heights, but they've got multiple buildings. As far as Corning, I think they do not have them in every single school because they had to reduce like a year ago. >> They did at one point from there. >> Yeah. But I could check into that for a future budget update. >> Okay. I had only asked you said that we were one of the few schools that had it in every building. Okay. Um and then you mentioned something about

068the schedule and you said this schedule is required moving forward um in regard to changing of the schedule. Who is it required by? Is it required by the state or is it just something that we want to do >> it? Certain things have certain minute requirements like PE and so forth but also our contract have required 45 minute special classes. Our schedule has been built around that. It is not changing while I'm the superintendent. >> Okay. So, um the schedule I think I think he's referencing the 4day schedule. >> No, I'm talking the >> hour schedule, right? The elementary school hours, the 6 hour and 40 minute. That's what it is. >> 646. So I was just trying to understand if that is a regulation from the state or if it is a regulation or

069if we have decided that here and if it's something that can change after you retire >> or Right. I'm I mean I just wanted to know >> yeah what it is is the hours and days are state law >> and you must meet them. Right now we meet them by 958 hours for the elementary. Before we were 18 days short if we actually counted the hours the way they were supposed to be. That would translate per building to about a million and two loss in aid every year. Therefore, we had to negotiate it. We did. The time is not changing. Our schedule is not really changing because it's set by the 45 minute cycles that we ended up putting into place to a meet the physical education requirements even though we're 300 minutes out 300

070minutes under what the state mandates. There's no other way. But before we didn't even do half of that. So now our students are getting consistent specialists time as well as they're getting their 80 to 90 minutes in ELA instruction. They are also now getting regular social studies and science instruction where it was uh integrated in uh and so forth but we only have roughly about 14 minutes of play in that 6 hour and 46 minute schedule. >> Um okay so you said we have a total of 958 hours total built into our schedule right now for the school year. Okay. And the requirement from the state is 900 correct. So we have okay the minimum >> not go below it. >> Um can you tell me what the uh what that is for the other

071schools elementary is considered K through six correct? >> Yep. >> Okay. And then for the middle school and high school >> 990 hours. >> It's 990. And how many do we have with our current schedule? >> Uh I think we're about 1,60 or 1 170. 1,60 or 1,7 Okay. And then I did just have one more >> quiz because you said third quarter. So are you meaning at the end of June? >> Whenever I determine it, >> right? Well, when you were saying third quarter through September, July through September is the third quarter. Okay. >> Depending on TRS, I'll decide. >> Okay. That's the That's I was wondering what the third quarter was considered. >> Yum. It's in It's roughly 2027 >> third quarter se Jul July or September. I mean I should probably know

072that but >> calendar third quarter. I wasn't sure if it was a different school >> system. Not not third quarter of the high school year. >> Yeah. I was trying to Yeah, that's what I was trying to figure out. Okay. Thank you very much. Sure. >> Any other questions for Dr. Douglas? Or if not, let's move to the next presentation. Okay. So, let's go to the next item then. Um, thank you for that, Dr. Douglas. >> I'm going to hand it over to Katie at this point. We'll all participate as we need to. Uh, again, this is a cursory overview. It's not really an in-depth discussion on the budget uh at this point. Uh, and that will be following up. I think it's what, February 26th or something. >> We have our dates. >> Thank

073you. All right. Good evening everyone. All right. So, our 26 uh 27 revenue budget uh was rolled out on time uh for us to discuss. Uh so the New York State school aid um increased by 1.3 1.3 33 billion or 3.5% of that total foundation aid for the state increased by $779 million or 2.96%. Uh the school district received the same as the current law that was rolled out last year. Um the thing that did change um was the due minimum. Uh so it went down to 1% this year as a do minimum hold harmless. Last year it was 3%. Um we fortunately are not one of those 1% school districts. Um although 68% of the districts in the state are. Um so for us um we are receiving an increase of $957,000 or 3.4%

0744% which again is on formula. Uh because we're on formula there are some factors that um impact how our aid is calculated. Um our enrollment as we know is seeing some decreases. So as enrollment decreases that does generate less foundation aid uh less kids less aid. However, um depending on the designation of u the population that we serve, um English language learners, uh there's a factor for small area income and poverty estimates and economically disadvantaged that does generate more aid. So, those two factors played together, they washed out. We generated more aid. Um good news. Um, pretty much since uh, Governor Cuomo left the office, um, there have been no proposed changes to our expense driven aids, which is good news. Expense driven aids are um, our Bosey's aids, our transportation aid. So, we're aided

075based on what we actually expend um, based on our aid ratio. There's been proposals in the past of basically lumping them all together and coming up with some other aid calculation that weren't advantageous to districts, but those ideas have fallen by the wayside, which is good news to us. Um, also included in the budget, good news for us is additional funds, $55 million to um maintain the universal free meals for students. Uh there's uh quite a proposal um for an update to the UPK program. Um, I will cage this conversation with districts, uh, various school associations, ASBO, Niscus, and the like. Uh, we still have a lot of questions, so I'm going to share what we know. Um, information is still forthcoming. This is still part of the governor's proposal. We'll see what happens when

076the final budget rolls out, but here's what we know so far. So, the proposed budget for UPK would increase um our aid to be the greater of $10,000 or the district's 2627 selected foundation aid per pupil, which for us is 6,872 or the district's 2526 4-year-old UPK grant per pupil, which is 5,583. So for us, we would be granted $10,000 per pupil. By no later than 2829, all districts uh will be required to provide a full day program. No more half days will be allowed uh for eligible four-year-old children whose parents or guardians choose to enroll them in into the program. There will be no cap on the number of slots. So any um parents that opt to enroll their children into our program uh will be served. Um issues that could arise with this

077with this um mandate to serve as many as um want to be served. Uh we could have issues with our facility space. So these are all um pros and cons that are being weighed with this proposal. Again, um, a lot of questions circulating around this proposal. Um, so I just wanted to throw it out there to let you know this is out there. More to come as we know more. So items not included in the governor's proposal, no surprises. Um, they've again included no funds for prior year adjustments. Uh so this is any money that the state owes to districts. So the state is very clever in that when the district owes the state money, they take it back immediately in the next available opportunity the next year. But when the state owes the district

078money, you are placed in a queue um until the end of time. Um so the Q started in 2013. Um, and every year it's talked about if the uh proposal will include any funds to start reimbursing schools back for the money that they're owed. And it's not happening. So for us, we do have money sitting in year 1 back from 2013 that we are owed of $109,000 that if it's ever funded, we will get $109,000. Um hopeful for those changes to the zero emissions bus implementation, no changes were proposed. Um increases to the capital outlay exemption. So currently, um, school districts can do a $100,000 capital project and get full aid on that the following year. The cost of any kind of work, $100,000 is nothing. You can't do anything with $100,000. Um, so there's

079been a big push to increase that to anything above that amount and it hasn't gained traction and there's nothing in her proposal to increase that. So all told all of our components for state aid, uh, we just talked about our found our foundation aid. Uh we're getting the increase of $979,000 which brings us up to 28 million. Transportation aid is one of those expense driven aids. Uh so based on our current projections, uh this is something we do in house with our fund balance projections based on what we anticipate to spend. Uh we anticipate our aid to go up $598,000. Building aid, this is an important number. I want everyone to look at this. It's going up nearly $4 million, 43%. This is because we will be filing early aid starts. This is something we

080talked about that we do. We're very mindful of the timing of our aid to the timing of our debt. Um, so we are going to be filing to the state our applications for early aid on our high school and our ridge road projects. That aid will that will be granted and we'll be start collecting aid on those two projects, which is why we're seeing that big increase. Uh Bosey's aid again expense driven minor decrease. Um other aid items um includes excess cost aid and instructional materials aid. So that's uh state aid that we get for textbook software and hardware. Uh so all told um we are expecting uh total state aid of $53.6 $6 million, an increase of $5 million or 11%. So again, I want you to keep that building aid number in your

081head because that's an important number we're going to talk about later. Tax cap calculation. Um, we've talked about this every year. I think we all know the components. We're limited to that 2% if it's um less than the rate of inflation. At the time, the 2% was set. Um for the controller the rate of inflation was 2.63%. Uh the taxbased growth factor is 1.0025 down from 1.0068. For context, this is based on new construction, property value changes, and other economic conditions within our community. So plugging all that in um a lot of the data at the top is based on uh pulling the data from the prior calculation applying that growth factor applying the 2% and then over here um the main piece of the calculation is that capital exclusion. This is the local share

082of any of our capital work. So the way this calculate calculation works, it takes all of our debt related to our capital projects and our bus borrowings. We know there's a local share for any of that work that we do or any of those borrowings that we do. So it's any of that debt that we have on hand. So, it's our DSNY bond for referendum one and it's our short-term note for referendum two plus our five five-year notes we have for our bus bonds. Those are offset by the aid um for those items. The difference is that $5 million um which is the local share that we always know that we would have a piece of to pay. That's the part we are allowed to levy a tax on. That's the part that we always

083talk about when we plan capital projects. So with all the components put together, this calculation comes out to a total tax levy of 52,476 642, which is an increase of 2.4 million or 4.995%. And a piece I want to point out that we talk about each year is that we spend a lot of time talking with fiscal adviserss about smoothing out our tax cap. Being very mindful of making sure we don't have the big spikes whenever possible. looking at our debt, looking at our aid, how to best strategize that, make sure we're not um bringing on too much debt in relation to our aid, which is why we did this early aid start because we know we're bringing on more debt to finish the work that needs to be done at Bridge Road in the

084high school. So, for comparison's sake, last year the tax cap raised $2.1 million compared to the 2.4 4 and the percentage was 4.56 compared to the 4.95. So smooth and consistent like our plan is to be. So this is a summary of all of our revenues put together. tax items includes our levy, uh, penalties and interest for, um, any late payments for our taxes, and our pilot payments. State aid we just covered. Um, other revenue includes things such as interest, admissions, any rental income, um, donations, um, the investments from our treasury bills that Dr. Douglas had mentioned earlier. Um, one item of note is that's a loss of revenue for us this year is um, Ammy Heights has built its own bus garage. This is its last year of its contract. Um, so that revenue

085is now removed from the from the revenue budget. Um, appropriated reserves. Um, again, this is up for discussion. This is a number for a jump start of a conversation, but it's a usage of the ERS reserve and the Ebola reserve, which is what we typically use is a as a source for our budget to um close the gap. The interfund transfer is the money we move um or is the money that's moved into the general fund um from school lunch for indirect costs related to overhead. Debt service fund um right now is zero. That's money that we use from the debt service fund to reduce the levy. Keep in mind this is not a revenue source. This is not a gap closing tool. its only purpose is to reduce the levy percentage. So that is

086a conversation we can have later depending on how we feel with the calculation you've seen so far. But please keep in mind it is not a gap closing measure. Fund balance um kept at a million. That's where it's been u the last several years. Um it continues to be a comfortable number um from our perspective. So, I've I've plugged it in at this point. So, total revenue right now um is $111 million, $6 million increase over 2526 or 6%. Any questions on revenue before I move on to expenses? Sure. >> Um, did it say how much we're going to lose once Elmyra Heights has their own? Like how much they pay us rent? >> Oh gosh. Um, let me think. 160. Yes. 160. So they have two contracts, one for maintenance and one for rental

087of space. So between the two around 160. Okay. So, the summary of budgeted expenditures. Um, I do want to uh preface this conversation with um this budget was built similar to what we did last year where there are things we want the board to consider um as additions to the budget that have already been built in. uh just to build them in now and we can talk about them, reduce later, keep them in, but start with the higher starting point versus adding them in later. Um so there's some things in here now that I'm not going to talk about now. Uh sit tight, we'll talk about them on subsequent slides. Uh so salaries um are up by $2 million. Um few of those things we'll talk about on future slides. Um and the remaining of

088that is basically um all of our contractual obligations per collective bargaining contracts um and other course of business increases we've had to update as far as extra hours and overtime and all the other variety of salary related things we have to look at. Um benefits. This is where we budget all of our health and dental claims, our ERS, TRS, social security payments, workers compensation, admin fees. Um, where we pay our um employees who take the buyout if they don't take our health insurance. Um, an item of note in here, we don't yet have our premium equivalent rates. So, the increase that employees will pay for their insurance is not yet in this number. So that will be a um a savings to this number once I have that figure. Um we're working with the consultant

089now um to get those rates. Uh we have the first blush of it but they're still being fine-tuned. Uh so debt service again I asked you to keep in mind that building a figure. So we do have a jump in the debt service and this is because we are borrowing the remaining funds of the authorization of referendum 2 and we borrowed the remaining funds because we taking advantage of getting the remaining aid on the books as well and that's why the tax cap was able to remain smooth. We were borrowing the remaining of the debt. We're getting the remainder of the aid. Uh Bosei services up 719. Um not a bad increase uh for Boseies actually. Uh one of the main components within this number is and we'll talk about this on the next slide

090but why not? I've already opened the door. Um we do have to continue continue our laptop replacement cycle. So funds have been built in for that. Um we have to be mindful of our uh special education programs and the number of students that we're sending and um there's cost increases depending on the number of students need to go to which programs. Um and then just overall operational costs that Boseies incurs just like every other organization incurs for cost increases. equipment supplies and contractual. Um, this applies to all components, all departments of the district. So, this there's a lot within this, but the main drivers of the increase of the $700,000. Um, a big chunk is energy. Um, Mike Cogland, Dandelorum have been working very hard on projecting what our energy increase might be for the

091following year. Um, no small task. Um they're actively communicating updates and gathering data and I'm expecting another update um in a couple weeks. So there may be adjustments along the way throughout the budget process. Um and then just other contracts are we're expecting our our trash uh contract to go up, our time and materials contract to go up, HVAC service to contracts to go up, fire alarm service contract to go up. I think you get the idea. Um just contracts in general are going up, supply costs are going up. Um things of that nature. Inter fund transfer is holding steady. This is money that we transfer from the general fund for money that the general fund owes the school lunch fund and the federal fund. So total expenditures right now total $113 million $ 8.4

0924 million increase or 8%. Any questions? I have a couple questions. Um, when you're figuring in the energy costs, Mike, are you guys trying to get the energy for um, like the new gym and how much that will cost to run and like the additional like the rooms from all the new add-ons and all that? Are you trying to figure that out? construction that quite frankly building that bearable we're working on. I think how many people here got a text from Nice Egg this week that said your rates are going to go up. Yeah, >> we know for a fact next year you're going to see a 33% increase on delivery gas and electric. They've already had that approved. >> Yeah. >> And we are working on that. Uh we do a great job. We

093purchase our energy through OCM Boseis >> Boseis. So we know what our rates going to be. >> Uh they're negotiating on the delivery. But those are all variables we're working on right now. and we're basing off, you know, we're waiting to see our next energy bills that are becoming shortly after a very cold winter month. So, this last two, three years been extremely challenging based off, as I did in my energy um presentation. Since 2021, gas was up 20% and we've seen electric up 91%. And you're seeing it at home. So, this is very ch I appreciate Katie mentioning work in progress. Every Dan and I are spending a lot of time projecting. All right. But I think you've seen in the past we've done awful well with the budget once we're ready. We're just

094not ready right yet. We want all the information we can to make this educated decision. >> All right. Thank you. I was just wanting to make sure that you guys you guys had >> we're all >> you're on it. >> All over it and then some. >> All right. Um, and then when I'm looking at the debt service line, you are saying that that 4 million is being offset by the 3 million that we're getting in the early aid. Was it three or 2.4 in the couple slides up above it? Hang on, I can. For the early aid, you applied for the early aid. the increase in the building aid >> 3.9 >> almost four million. >> Okay. So to the debt service line you're we're getting more money but it's not in that it's

095in a different spot. >> One's revenue one's expense >> and the difference >> chart I did a couple years ago for revenue. >> Yep. aids and revenue expenses. >> So, but the difference is the one and when you were saying uh for the 2.4 million is basically the difference. That's the community share. >> It's always the local share. Yes. >> In the end. So, for the last presentation that you did when I was asking you what our share was and you weren't sure. You were like, I don't want to guess yet. That's what this number is. >> Referendum three. >> Referendum two. You remember we were just at the bus garage and I was asking you what our share was and you said I don't want to guess and we're still trying to figure it

096out because we haven't borrowed the money. >> Are you saying that that 2.4 million is what our local share is >> for this year? Yes. >> For this year. So are we going to have >> you want me to look ahead another year if what our next ban will be in one year? I cannot project that. If you want me to project of what it might look like with Dazney, I mean rates are fluctuating all over the place. Again, I think I what I said I can throw a number out. >> Okay. So, >> we're confident with it because things do change. >> Okay. So, we're not borrowing all of it yet. >> We are. We're done. But we will we have the option based on interest rates at the time to either it could

097be advantageous to do another one-year note or it could be advantageous to convert to a long-term note. And that's something that we'll work very carefully with our financial advisors about when the good time is to convert to that long-term note. So, we really won't know the total local share until next year then because you can't figure that out until we >> borrowing. >> I'm just so I'm thinking of the we had 100 million left on the audit report I think is what it was. I don't know. So, for the local borrowing portion of it, I'm wondering are we going to see another 2.4 next year from it? Like I know we have the early aid. I'm just trying to figure out how much left we're going to see when it's coming on the books. Like

098what that next number is going to be for the following year to think about because I know we have the early aid and it's taking it down and it's pretty smooth. >> Are we going to continue to get extra aid because we've applied for the early aid or will we not see as much of an increase? So then are we going to see like a bigger increase in our local share with not as much aid? So our aid should be fairly set. I mean they'll we need to file our final cost reports get final expenses once the projects are done because early aid starts are based on estimates and we work again very closely with our architect our construction manner manager and fiscal advisors because we have to walk that fine line of we don't

099want to get receive too much aid and have to give a big chunk back but we don't want to be in that position where we receive too little aid because then we're stuck in that queue where we're never going to get the money back from the state till the end of time. Right? So once we borrow once our aid is on the books our aid is aided over the 15 years of the project and that is set. Once we go to DSNY, you recall there's a whole different aid calculation because there's an arrangement between state ed and DSNY about a blended state aid rate that's actually more advantageous to us to go through DSNY because we get more aid. So that aid will change once we go to DSNY >> and it could be less

100or it could be >> better. >> It could be more >> better. >> We'll get more. Yes. more aid, an increase in aid, >> and we'll be in a pool with other districts, which is advantageous to us because it helps all the interest rates. The larger the pool, the more attractive it is for investors to want to partake in it. Um, so there's a lot of variables that play once we go to borrow, but the ultimate goal is that when we're very clear to fiscal and they're very clear with Dazzy when they create our debt schedule that we want things as static as possible because we don't want surprises in our tax levy. So regardless if we ban or if we convert, the plan is to stay as smooth as possible. Yes, I Yep, I

101get that. So this year with the change looking at that summary with the expenditures having it be the 4.2 million. So next year you won't really have any idea what that's going to be basically. or will it be about the same? I'm trying to just think about what next year will look like. So, if we've borrowed it all, we have all the aid. In theory, there shouldn't be a big change. Big changes come when you put on debt without supporting aid, right? That's where we saw the big spike a couple years ago because we had to start the project and the aid hadn't flowed yet and then I said once we have the aid coming things are going to level out and that's where we're at. >> Okay. So we so 28% is not considered

102a big jump >> is >> it's a jump but it's offset by the 40% of building aid increase that you saw on the other side. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Do you have any more questions at this point Katrina? >> No. >> Okay. Please continue. Okay, so these are the items I was alluding to that are in the budget that warrant a little um extra conversation than me just blowing through them on that last slide. Um so health claims we know um have been a challenge. Um we know we have been under budget um or at least claims have been coming in over budget. Um so at this point I have built in a million dollars to the health claims budget. Um I have a separate slide that gives some historical data and

103some projections. So I'm going to leave it at that for now. Um the three assistant principles. This was something that came up last year. Um, we've received some questions already this year, so we want to start providing some information now. Um, we don't have to get into a deep discussion about it tonight, but we do want to start like health claims, provide some information, food for thought, get you thinking, and we can talk more about it at the next meeting. Um, the other ones are a little um perhaps simpler to talk about um but certainly worth a discussion. um as far as what you want to do with them within the budget. Um so recall the last few years because of our budget issues um we've been looking for creative ways to take the stress

104off the general fund. And one of those ways was shifting expenses from the general fund over to the school lunch fund. the school lunch fund the last few years has had a pretty healthy balance um that they were able to absorb all of our school lunch monitors within their budget and we're very appreciative of having that resource to do so. However, we do need to start being mindful of their own sustainability to continue to do that for us. Um, my proposal in the budget right now is to slowly start moving lunch monitors back to the general fund to start taking the stress off of school lunch. I don't want um to save one fund to the detriment of the other, if that makes sense. Uh so this proposal would move three school lunch monitors back

105to the general fund uh for a salary cost of $53,000. Um per Tom's announcement, uh the board will have to make a decision on how they want to uh search for the next superintendent. Um there's a variety of ways they could do so, but if they opted to pay for someone to come in and do that search, uh the cost could be upwards around $45,000. So that money is in there currently. Uh the next three items um really have uh sustainability um concerns as far as if we take them out um what what that means in the long term. Uh, so the transportation truck um was part of a two-year plan. This was in the budget last year and it got removed. So transportation and facilities both needed new trucks and they worked out an

106arrangement where if um one department would buy a new truck and then they would able to swap out um a less old truck for a older truck and get rid of the older truck. um simplest way to say it. So, transportation does need a new truck. Um and this would be a truck, a utility truck that they would use for a wide variety of purposes. Um this the one they would take out on road calls, have all their tools in um etc. And by doing so, the truck that they would be replacing would go to facilities. It's a 2016 vehicle. And then Mike would be able to dispose of an old 2000 truck. Um, so instead of buying two vehicles, we would be able to shuffle some trucks by buying just one. So that would

107be a cost of $80,000. Uh, the facilities cargo truck cost us $64,000. Um, this is one cargo truck that the facilities department has. It's the I believe it's the only truck they have that's a fully encapsulated uh truck bed, truck van um that they use um you know in inclement weather when they have to transport um you know technology and things like that. Our courier uses it to transport our our mail. Um it's old 150,000 miles. It's a 2015. It's breaking down constantly. Um Jason has done his best to keep this thing running, but it's it's becoming a money suck. Um so we need to um we need to get a new truck at the $64,000. Uh laptop replacements. I've already mentioned this one. This is to maintain our replacement cycle uh for laptops for

108our students. Um Bill is looking at ways to trim this back. However, this does become another one of those sustainability things that if we trim this too much, it's kicking the can down the road and we're going to have a large expense at some point down the road to catch it up. Uh, two floating bus monitors. This is another one that comes up each year um for discussion. Uh, we had three, we're down to one. Uh, these are floating monitors whose sole purpose is to be a floating monitor. Um and they are placed on buses who need the extra support, whether it's for student management. Um buses that are, you know, more full than others. Um a student that might need some extra support. Um a variety of reasons why, uh the transportation director might

109assign this particular support to a bus. Uh we have one he's utilized wonderfully every day. Um but the ask um is back on the table um to consider two. So absent um the first two um any questions on the others? Thank you. Um do you know how many laptops we get? I know they're on a cycle, so we're not replacing all of them at one time for that roughly 172,000. >> And if you don't have it now, if you could just get it for us, that'd be great. >> Perfect way to use the walk. taller. >> So, generally each year we try to do about 600 laptops as a rotation to keep that 1:1 from 2 to 12 in um a constant and nice flat line. about $172. Uh $172,000 we'll buy is about 229

110and a third laptop. Um so right now the problem that we are facing is that laptop cost have skyrocketed and they're going to continue to skyrocket over the next 12 to 18 months uh due to the AI RAM um shortages and things of that nature. So um this will be very helpful. Did you say their quotes you're getting have not been lasting longer than seven days? >> No. Dell has made a statement that they will only quote um they will only guarantee quotes for up to 14 days and all the other companies are not guaranteeing any quotes um at all. So I could get a quote, we process and everything and then on the 15th day they could say no, it went up. Um we've already seen that once this year. We're trying to keep

111it down. We're looking at the different specs that we can do with these. Um, but it is it is an expense. And over the last couple years, we've benefited from ESSER funds and other grants which are no longer in play. >> Um, I had a question on uh laptops as well. Um because I noticed that it said that we have one to one for second grade through fourth grade as well. And I'm wondering um if you know offhand how many laptops that is. >> I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but we do provide a cart for every classroom, second grade through fourth grade. Um so for every classroom, let's say we average about 24 to 25 laptops in that classroom. So that usually gives them about one or two spares each

112in case a laptop goes down, they have, you know, every student has one they can uh use. >> And then are they utilizing those laptops all day long or is it something that maybe we can share carts between classrooms and save on that and not necessarily having a 1:1 ratio for the younger grade levels. Um that is something that has been done in the past where sharing but it does become problematic and it does allow there is a lot of coordination between staff that would have to really happen for that to really work. Um but it has been done in the past. So >> because I just remember we had you know the one computer room. I know technology is a little bit different nowadays, but for the younger learners, um I know there's a

113big movement right now away from technology and making sure that learning isn't done on screen. So, I'm just curious if that is an avenue that we can look at possibly for savings. >> Well, just to really to expand on that a little bit is that we also have to look at CBT testing. So, third and fourth graders do take CBT testing. So, we do have to have a computer for each of them when they do test. So to have them already preparing the typing and things of that nature does help. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Question. >> Go ahead. >> So you said we only have one bus monitor right now. So you want two additional bus monitors for 49,000 or is it one bus monitor and then it'll be a total of two? That's two.

114>> This would be two additional. >> Two additional. So then it' be a total of three. Okay. >> And that's what we had in the past. >> Um which is why they ask of two >> for consideration. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Okay. So I'm going to dive in a little bit on health claims. Um again just food for thought here. Um so historical data on health claims um you'll see 22 23 23 24 uh we were over budget. 22 23 24 is when we really were hit hard. Um that's when um basically the healthcare industry really had some price increases, contract negotiations, prescription drugs went up. A whole whole variety of things went on in 23 24. Um after that it kind of became our new norm. Beyond that um 2425 um we budgeted 20

115million pretty much broke even we are projected to be um over by just around a million dollars. Um, at this point, like I said, I built a million dollars into the budget. Um, it's a place to start. Um, working with our consultant, um, their projections are showing 22.7 million for health claims. Um, which puts us, you know, fairly on par with the overage we're seeing now, a little bit higher, $1.2 million over. um issues with health claims. You know, again, we're we're self-insured um which makes things rather unpredictable to plan. We get weekly bills for prescription drugs and medical claims. Um prescription drugs seem to be more of the driver of our cost increases. Um the GOP1 drugs are popular and expensive. Uh specialty drugs um are becoming more expensive. Um the issue with inflation

116and health claims is that inflation tends to lag behind with health claims due to the fact that um the contracts that providers have with um Excelis and whatever insurance carriers uh they tend to last three to five years. So they have whatever cost structure they have with these providers and then once those contracts expire, that's when they negotiate the higher higher costs and then that's when it kicks back to us as a self-insured provider and that's when we're paying more in claims. Um and we don't know, we're not privy to when those claims or when those contracts are up and when they expire. Um, so we have monthly meetings with our healthc care consultant. Um, I've had several conversations um, in preparation for this budget meeting on my own with the consultant trying to collect

117more data. Um, pushing them to, you know, dig a little deeper. Um, you know, here's what I'm seeing from my end in the budget. you just really forcing a conversation of what we're looking at um and coming up with a long-term solution for our claims is difficult. Um it is a mandatory item of negotiation to make any significant changes. I think we already know that. Um, so to find any ways of significant savings is is challenging and that's, you know, that's nothing against the units. That's just the way things work with health insurance. So, we continue to look for those um cost savings measures, look for different rebates, different um programs that we can uh participate in for those savings. Um, the more retirees we can get on that Medicare Advantage plan um is a

118huge savings to the district. Um, I know um it continues to be optional for for many and that's that's fine. Um, but that that is a a big step the district took to uh as a cost savings measure. Um, so claims continue to be a challenge. We continue to work with our consultant. Um but our budget to actual um is going to continue to trend a little bit going to continue to trend behind. Um which is why we project and we start projecting early so we can um start brainstorming um you know looking at the whole picture because obviously we can't overspend our authorization. Um we have never been in that boat. Um, but just being mindful of how our year is going to end. So again, million dollars is in right now. We don't

119need to debate how we feel about that right now. Um, but think about it and we can talk more in the future. So besides what I've put in the budget, is there questions on claims? When you guys are doing this, do you guys ever put together like an additional if we're trending like this what the next five years will look like? Like projections for the next five years >> for health claims? Yeah, >> I can ask our consultant if that's >> something they can do. >> Possible given the volatility of this >> Mhm. >> industry. I can I can ask. >> Well, I'm Yeah, because I'm I'm curious because really over five years times we're looking at a really significant increase. So, >> because again 23 24 was quite an anomaly >> year. I don't

120think anyone anticipated a year like that. >> Yeah. um >> personally. >> So to >> I'm not comfortable really >> providing one to be honest with you. >> Okay. >> Um do you guys ever meet with staff and give them ideas on how to try to help save with health care? For instance, don't go to the emergency room, use urgent care instead, that type of thing. So the staff's aware of how to also help keep the healthare. >> They do offer, you know, >> I just didn't know tips and tricks. >> Do they do presentations or is it just emails you send out? >> Benefits does send out um food forthought things, you know, to, you know, save yourself money and saves the district money. >> Yeah. >> Um some things like that. Yes. >>

121Okay, perfect. >> Yeah, I think that that's a good question, but we have to also be very careful with it because this is an employee right. Uh, also so that the board knows we're not like any other district because we're self-insured. In addition, we have contractual language that was given away by past boards that says any substantial savings, the employees get 50% of that savings. So that's something we're bound by. So that's difficult. So I appreciate that. Hopefully people are listening. I I do believe people try to do that, but um when somebody has to go, they have to go. That's the hard part. But I do think they try to do it. I do wish, just like Katie said, we could get our retirees to understand that our uh metagap advantage plan for them

122is the exact same plan. There is no change and it's much cheaper for them. But unfortunately, we have a contingent in our retiree population that do not trust the district, and I understand that. But if they look at it and they see from other people that have, they've made significant savings and not lost any single portion of their healthcare. So hopefully that will get out there with this message tonight. It would actually cost us a lot more to join a consortium because you have to pay to get into it. And >> there we actually about eight years ago we asked like um Broom Tyogga has one of the best health consortiums. I don't know if Waverly's belongs to it, but I think you're self-insured as well. >> Yeah. Uh and superintendents have had that discussion.

123The hard part about consortium is you have to take their plan and to buy into it, you have to put your risk up front. For us, a larger district has a much difficult time. And then even if you could buy into it, say we had I think at the time we would have had to pay about $10 million to buy into it. But um even if you could, they can also still refuse you because they're going to look at your experience ratings and see if it's worth it for them and that they're going to see benefit. Otherwise, if there's no benefit for them, they won't open the door. There has been discussions among superintendents of forming your own consortium. The difficulty is is you've got to coalesce around one plan and it's sort of like

124merging a district and whichever is the best plan that's going to be coalesed around. So if somebody else and we have a very rich plan most people are going to come up to us and that means they won't want to join with us because it will be very costly for them. So it isn't something that we're against. uh those that have defined plans like Boseies in certain districts uh they're trying to negotiate every year but their negotiations are to remove parts from their plan and I don't think their employees will like that. So I can't guarantee that we have contractual language that prohibits us from doing that in place. So my intent here is to just reference parts of the that's I was supposed to anyways of a topic that as Katie said has come

125up in the past uh the assistant principal and the value added of um expanding our educational leadership capacity in our elementary buildings. Um this need is has been grounded in our district goals. Um the info presented tonight is representation of collection from building leaders, educational leaders and our central office leadership. Um it the intent is just to provide an early look or consideration of this. Um in the past there's been delays to talk about some of the considerations and this is was one of them. We want to make sure we get out info and the the reasoning for these positions uh early on. So there's time to consider and ask questions at future board meetings. So with that said, you'll see that there's three main charact uh categories that pretty much align with our academic

126goals or at least our uh well safety and security of buildings and you'll see that with helps with daily operations. So an assistant principal as you know an educational leader also has the ability to um increase that visibility of all administrators in the building during the day after day um before the school day often being the first face they see. You've seen our principles out at the curb meeting the students as they get out of the car. um and ensures and I want to make sure you see that number. The school can respond quickly to many unexpected situations. Our elementaryaries are now at 530 people, staff and students. Um that's just a kind of an average that what we anticipate for next school year. Um as far as it comes to our cultural and our

127wellness aspects and that for our students, staff, and families, a feeling of belonging. um just being able to respond uh quickly um to all issues, provide support and supervision and evaluations of staff. Our numbers at our elementaryaries are are high when it comes to by uh principal count or by administrator count and shares the responsibility of managing student behavior and support staff and culture and what and wellness. Um, elementary principles often, uh, you know, they're very, all our principles, all our educational leaders are very much involved in the lives of the people they work alongside with and assisting them through tough times and the work that they do. And those supports become a little bit more fraction or, you know, fraction of that as the growth we've seen in our elementary buildings. And lastly, and

128and we've all talked about the multi-ter system of sports and the work that we're doing there and making sure we do it um with intentionality. And you'll see that this engagement in our priority standards work is key. Principles by definition are not just the building manager, but they're the educational leader of that building, ensuring that we move forward with our educational um goals as a system and our academic goals, which now include our behavioral and social emotional. Our portrait of a graduate is clear. It's a requirement that goes all the way down to our pre-K level and making sure that it is implemented. How that's done is we we want to we need to move forward with what's called an instructional round. many people are familiar with through TV shows of the idea of a

129medical round and how you walk around and you you observe the programmatic implementation or what's happening in a classroom not a evaluation of staff member but a litmus test to what's happening in a building or in the instructional and as Dr. Douglas mentioned earlier the idea of the expectation of the delivery of a curriculum and that's what an assistant principal would be able to assist either by alleviating the principle of other uh responsibilities so that they we can make this happen. the fidelity of the the work we've done in our curriculum as you saw during the retreat is has to be implemented and to do that well and it and by all means I'm not saying that it we can do it our principles are capable but there's going to be a stress on the

130system and we're starting to ask too much of that given the capacity of what's required they we need educational leaders and we need them to focus on that and having that support of uh someone side by side as we see in our other buildings is is paramount to making sure we move forward in our academic goals. So, um just that last statement, the workload is of becoming of concern. Um an anecdotal quick story. Um I know at the beginning of the school year as we had the consolidation and trying to maintain culture as Joe worked with the the team, Joe Gler, it was what about all these events? And it was overwhelming to start thinking about Halloween parades and Veterans Day events and other things. And there was even consideration, can we do this? and

131our principles they stepped up and they said we can't we can't cancel this. These things mean too much. So to maintain that high level requires time and and they need to supplement that with the work and the support of being able to do staff supervision um to work with student management to be contacts with the parents to run sim or 504 meetings to a variety of tasks that elementary assistant principal could do. Again these are just data sets. This is your rationale for the position that I thought important to share and then um some some stats to kind of coincide. Now this chart is organized specifically to show you what are some of the supports other buildings have um and by and by you know division. So in other words you have counselors at the

132higher levels. You don't find them at the elementary. School psychologists are pretty much even out. There are some additional needs. You'll see some anomalies in the gardener road column because of a prek program that's there. So you're going to see an additional school psych mentioned in that number. Um but you'll see those numbers of people that might be at the front line of assisting a principal with the elementary building and the day-to-day um operations and what happens in their building. Um and then you see the number of students projected for next school year. And after you get down after the school resource officer, uh a key aspect that the elementary principal will rely on, you'll see the number of students and staff to one administrator and you see the average across our buildings and the

133number of students to one administrator uh and then the staff alone. And you'll see quite the spike when it comes to asking our elementary principles to support 86 staff members by ratio. Um or on average maybe 83 to 84 if you average those out. So really to give the time a day to the staff in their buildings um and to um share in that staff uh support and evaluation is what we look to in an assistant principal did not this is some this is a lot of information that was asked about last year that we didn't form get out in enough time to really have good conversations. That's why we put it out here and then welcome further conversations to figure out you know what comes next and as we go through this uh budget

134process there could be more yeah more conversation on everything here. So with that go over to the overall budget summary unless there were questions about that. >> I don't have a question just a comment. Thank you for doing this. I I remember doing a lot of my own math last year when we were having the discussion so this helps a lot. So, thank you for that. >> I agree. It's very helpful. And a slight improvement, at least for me, because I'm not great at math, is if maybe you could add. So, if the three assistant principles were added, >> show in another column how the ratios would change just in red or something just >> absolutely, we can do that. We talked about that, but it seemed it was getting messy, but absolutely. >> Yeah.

135Now that we have this foundation, right, that could be kind of just something to look at for comparison purposes. Thank you. >> So, I have a question because the numbers was kind of strange to me when I was going back and I looked at um the projection when they did the re when they did the redraw. They said the projection was 460 for Gardener Road in both scenarios for the option A and B. And I see that Gardener Road has 471 um students, which you know is 11 over, but how many preK rooms are included in that total? And then will those prek students be redistributed differently or how will that shift with what's coming in? >> Good question. The prek has been distributed amongst the three buildings for next year. So each building is

136factoring those two preks from Ridge Road going back to Ridge Road. One was at Big Flats I believe and one was at Gardener. They are going back to Ridge Road next year is the projection. So these hold uh Gardener Road at uh a 1212 a ski and two upks and big flats at two I'd have to look the all the current eight classrooms are redistributed to all three buildings. >> Okay. So this number that we're looking at right here is that the redistribution of kids or current kids in current buildings. >> This is the estimated for next year. It's taking this year's kids, rolling them up one year and taking early numbers on prek and K. >> Okay, >> they're just rolling up the kindergarten to first grade and then looking what our what we

137project in prek and K for next year. Okay. Because it seems like with these projections, Gardener Road is significantly higher um than what and the other school districts are significantly lower. >> Okay. >> Um than the projections that they had in both of the redraws for option A and option B. So, I'm wondering if to even things out, maybe there should be some tweaking to lines to keep it more closer to the projections that they actually have because projections for Big Flats and Ridge Road were both at 484 and they're significantly lower at 442 and 457. And Gardener Road projection was 460, but this is higher than that at 471. So >> I think 11 students in a projection that was three years out is pretty good. >> So I just want to point that

138out. These numbers are well within an acceptable range of projection. I also want to point out that Gardener Road holds 36 extra students with a ski and a 1212 program or excuse me nearly 30 something kids more than the other buildings alone. So if you really wanted to you can subtract 30 off the 470 and now they're in line with the others. So again, I Katrina, I feel that the the estimation based on a 22 23 data set that a demographer worked on is falling out pretty well to what we anticipated and I think it's within a reasonable percentage range if we're talking a percent or two. >> Okay. I was just noticing the trend that one is increasing but the other two is kind of decreasing. So that was >> and of course that

139is something over three to four years you're going to want to Yes. as a as a community, you're going to wonder is that the right number? Is there a um a population boom because of housing that happened to pop up that there there's definitely a trend to notice. I don't think this is the early recognition of one. This is a base set year one and but it's certainly something to think about this year to next year and following school years. Yeah. So, if there's a number change, that's something we should pay attention to. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions for Mr. go. Okay. Thank you. We'll move to the last part of the presentation. >> Uh so just to wrap it up, um with the numbers I've presented, we have a um budget

140gap of 2.1 million. Um the tools we've utilized so far are listed below. We've in included the tax levy increase, the reserves, um and our fund balance. So, we'll keep plugging away with uh budget reductions. We can talk about um additional use of reserves and fund balance, but you'll hear from me, as you have in years past, beaten the drum about being mindful of those usage of additional reserves and fund balance, and they aren't uh the solve. Um, and we'll keep an eye on additional uh state aid and the state budget as they continue to do their work. Uh so coming up um okay >> just so that the board knows like we said it's a cursiary look at this right now this is where the budget's at over the next four to five meetings

141we're going to end up having to resolve this I am going to tell you right now my position to the board is tax levy challenge is off the for me. I would strongly recommend by the next board meeting whether you consider you think you even want to try to challenge as your superintendent. We need to address this and Katie business office our team will. That's still a big number. There's still a lot of things that are going to change over the next several weeks as the legislature is just talking about it. There will be something done on state aid because there's too many districts that are at 1%. If they do something there, they've got to do something for the others. We just don't know whether it's good or bad. So, please really keep because

142if you're ever thinking about it, we need to know now because I don't believe the community is going to be accepting of that. Um, so that's that's my take on it. Uh but as we did last year as we went through we sort of crossed some things off. So the earlier we can that's what that next discussion point is. You have some homework to think. If you have questions please get them to Terry. We'll we'll work on them through the presentation. I think we got some direction tonight. Uh especially for uh some a little updates on the assistant principal. Uh and we'll go to work. This is what we do year in and year out to get it. even though we wish we could take a year off every now and then, but um as

143we go through the next dates are up here. And please notice that uh we've tried to change it up just a little to speed up the budget process. February 26 is just a budget workshop. We may have some business here or there. It just depends. Uh we will do transportation, technology, and facilities budget that night. um pretty much the three longest speakers in the district, but I don't know how we did that, but that's okay. >> I'm presenting. >> Okay. Uh then Thursday, March 12th, uh we will really move up the instructional piece. Uh it's still early, but we wanted to have sort of the full budget in place in case the legislature does something, in case we get an inkling, so that we can really focus the last meeting in March on any other

144refinements, reductions, or things that we have to do to get ready whether or not we need the April 16th. Usually, I'm going to tell you, Katie's gonna I heard the sigh already. We're going to need it. Uh but it all depends on the miracles of state ed and whether we can get you to a balanced budget or not uh with the guidelines that we have. But for the most part, count on it. And then ultimately, we have to be through Wednesday, April 22nd, please. We do not want to do calculations that night again. So, we really want to try to make sure that once we take it from March 26 into April 16th, we are finalizing and getting our position so that what we bring to you is the budget. Questions? >> Uh, thanks for

145all this information. I was just curious, you're talking about there are so many schools, the majority of schools in the state are at 1%. Do you know >> that is because it's called safe harmless. In other words, those school districts that are primarily at 1%. They're being guaranteed that 1% because for many many years they're getting more aid than the students that they have. And if they all of a sudden put them at zero, it's going to tank them. Even 1%'s going to tank them. Uh last year they put it at zero. Then they upped it to 3% and we saw an aid increase. This year it's 1%. I'm hearing talk that they're going to be doing two two and a half uh which should go across the formula. >> Do you know of any

146schools that haven't dropped that low or is that an across the board? >> I'm sorry I didn't hear you. >> Do you know of any schools that haven't got haven't been told about that 1%. >> Oh no. Every school knows exactly where they're at. >> Okay. >> That's in the chart for state aid. others. Miss Mon, >> um, thank you again for your team and you putting this together. Um, I think there's a there was a statement made at the very beginning of Katie's presentation and I think it was regarding you said like we're getting less aid because we have less kids. Is that correct? >> And I that's foundation aid. That's right. But so but then when we look at the numbers when we look at the chart for the assistant principles it doesn't

147look like there's less kids. >> What am I missing? >> It's also a there's a statement that was in there. We're getting more because of less kids or we're getting >> less because of less kids. But there's another one. We're getting more because of the needs of the kids. So it's an offset. >> That's just a formula reaction unfortunately. I'm not saying significantly less kids, but it is part of the formula. >> It's like, >> right. >> It It's like going to one of the questions earlier about the elementaryaries and how many are in each. We are going to constantly see a smaller number because right now we used to be at 260 270 for an incoming kindergarten class. It's coming in at 260. Last year, remember how we this year we have some classes

148in K through four that are at five sections. Next year we don't see the need for five sections. So you're seeing that, but that doesn't mean that it's proportional at grade school because we're also seeing an increase, I believe, at the high school for one or two years and middle school. So it's it's that where that bubble sort of goes to. >> And when I mention enrollment, Julie, that is one of many, many components. >> I understand that. I was just when I heard that, I wrote that down and then I was thinking when we looked at the numbers for that were presented for the assistant principal positions. I was looking I was like but these numbers are up from what was presented last year I believe. So I like total total enrollment estimated enrollment.

149>> So I think last year we presented I think we had a I think we used like an average of what we had anticipated for the buildings. They weren't necessarily >> accurate numbers like they weren't like true enrollment numbers because we weren't sure exactly how many were going to land at each building. Okay. >> But we have seen a like a steady slight decline each year. um which does impact foundation aid, but there are other factors that create the ups and the downs within it. >> Thank you. Do you also um just looking at these numbers, do we know what grade level is our largest class? >> And >> give me a couple minutes, I'll be able to tell. Any other questions for Dr. Douglas at this point? >> Well, thank you. We're off and

150running. >> Thank you all for your time. >> Thank you. >> So, does it does the board feel they need a a fivem minute recess or you want to continue on? Good. >> All right, let's press on then. So, we'll move to item six, finance items for action. The first item, 6.01. We have an audit committee report from the meeting on February 9th. So, is Dale. >> Okay. Um, so we had uh Tom Zuber and Julie Keart there. So Tom was there to um do the 2425 external audit report. Um he first talked about the uh single audit. Um he audited the child nutrition cluster with no findings. Um our district is considered in a low-risk audi federal awards. Um but there was no findings there. So we were we were good. So no corrective

151action plan needed. Um and then also did the audit report for the extra classroom activities fund. Um there's always some minor findings that are that are found when extra uh classroom activity is audited and these are all um uh run by students and student adviserss. So there's always changeovers. A few minor findings related to P&L statements, change funds, receipts, gift cards, untimely deposits, sales tax calculations, and inactive clubs. Um we do see this recurring. Um uh Katie has put together a corrective action plan, and we review that corrective action plan, and you'll you'll see it in the list of um items for action. Julie then went through um the internal audit risk assessment update report. So she reviewed the draft of the internal audit. Um the full review of that audit has not been done

152yet with the business office. So once that is fully reviewed with the full business office then the corrective action plan will be developed. Um but just preliminary a few findings um were found within student data and services. again extra classroom um activity which were the same findings that um Tom had found in his audit as well. Um also a few findings within assets and inventory, payroll and personnel and purchasing and expenditures. Nothing major um but just things that again the business office will take a look at and then we'll put together a corrective action report that we will see when we get to June. Um that was it. Thank you very much. So, we'll move then under this section to the items for action. And there's a lengthy list 6.03 through 6.26. So, is there

153a motion? >> Second. >> Okay. So, comments, questions on any of the items pending in the motion. And I would ask you to just identify by number which your question or comment relates to for ease of reference. Katrina, >> I had a question on 3.3, the budget transfers. When you were talking about the um extra language teacher, I'm wondering, is that replacing the French teacher that we lost last year at the middle school? >> No. Okay. And then I had a question on the change order log. Hang on. Um, I don't remember if it was the gym. Yes, the gym. Um, 6.26. Uh, when you go down to the page three, it's highlighted. Um, but there's no cost in that box. So, I wasn't sure if we're allowed to approve it if we don't have

154a cost highlighted in there. That is a cost I I believe and I will follow up. Um that is something that is not necessarily bid it's taken off contract but we're working on that and that contract's already done. I'll have to talk with Mike because he has something with it going on. But you're not approving the cost at this point. It's just that it is there as an active change order at this point. So my question is should there be a dollar amount though there before we approve it? No. >> That could be what is it? >> An independent state bid that is the automatic cost once we know which shot scoreboard clock it is. But at this point I'll have to update you. >> Okay. I um will be abstaining from that. Then the

155six uh 26 just the um high school gym change order log. I don't know if I have to abstain from the whole thing or just that line. >> Okay, I'll abstain from that. Um just wanting a little additional information. Thank you, >> Mr. Cona. I'll abstain from uh 6.13 through 6.17. Okay. Other other questions, comments on any of the pending items? Okay. Seeing none, I'll call for a vote. So, all those in favor of 6.03 through 6.26 say I. >> I. Any opposed? Nay. Any abstensions other than Warren's which was noted at 6.13 through 6.17 and Katrina's which was 6.26. Okay. No other abstensions. So the motion carries. So we'll move to item seven personal items for action. We have an action vote on 7.02 HR recommendations. Is there a motion? >> Some move. >>

156Second. comments or questions on the motion? Sue, >> I want to recognize our retirees. I Amy's was already on here, but recognized that she'll be leaving us a little sooner and that she will be um missed as she was a wonderful art teacher. And to Marty Clark who has been a guidance counselor with us for 19 years. I wish both of these people um a happy retirement. >> Julie, >> um I'm going to if I'm voting no, do I vote no on just a specific part or do I vote no on >> uh if there's you would identify the >> Okay, >> by letter, you know, >> P10 and Q3. Um >> thank you. >> Let me just make sure. Q10 >> Q3 >> Okay. Anyone else to be heard? >> Okay. So, call for

157a vote on the motion. All those in favor of item 7.02 say I. >> I. Any opposed? Nay. Other than Julie's noted for P10 and Q3 voting no. Any abstensions? Okay, motion carries. Item eight, miscellaneous items for action. We have three items for action vote 8.02 through 8.04. Is there a motion? >> Second, >> comments or questions? Julie, >> I just have a question on 8.03. Um, is this is this representative representing us on this Boseies board or is Yeah, the way Boseis does uh their position. They have so many seats. They look to spread those seats out on the component districts. Pam uh went to the Boseis board before. I think this is her second or third time for hurry up. we have contacted and Bosei said she's interested in serving again although she

158is from horse heads we try not to put in another name to so we take up more seats but she is a representative like you are for the entire district not any one group she is a representative for the entire Boseies even though she's from horse heads and it's to keep it that way in that global rank >> we're approving >> I'm sorry we're approving it because she's >> because she's from Thank you for the clarification, >> Matt. >> I need to abstain from 8.02. >> Okay. Anyone else? All right. So, we'll vote on 8.02 through 8.04. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any oppos? Nay. >> Any abstensions other than Matts on 8.02? Okay, motion carries. We'll move to item nine, the board policies section, and we'll start with the policy committee

159report 9.01. >> So, we have first readings of four policies and I'll go through them individually. First, we have policy 4327, homebound or out of classroom instruction. And if you look at the edits, there was a change in the number of hours per week uh for instruction to be provided for both secondary and elementary students. And the reason that these changes were made was to be in compliance with the state law. So that's the reason for the edits on that policy. policy 6630, financial reports and statements. Um, the committee felt that not only does the board receive financial statements uh from September through June every year, but the board also receives statements in July and August. So, the recommendation was to delete the language that said um September to June because we're receiving it year

160round. Um policy 6655 the claims auditor um basically the committee felt that some word smithing was necessary to clarify um some of the sentences. So the was basically word smithing that was done there. And then lastly, policy 6670 petty cashache and pettash accounts. Uh the committee deleted the references to center street elementary school. I think for obvious reasons. In addition, the school lunch account was deleted. Um, the school lunch manager Oh, I'm sorry. Stash that. I'll start over. I misspoke. All right. Uh the school lunch manager has indicated that the high school breakfast account for $40 can be removed from the policy. So that is not shown right now. It will be added next month. This was just uh recent from Katie. And in addition, it will also align with what we passed in our

161July reorganizational meeting. And I'll address that document now because the last big change was the deletion of the um athletic receipt startup fund. So, um, if you look at the, well, first of all, let me start over. It was deleted because it has $900 in it. And by law, you cannot call it a petty cash account and exceed $100. So, obviously, a startup account with $900 exceeds $100. So, it can't be in that policy. So, now the question is, are we deleting the athletic startup fund account? We are not. So, if we go back to our agenda item 11.08 from the July reorganizational meeting and in the July reorganizational meeting 11.08, 08 there was a document called establishing petty cash funds and in that document was the list of petty cash funds but in a

162separate category in that document. Not included in the petty cash section was the athletic receipt startup fund and the concession stand startup fund listed in a separate category not in penny cash. So going forward we will still have the athletic receipt startup fund. We will still have the concession startup fund and they will be voted on in July at every board reorganizational meeting. So it's not in the current policy on petty cash because by law it can't be there. But to reiterate, it has not been eliminated. It will be in the July documentation that we vote on on a yearly basis at the reorg meeting. That's my report. Thank you for that robust some degree complex report. Uh so we have two policies then that are for second reading. So these would would have had

163our first reading at the last meeting uh 9.03 and 9.04. So those are up for second reading and approval. Is there a motion? >> Second. >> Okay. Any comments or questions on that motion? Okay, seeing none, I'll call for a vote. All in favor of 9.03 and 9.04 say I. >> I. Any opposed? Nay. Abstensions. Okay. Motion carries. So then, as Mr. Conklin just walked us through, there are four policies for first reading. So there's no vote or approval, but if any board members have comments or questions they'd like to offer for the consideration of the policy committee, they could do that at this point. Katrina, >> I had a couple of qu I Well, I have a question for 6630, the financial reports and statements. Um, what does it mean specifically financial reports? Is

164it just meaning our expense and revenue reports or is this also including the treasurer's report? Uh because our treasurer's report we don't actually get monthly from the previous month. It's usually a couple of months behind when we receive that. Um so I'm curious which reports they are. I'm not necessarily 100% sure if we want to be deleting this the September to June if we want to make sure that we're getting the most up-to-date monthly financial information. So, I don't know what financial reports is included within this policy. >> I think Katie, can you answer speak to that? >> I can. Okay. Um, so it really speaks to any report that can be considered a financial policy or a financial report. Um, regarding the timing, the policy doesn't speak specifically to when the reports are required

165to be put before the board. There are months when the finance committee meets, say, on the second day of the month, and we simply cannot have the reports ready. Bank statements are not ready. We we cannot turn things around that quickly. So there are months when sometimes we have to double up a treasures report or whatever the report may be. Sometimes our class reports are not ready in that time because their statements are not ready. So it's not a matter of we're not providing them. Um sometimes it's just the time when the information is available to prepare the reports, review the reports, get them to the finance committee for review before we can bring them before the board. If if I can add also just to help with the understanding for everybody on the board,

166the reason why the financial that's you the financial is one of your key duties is oversight. It's not necessarily how to spend it, but watching it. Officially in New York State, the board is only required to meet once a quarter. So that's why the financials are there. We obviously don't, but with once a quarter, you'd obviously have all the financial reports because you'd at least have what up to that point. >> Here, as Katie mentioned, it is sometimes a timing issue. uh boards don't meet every week and depending on when uh the reports come due or when the bills come due or when the uh dispersements come the claims auditor report there will be off off times and off charts uh from one month to the next but the regular reports are regularly done each

167month and if they're missing they're followed the next month and that is the obligation and meets the requirements >> and I can say even when there is a lag. You never miss You never miss a report. >> Yeah. And we actually do more than most because we've done it over the summer as well, even when this policy was in place. We're going to continue doing that. >> Okay. Any other um comments or questions? Okay. Thank you. So, we'll move to item 11 and the first is 11:01. the president's report. I just have a few brief statements uh to pass along as part of the monthly report. So, first I'd like to thank Dr. Tenbus and I appears that she had to leave, but uh as the president of Haps, appreciate her inaugural comments this evening

168under the board's new association speaking policy. I thought that was a really wonderful opportunity to hear from her about the activity of the association that she leads. the there was some feedback that the board received via email to our board mailbox about this policy um and potential changes that we should consider making to it. And so that would be within the jurisdiction of the policy committee if at some point there was a desire to look at that. But I think at this point our intent is to see how their current version of the policy works in practice. And I you know I would submit I think it worked well this evening. So we thank um we thank Dr. Tempmbbus for that. Dr. Douglas, thank you for your state of the schools presentation. Uh certainly an

169exciting time in Horseheads with what we have ahead of us. It was also pretty remarkable to walk through the successes of the past 12 years um and see how much we've changed for the better, but then also somewhat sobering to see the challenges ahead of us. So, thank you for that. and in particular, thank you for your many years of service to the district and education more generally. Um, and you know, sharing your your news about your future plans, but as you said, you're not retired yet, so don't take your foot off the gas pedal. Um, but we we do appreciate all you've done for the district, and I'm sure we'll have a a strong period of finishing out your time. In terms of the budget, I think it was a very good initial discussion

170and we'll now have to begin the pro process in earnest and as was noted we have a number of meetings upcoming for budget development. We will certainly try to be as open and transparent as possible and in particular in particularly oh my goodness it's late in particularly I welcome community members to come out and be a part of the meetings and the workshops and to listen and to be engaged. We certainly value what you have to say and and um as was noted when the dates and the times of those are upcoming. So please come out and share. It's great for the board to hear from you as to your views. Last thing to cover, I wanted to update everyone on the ad hoc committee. We had our initial meeting of the ad hoc committee

171on school start times this past Monday. It was February 9th. I think the meeting went very well. We had uh all but two members of the committee who had um excused reasons why they couldn't make it. So we had 26 folks in attendance and everyone attended and participated and for that I'm very thankful. There are minutes from the meeting which are posted under the board president's report section on board docs. But in to expand on those a little bit, we spent the first part of the meeting kind of getting to know each other, talking about some ground rules, and then uh I led the meeting uh and talked about the background leading up to the the vote when we voted on a high school anchor time, which then led to all of the subsequent uh

172analysis around busing and schedules and whatnot that came up to the ultimate start times. We looked at the motion that was passed by the board to create the ad hoc committee to make it clear what our mandate was, what we were asked to look at and talked through that. And then uh Mr. Gil was there representing the U district administration and he gave some helpful background about the process of analyzing um you know the schedule requirements, the time requirements, busing etc. And we we have a gave out a number of links to prior board presentations to the committee members that uh they'll be able to look at for further background become educated on the issues. We're tenatively planning five additional meetings before as it stands now the motion calls for a report from the ad

173hoc committee on April 22nd. um which is ambitious, but we have a schedule that looks at fitting in five additional meetings before then to do the work of the ad hoc committee. As soon as those are solidified, I'll be sharing that out with the the full group. Um I did raise with the group that you know it's depending on how our progress goes. I mean, I think the group will work diligently, but it's a large task and we may need to come back to the board and seek some relief on that April date potentially into May or June, although June is the latest it could go because, you know, the committee would then dissolve at the end of this current board year. So, but at this point, we're still pressing forward with an April 22nd

174report date. And lastly, uh I've been talking to Dr. Douglas and I feel strongly that given the size of this committee, the importance of the work to the district and um you know the amount of work to get done in a period of shorter period of time that it would really could use a facilitator to assist with that and I by that I mean you know a paid facilitator. So Dr. Dr. Doug has been gathering some information u of a potential opportunity with a I think it's retired sort of school administrator >> school leadership group and we're not we haven't committed anything at this point but that is what I'm looking at in terms of a resource to help us do the work of this committee and then I'd likely just continue to do the

175facilitation from a from a board level if that's the way we go um There will be a cost to that as I said and we don't know what that would be just yet. That's something of course we can talk about but I think it frankly it's very important and well worth the investment to to do that in order for the work to be done properly >> just so I can take up care of up to 10,000 but if it goes above that afterwards >> right um Dr. Jug is just pointing out that the way our if it were a cost above 10,000 the board would have to approve it under our typical um budget transfers process. But if it's under 10,000, it's been within the ability of uh to be utilized under an existing budget

176code without the need for that transfer approval. So lastly, I hope everyone has a safe and restful winter break next week and thank you for the time this evening. And just think the next time we come, it'll be almost March. >> Warm. >> So yeah, I don't know if it'll be warm, but it'll be almost March. >> It'll be almost spring. >> Uh Dr. Douglas was going to speak briefly because he didn't get a chance to cover his um superintendent's report items and then we'll move to board member comments. >> Yeah, thank you, President Christmas. I only have two. One is I just want to remind people the calendar. We will be working on it uh over the next couple of weeks and bring that probably to the first meeting in March uh so that

177people can start their planning for the next year. Uh as I talked to the board before because now we have more time. We have the days. We have more time. We are going to look to try to help curriculum development schedule in some curriculum days uh as half days and stuff for each of the levels. Uh we'll be working on that. So that will be new in the um calendar but also assist in the budget but we want to give people time to plan for that. The other piece is I was notified today um that I'd like to ask everybody to please join in celebrating our own high school English teacher, Miss Beth Rogerio Bell. Uh she works diligently with our kids, but a lot of people don't understand she also works to create publications.

178And we were told today that the New York Times will be focusing a new piece from her entitled A Love Without Language. And this is a a piece that talks about her dad, his background, and her son. And this is a very moving piece uh but I'll put it in the update so that you can read it. Is relatively uh small, but it's it's very powerful. Uh, just so that you know, the recognition continues for Mrs. Bell uh, with her public works. Her writing has previously been featured in Newsweek April 2024 and Newsweek Japan June 2024, highlighting her ongoing commitment to the craft, clarity, and meaning of storytelling. Her achievements reflect the dedication and excellence embodied by the educators here at Horseset Central School District, and we wish to congratulate her on this accomplishment and

179publication. That's it. Yeah. Thank you very much. Congrats. Okay. So, last item on our agenda, 11:02 board member comments. Anyone like to be recognized to speak? Christine? >> Um, just a couple things. So, thank you. Great um state of the school presentation and and thank you Katie and Ann and the rest of the team for the initial budget presentation. Um it's hard to believe that we're back here again and um but thank you for all the initial work and um look forward to well I guess I look forward to it right um seeing how it progresses as we move forward. Um, but just a couple things. Um, you know, since our last board meeting, uh, you know, we had our board retreat and, um, I just want to give a shout out and I I

180made these comments at the retreat, but just want to reiterate, um, at this board meeting just how impressive, um, our curriculum team, the administrators, and our staff are who are working on this. Um, you know, we've we've heard these presentations as part of our board meetings. you know, the public who who tunes in has has heard it, but to actually see it and see the amount of work and the binders of of work and then, you know, the the passion and the and the pride and the excitement. Um, and and it was just a just a fraction of of the people. I mean just the you know this the the administration that was there um the leaders of this that was there to present it and I know there are you know countless teachers that

181have been working on this for years um and you know I wish they all could have been there um to be there as well but you know we got a chance to you know just see the volumes and volumes and volumes of work and I just think that our district is just so fortunate that you know we're not just buying this stuff off the shelf like this is this is stuff that our our professionals here in Horseheads are creating this for our students and and that's that's really special um with the talent and the expertise that we have here in Horseheads. So we're just really fortunate. So you know thank you. They it was it was really it was really neat to see um at that level um deeper than what we see here at

182the board meeting. So thank you for that. And then and then the construction tour um that we got to see, you know, we've you know, I've been here since the beginning of us doing all these all the construction and you know, to get and you know, I've seen how it's progressed and and it was just it's just truly special to see these classrooms and and how they're evolving and to walk into these brand new classrooms and just see the light and the space and just to envision, you know, the the staff and the children in these brand new spaces. And and it's it's not just because they're, you know, bright, pretty walls. It's it's the amount of creativity and the and the and the the just the the happiness and that and the amount of

183um just the the this the setups and the and the just the modernization of these new spaces. It's just it's really incredible to see. and to be able to see the before and after. Um, it really makes me excited from where we have come from the beginning, but it also really makes me anxious because it's so important for us to continue to finish, right? Because because right now the disparity that we have between the old and the new is is really great is is huge. And you know, and we want to make sure that, you know, our all of our staff and all of our students get to experience all of this greatness that we have been building into this district for a long time. But, you know, there's been so many people who have

184really contributed to to all of these new builds. Um, and just, you know, hats off to to everybody. Um, you know, I know Mike Hoglin, you know, he's been in the in the thick of it right from day one. Um, and just it was just really neat to see and just fabulous work and I'm really excited to see it all done. So, nice job. I I really enjoyed all of it the past few weeks. Um, just seeing all the behind thescenes work. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Erin, >> thanks Christine. I agree. Um, I wanted to share about the passing of one of our former employees here, um, this past week. Sharon Tommpkins, uh, age 80, passed away on February 7th. And I just wanted to share a a portion of her obituary. Sharon

185graduated from Horseheads High School and during her younger years worked at Izards. Um after her two children entered school full-time, she spent 31 years to 2010 as attendance clerk at Horseheads High School. She enjoyed her job immensely and was blessed to have met several lifelong friends and thousands of students through the years. I just thought that that was really remarkable. Um, I had the pleasure of working alongside Sharon when she was here and she was just always a smiling face in the attendance office and um, she will be missed. So, I just thought it was appropriate to share that and um, recognize her tonight. >> Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Anyone else down this end before I that more? Okay. Other members? Julie. >> Oh, okay. I was kind of uh you know

186I have a sore neck so I was going to keep look this way and then look that way. >> Um I concur and agree with uh Christine about the board tour was fantastic. So, I won't reiterate all the pleasantries Christine shared, but I would like to say that um I respect your opinion, Dan, that a facilitator would be most beneficial, but I'm against the ad hoc committee. So therefore, I'm against spending taxpayer dollars for a facilitator. I mean, I think the public had its chance on more than one occasion to come in and talk about the start times. We made the decision with the information we had and then all of a sudden people show up and, you know, we could make a new decision and then a new group of people are going to

187come in and say they don't like it. So, it seems like a neverending cycle. So, I would be opposed to spending taxpayer dollars, and I may not have a say in that, but I'd still be opposed to it. >> Understood. Thank you, Matt. Thanks. Uh I I couldn't have said it better, Christine. I echo that sentiment exactly uh with tour and the presentation. We're we're lucky to be here and we're lucky to have you guys. So, thanks for all you do for us and for the community and the students and the staff and everybody. So, thank you for all that. Um, I wanted to um just throw some nods and accolades real quickly to the drama directors as well as uh the coral program here at Horseheads. Uh with the success of the trip down

188to Adelfi University to per participate in the Singstrong festival. Um I was just happy to see whenever we get out of the community and represent ourselves so professionally. So well done um high school coral department and the little mermaid legally blonde. I mean how do you not have fun? It was just amazing. You we we bring out the best. So uh to the drama directors as well as the high school coral program, thank you for bringing out the best of our students. So thanks. Thank you, Julie. >> I agree with all my peers on that side as well um with everything they've said so far. I actually am on the ad hoc committee and I would also state that I'm not sure um I would support a facilitator as well. Um being at the meeting,

189I do understand the size of the group, but um to use taxpayer dollars for it, I'm not sure I could support it. Um, with that being said, I also want to congratulate all the students besides the drama directors who were in the plays um, both at the middle school and intermediate school. Um, exciting times. They were really excited. It was fun to see them like running through the halls and their little costumes and all like the very beginning of the stages of that and um, it's such a great program that's put on. So, congratulations to them. I always want to congratulate the um, cheerleaders who just won sectionals last Sunday. But I also want to congratulate I think the JV and modified cheerleaders also won their sectionals and that's really exciting for what's coming up.

190>> Big week. >> Yeah, it was great. Girls basketball has some big um I think next week they have a big game. Um or >> they have a big game in the Stack Championship if they keep going. >> Yeah, the way they're going this Thursday. >> Okay. I knew it was coming up. So, thank you. So, um next Thursday. >> Next Thursday. Semi. Yes. Okay. So, good luck to them. Um they're on a roll. They're having a great season. So, hope they can continue that. Um best of luck to our boys swim team as they those who made finals and sectionals are this Saturday. And I believe our track and field is um getting ready for sectionals next weekend as well. So, I think I hit everyone there. Um, I want to make sure I

191also give a really big shout out to all the staff who were out there helping with our um unloading of our elementary kids in that cold weather. Um, they're they're just I mean they're just smiling and waving and happy and bundled up, but they're out there doing it. And the it really sets the tone and I think it's really amazing to see them out there doing it because the kids look forward to seeing them. The kids um, you know, feed off their emotions. So to know that they're out there having a great day even if it is that cold. Um I think that's pretty awesome. So that's all I got. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? Katrina. >> Um I would just like to say it was impressive to go on the tour

192of the facilities. Um it is amazing the work that they are capable of doing. Um, I do also think that the presentation we were given at the retreat was excellent and extremely informative and to see how much effort everybody puts into it is wonderful. Um, there's definitely no question that everybody is pouring um a lot of energy into it. Um, that being said, I also do still think that there is a there's a gap between things that are going on and I think that um hopefully we're really focused on bringing that gap together within the district. Um, I want to jump to the drama club at the intermediate school. Like you said, The Little Mermaid was excellent. They did a phenomenal job putting that on. Um, and that was really wonderful. Um, I also would

193like the policy committee to I know it takes a board. Dan mentioned that it's up to the policy committee if they wanted to um reook at the policy that we had received a couple of emails on. Uh, Alicia did come and speak tonight and she was one of the emails that suggested um allowing other people to come and speak on her behalf because she's very busy and it's hard for her to always show up. She had a lot of positivity to bring tonight and I think that that's very fair to allow somebody else in the president's space to be able to come and approach the board and speak to the board. So, I'm hopeful that the policy committee will be able to take a look at that. Um, I'm also on the committee for looking

194at the time changes and I also would not support a facilitator especially given the um current state of the budget. Um, and I also think it's really important, and I said this at the meeting, for um, timeliness and for this committee to be able to bring a recommendation to the board last year. We saw our budget get voted down the first time around, and some of that could very well have been because of people who were upset with the decision of the changes that occurred. and I'm fearful that that is something that could possibly have an effect or impact on it, people who may have challenges with it. So, I think that this committee's work is really important and to um be able to do it timely and to definitely have results to the board

195by that April time frame. Um so, those are all of my comments. >> Thank you, >> Cara. I wasn't going to speak because you guys have pretty much covered it, but I do agree with Warren since I am on the ad hoc committee. I don't really think a facilitator will be necessary for that and I don't think we need to spend taxpayer dollars on that. I think we can facilitate it just fine within our committee. Um, I am upset I didn't get to go on the tour, but I had to work. So, unfortunately, I couldn't see that. It sounded great, and I did enjoy our board retreat with everything the MTSS team shared. So, thank you. >> If I can If you want, all you have to do is just reach out to Terry. We'll

196get your I've done it before for others that have those assignments. >> Just we'll just coordinate a time and take you around. That's no problem. >> Sue, >> I wasn't going to speak either because everyone else covered it, but then they'll say, "Okay, you didn't say anything." Um, the board retreat, I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed um seeing what we're doing, but I also always know there's more work to be done. Um when we went on the facilities tour, I opted out of the gym part of it. They said that was amazing, but it was way too cold for me to be out there that day looking at the structure. I drive by the structure every day. Um but the Ridge Road um construction very impressive. Um it's really going to be awesome. Um,

197I really enjoyed that and um, thanks kudos to all the people and the construction teams out there working in the cold weather, etc. Not so much in ridge but at the um, gymnasium park. And then I also want to say kudos to everyone who was unloading children every day um, where I drop our children off. Um, they're always doing something, having a flag, having, you know, like they're enjoying freezing themselves. I feel bad when the door opens up and they're all frozen out there. I'm like, can you go out soon? Oh, 20 more minutes. I'm like, not for me. So, um, I really appreciate all those people and their smiling faces and as the kids are, you know, getting caught getting out of the car or they forget something and they try to jump back

198in the car for their backpack, you know, it's it's uh they're there helping. So, I do appreciate them. >> Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to just speak for a second. Um I didn't I I appreciate and certainly respect the views of it's helpful to hear from my fellow board members in terms of their view as a whether or not a facilitator is necessary. I'll just say if we don't go that route then the people on the committee are going to have to help do the work right because um there's a lot of work to be done and uh I certainly can't do it all. So I think people just have to recognize that's the case if we don't get a facilitator. I would need some direction right now because I >> to know whether or

199not there's support for this or not. >> Well, we already had four B board members indicate that they didn't support it. Um, but that means there's five that haven't sort of weighed in. But I I need to know because I can't really have a discussion and use my authority up to 10,000 if that's not what the board wants. Does anyone else want to offer a point of view on a facilitator that hasn't? >> Go ahead. >> I think it's a very important committee and I think the four members that are on the board maybe should get together and um talk about how you can make the committee happen. There are other subcommittees of the board who I they were smaller committees and they worked together and and made it work. And yes, Dan, it would

200be a lot of work just for you to do by yourself and definitely you shouldn't do that because you have enough on your plate being the board president and and we don't know if you say, "Okay, he can spend we can spend $10,000 without approval if we would need more than that." and we probably at this point shouldn't use taxpayers money, but I'm not sure how you'll bring it together, but I agree. I would agree with the others. I don't maybe I don't think we should spend taxpayer dollars on it. >> Go ahead, Christine. So the one thing I want to say I mean I you know when you have this is a very controversial topic and it's a topic in which people are very divided right and so and there's a lot of bias

201that is being brought to the table and again I'm not on the committee I don't know how the first meeting went I don't know the community members that are on the committee what they're bringing to the table but I do think it is hard to self-f facilitate that when there are those when there are biases and when there are emotions evol in involved. I mean I just know from the discussions we've had on this topic just as a board it's been it's been difficult. Um and so having somebody having that third-party view at a at it who has no connection to it and no, you know, really no ties to a decision or one way or another, I think could be beneficial um to that facilitation. And you know, yes, does it feel good to

202be pay to be using taxpayer money? I mean, I'm with Warren. I I'm not in favor of the committee either. Um I wasn't at the board meeting the night that it was that the motion was made to have it. Right. So I um I don't think that we should be having this committee, but we are and we're moving forward with it. Um so I think if we're going to do it, we should do it the right way and we should um we should make sure that we're getting the most out of it. Um, we're doing this for the comm for the community. So, I I think if we're going to do it, we should have an external facilitator. >> Matt, >> thanks, Christine. >> I agree with Christine. Uh, this would be a one-time expense

203and this money is already in the budget. Uh, that we're not asking for more. Or is that not correct? >> It's not in the budget at all. Find it in the budget. >> It would be in but it would be found. Is that correct? >> Yes. >> So, I vote yes. I think and I did vote for the ad hoc committee. Um, and my rationale is I think it's wise to review any big change that's made. Um, it's part of change management to really take a look at changes that have occurred, especially something as large as changing school times. Um, so I come at it from a perspective of not for or against, but it's just good practice to review. Um, and I think it's important that, and and I've stated this before, that the

204purpose of the ad hoc committee really shouldn't be a a yay or a nay, but rather a conduit to gather information and data to pull that together to to bring it back to us as a collective board to say, "Hey, these were the findings. These are the successes. These are the failures. These are the tweaks and I don't I don't want to place an opinion on on the ad hoc committee as a whole because I don't think that's fair. I'm not part of the committee. I had given up my seat. Um, so I feel like I feel like having a facilitator that is not part of the core group is important to keep the group on track, to keep the norms and the the focus of why the group is there. um and to help

205pull together what needs to be done in order to facilitate and gather the data. Um so I am in favor of having a facilitator. I think we have in our minds this $10,000 number just because that's what Dr. Douglas has the authority >> what I can do without >> Right. Right. So we don't know what the number could be. So, I would like to see Dr. Douglas go forward and get a quote and then we have more information, right? Um, I don't know if that's an email to us. I don't know what that means, right? >> It has to be a vote of the board if I'm going above it. >> Okay. >> I could officially >> if I started I can start, but I would have to start and say we're only you're only

206approved up to this much. That's easy. It's if all of a sudden, like Mr. Christmas said, it needs an extension or something and goes on, that's that's additional charges. Um, one way or another, depending on the considerations that the group finds and brings back to the district and the board because the district still has to review it too before any recommendation is given >> uh to the board to consider. What happens is committees of this size are going to bog down. >> And I I I'm just giving you my advice. >> You can say spending taxpayers money. No matter who said that this is for a taxpayers's concern, whether you're for it or against it, a lot of people that are on the committee are there because they want to change it. That's not predetermining,

207but I believe they try to be open-minded, right? So, you have to have somebody that's going to be skilled to be able to pull out everything because you don't do in four months what it took my team and administration to do in two and a half years. And anyone around that table does not hardly have the skill set for everything that has to go into a decision. That's what facilitators do. And most people around this table are not facilitators. That's the hard part. But ultimately, I can do up to a certain amount, but I don't want to hamstring Mr. Christmas the committee if all of a sudden we get to a certain point they need more and I can't do it and I can't keep them here unless I have board authorization. >> Right. >>

208So, I would encourage you to support what your board president is requesting. >> I am I am in favor of seeking a facilitator especially for something that's this large and this important. >> Well, I think at the very and I appreciate everyone's input. Maybe at the very least we can just get some additional information about cost like is what we were thinking to do next and share that out. >> I mean initially from what I know five meetings is going to be right around $10,000 to $11,000 just from what's been shared with me. the person in their group tried to look at what if I was doing one hour two hour but most most facilitators are going to be they're giving you because they're not just giving you the cost for that time they're giving

209you for the cost for that time is what else what they need to do for that like using I'll just use NISBA NISBA for 4 hours is going to be anywhere from 2600 now up to 4,300 just for one person to come in and facilitate nine members of a board. Uh the standard rate is about $1,500 a day depending on what the scope is. There's a large scope of people developing surveys, doing reports, doing presentations to try to gather that information. That's what they're going to need even before they can really finite into a price. Plus, they also need the dates because usually the committee has to work with the facilitator's dates. We're asking them to try to sign somebody that's available to work with our dates as best possible. Trina. >> Um, I think

210we did hear from everybody and it was a 54 that people had said that they were not in favor of having a facilitator, but we're still talking about looking into it even though five people said that they did not support that. So, I think that >> yeah, it wasn't a vote. >> It wasn't a It wasn't a vote. We're still at a discussion and there is no motion on the table. But being a part of that committee, I didn't get the feeling in there that people were having a difficult time communicating. I thought everybody was very professional. I thought there were really highly intelligent people in there that could really make it work. Um I don't I don't see a I don't >> we're just trying to gather information as black and white as possible.

211And I think there's some excellent people on that committee. I don't it doesn't there's no bias. There isn't this huge bias. People are there to try to investigate the best things. Everybody's there with good intentions and everybody is trying to do their best. I don't think we need a well I already said that I don't think we need a facilitator. And if for some reason we get really bogged down and we do but that is a huge price tag and we're in budget season with a deficit and public perception is really important. So let's just remember public perception. >> Go ahead, Julie. >> So I know I stated initially that I wasn't in favor of facilitator. However, listening to my peers speak about how this is something for the community and this is something that

212we are bringing the ad hoc committee is bringing back information that could could is the key word there potentially change the way that the district moves forward with something or makes changes to it. I actually think that I would be okay with having Dr. Dr. Douglas proceed with getting at least a quote to understand if a a facilitator would even be available on the dates the med the meetings have been established for the ad hoc committee and then also better understanding exactly what that dollar amount is before we can proceed with going forward but knowing that it is a large group and I agree with you Katrina everyone was very openly communicating in there and it was very well received and very respectful of everyone's opinions and everything was going the right way, but to

213have a professional who's unbiased actually be able to then facilitate us and lead us in a direction of what steps should be taken next, what should that survey actually include, how should we send that survey out, how quickly should we get the survey back, and having someone have an expertise on that so that we don't have to do it as board members and as committee members besides reviewing the information and assisting with setting that up will be very beneficial for us to get actual factual data back that we can then turn around and present appropriately. So, um, after hearing my peers, I will change my opinion to the fact that I would be okay with proceeding with getting a quote for what a facilitator would take or cost and how much or if they're available

214on the dates that we have or what that looks like if we'd have to change our dates for those meetings. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I I just want to say this because there was a little bit of um a response in the ad hoc committee meeting when I said it which I was frankly surprised about. So just to be this is right in the motion I everybody can look at the motion it's in our minutes but this committee was charged with essentially and Julie just explained it well but finding ways to gather information and I think a facilitator would help with that. um compiling it, looking at different things, considerations and producing a report uh which then has to come to the district and has to be assessed and then has to come

215to the board and and ultimately the board may or may not make a change, you know, and the likelihood of any significant considering like what Dr. said how long it took to do all of the planning and implementation of the start times. The likelihood of any significant change to the start times between April and September of this coming school year, I think, is zero. >> And I'm not prejudging the outcome of the committee. I'm just saying even if the committee says we should do that, I don't think that there's be and I would look to the district because you know then it's the district has to do the work about the busing options um and the times and instruction and all those things but I don't think we want to do it in a way

216that's rushed and has a um creates negative implications in the other direction right and so for the public I mean we're we're taking this seriously we're going through the work but I think it's highly unlikely that anything can happen on that fast of a ch timeline. And I believe we talked about that in an earlier board meeting if I remember correctly. So that's just the reality of it. I have to speak to that because when you say that when you're explaining that that was a big reaction to the group and the group all believed that they were there to make a shift and they said there is a big chunk of people that they all communicate with that they believe the community thinks just the opposite that things will shift and change. I don't want

217to continue to get bogged down into this conversation, but I think it's important, really, really important to weigh public perception, especially in budget season. And I think, and I said this at the committee, that I would state it here. I think that if changes, if it's not looked at, if we're not changing something, if we're not discussing it with the public, if we're not updating them, I think that it could be dangerous for our budget. And I'm saying that because I I am nervous about it because I want our budget to pass. Katrina, I just want to be clear because you made two statements that kind of contradicted. You had stated that everybody was there, they're working good, and they're not biased, but you just stated everybody was there and they're looking for a change.

218It can't be both. >> No, they said they were under the impression that they were supposed to be giving information. They said, "I don't think that the public thinks that this is for the following year. we think the public is thinking that it was this year. They weren't saying it in a biased way. They were just simply stating what people had said. >> That's why that's why I just said what I said because uh and anyone that's listening to us and understood the process I think would realize that doing it in an expedited way like that I think would be rash and and wouldn't be prudent. And we don't know yet. One of the things this committee has to do is understand all of the people out there who might think that we're in a

219good position and don't want to see a change, right? And so there's work to be done. Um, and that's why I think we need a facilitator to help us get through that. Did you It looks like you wanted to say something. Well, I just wanted to say I picked up on the same thing. You said there was no bias and then you said everybody's there to make a change. So, I agree it can't be two things. So, it sounds like there is a bias and I think you'll let the cat out of the bag. Christine, >> the other concern that I have too is is I feel like, you know, having this happen around budget season. I mean, I I feel now that there's this threat out there now that if we don't make a

220change to start times, then the community is going or this committee is going to be mad and that it's there's not going to be a support for the budget. I mean, that's that's kind of what I'm hearing being said right now from you, Katrina, right? Is that, you know, it's like you're already planting the seed that there's not going to be support for the budget. And, you know, and so I I I do think that there's a bias there. I do think that, you know, from what I hear from you, which is another reason why I I do feel like it's important that we have somebody external who can who can facilitate that, right? And and I mean, this is an emotional topic, you know, and and there's no way I mean, yes, we need

221to continue to get community feedback and we need to see, but you know, there's also to make a big change. I mean making the change that we made was huge to make a change in the other direction is going to be just as huge for a whole other set of people. So you know that's not something that we can just do overnight. You know that's something that is going to have to take time. So even even if the recommendation came back in April, you know logistically we can't make that change that that quickly. And I mean, I don't think we've ever said that we could do that. So, you know, that has to be I mean, even in the resolution, that was never part of the resolution. It was coming back with a recommendation and

222feedback. >> Go ahead. So, I know Christine wasn't present and she just had a lot of comments that she feels like certain things. All we're trying to do at the meeting is beyond bias and just gather information and report back to the board. That's all it is. >> So, I I think we've covered this topic adequately. >> Is there motion to >> I need some direction. >> You have the five votes. You had five >> there. There were five board members who said they were in favor of pursuing a facilitator. >> Do you want to vote? >> We don't need a vote for then. I think what we heard is Julie would be in favor of having a a facilitator. So you have five board members that would support and Tom can get a facilitator

223and spend up to $10,000 without board approval. So I think Tom >> forward I'll bring a resolution. >> I think I think Tom has his direction. I know this is very frustrating for everyone that's sitting here and we can't we have to move forward. We want this committee to look and analyze the things, the start times. I see the uh elementary children at the end of the day and I see how they are, the ones that are in my home, they're tired. But we need to move forward with the committee and see what people find out. And so if five people are saying go ahead with the facilitator, it's you've I don't know what else you want to discuss. >> Nothing. >> Okay, good. So, is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So, moved. I'll

224make the motion to adjurnn. >> Is that okay? Are you Did you make it? >> I asked for a motion. >> Second. >> Okay. Any comments or questions on the motion? All those in favor of adjourning say I. >> I. Any post? Nay. Abstensions. Okay. Meeting adjourned.