BOE Work Session - March 4th, 2025 - Lynbrook Public Schools

001Okay, I'd like to welcome everybody for our budget budget work session this evening. Let's please stand for salute to the PL flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nationy and justice for all. Roll call. Mr. Belmont and Mr. Murray are not in attendance this evening and I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Lynch to present the budget priorities. Thank you very much, Mrs. Denino. It's good to see a very packed crowd tonight. Uh it's standing room only for those of you who can't see at home. It's uh incredible. Uh so uh normally we would just handle uh the budget over to Mr. Press who would handle the line by line analysis of the of the uh budget for the board. Uh but this

002is a different budget. I have to say I have been in the district for 15 years. I've been preparing budgets uh as business official for 10 of those years. Uh now this will be my second one as a superintendent. And uh by far this was the most difficult budget that we have ever put together. Um and so uh you are going to hear from other districts shortly if you have not already. There are school closings going on. There are people being left off uh laid off. So there's a lot of stuff going on out there. So what I wanted to do was try to kind of present an overall view of the budget and how we got where we are and then hand over to Mr. Press for the uh for the for the details.

003So really uh the the this presentation begins back in September. So in September we had a special budget work session that early because we knew that uh revenue and expenses were going to outpace that expenses were going to outpace revenue. And at that meeting we started to talk about what should be when things get tough and this is tough what are the things that we should be keeping most in mind. So last year we went through the entire profile of the owl process and this year was what I consider year one of the process. So we listen to the community last year that was year zero. This year we really let and I have to say a lot of the work we just had our our uh extended PD session yesterday uh work led by

004teachers looking at the profile of the owl and seeing how that can be built into the curriculum. So really I think before we begin this budget, we need to know what are our priorities. So th this is not stuff that I made up. This is not stuff that the board made up. This is coming directly from the community through uh a series of you know 700 responses on our survey over 200 people in listening sessions. Um so this is what this is where we got this stuff from. So the number one priority that this community asked of us is that social emotional learning and character building should be just as important if not more important than academic learning. That came at a 90% finding. So that is a a really screaming finding and then right

005attached to it that mental health support is essential. And then we looked at some of the the mindsets and traits that we want the kids to have. self-awareness, self-esteem, emotional regulation, open-mindedness, adaptability, resiliency, and strong work ethic. So, that kind of becomes what we would refer to as the soft skills. And I know I've seen in the uh the uh elementary newsletters when the principles uh send them out, their monthly themes are tied to some of that. We've been talking about this in the middle schools and in the high school. So, this is pervasive around uh around our culture now, but we're trying to get more and more into it. But so this becomes the northstar of this budget. We would do everything that we could do to preserve these priorities. Then the academic priorities,

006critical thinking and problem solving are most important and most valued. And that's kind of what we were talking about uh with our faculty as to how we build that into into uh the curriculum. Interpersonal and communication skills especially writing. So uh I did sit in at uh this entire year at the uh English department. I became a member of that department for the year and I was happy to sit with them yesterday and I told them something that I'll just tell all of you right now. We are probably a year ahead of where I thought we would be on this goal because people bought into the philosophy and it's not just happening at the secondary level. It's also happening at the elementary level where the writing revolution is beginning to revolutionize uh the structure. I

007saw a kindergarten class where uh only an English teacher could get excited about this. I saw subjects and predicates from 5-year-olds and that's really awesome. So that we're well on our way to that goal. And then the other one that we've heard loud and clear, I've said this to the community, the one that we scored least well on is that we weren't doing such a good job with what were called real life skills, financial literacy, digital literacy, career and vocational uh pre preparedness. So these become what we invest in because all the money all a budget is is a financial statement of what your priorities are. So you should hear these themes come out in which you're going to they're going to come out right like the these things. I hope so. So uh those

008become the the the important things of the budget priorities. However, at the same time, we get presented this year with literally unprecedented fi fiscal challenges. It's why we had to have that budget work session back in September. Those of you who've been fans of this meeting for the last three years were not surprised because we've been saying state aid's going to drop off. Expenses are growing. There's a fiscal cliff coming. There's a cliff fiscal cliff coming and it's probably going to come somewhere around 2025. I wish we were wrong. We weren't wrong. So we had large expenditure growths specifically in the area of transport transportation, special education and pupil personnel. By pupil personnel, I mean psychologists, social workers and counselors. Uh and then another thing that we did not even have here, you know, if

009you remember, we had contracted security all those years. We also took on a fully homegrown security force. So all of that puts pressure on the budget which really we balanced for the last couple of years on state aid. The state aid disappears and so we needed to last year make up for that and we did it through the use of our reserves. Again, I've said it to this board and to the 30 boards before you. You will hear people criticize districts for having healthy reserves. Don't let anyone convince you that that's the right way to do. I'm sorry, state controller, that's not good fiscal monitoring. You and the community have let us build these reserves so that when we needed them, we didn't have to lay off people last year. We were able to continue

010the program, but as Mr. Press is going to show show you, we spiked our use of reserves, and that's just not good for long-term fiscal health. Concern for not overburdening the taxpayer. That's a polite way of saying we know no one really wants us to pierce the cap. Um that was a sincere concern this year that we may have to come to you tonight and say we want you to consider piercing the cap. But tonight we're not going to be asking you for that. The reason why we have that problem was because back in 232 24 the state gave us a ton of aid and we had the ability to go as a tax cap as a as the our maximum allowable levy 4.74%. Because we didn't need it and the trust that we that

011the community has in us, we chose to leave $ 1.5 million on the table. That was a decision we made two years ago that quite frankly comes back to bite us today because with the tax cap once you leave money on the table you literally never get it back. So we had to consider this year is this the year that we may ask the public uh to pierce the cap. We're not asking you that uh tonight. Put on top of that state aid concerns. So they had basically given us too much aid for a couple of years because they were trying to rightsize money they owed us for the last 10 years. We knew that they were starting to look at the the future of foundation aid and we just knew that we were never

012going to see the increases that we had been seeing in those years. the Rockefeller Institute uh issues a report and we were quite pleasantly surprised this year uh when we were able to see that they did adopt one major recommendation of the Rockefeller Foundation um and that was to uh include real poverty data rather than using 25-year-old uh poverty data. So that was that was good. What's bad? We saw where our expenses are are increasing. There's still no updated special education formula that helps a district like Lindbrook, which is trying to do the right thing by keeping kids home. There is no aid category for all the social emotional investment that we've made in the last couple of years. There is no aid uh for school security. So all of those things go unaded and

013now we're left with the most historic budget deficit that I had ever seen back in uh back in January. So we had to do something. We had to do something big and we had to do something that didn't just save money but actually structurally changed the budget and changed his trajectory. So, too much fanfare, uh, we introduced retirement incentive 2025. In other districts, this would not be such a big deal because they do them every year. You know, when you're looking at documents signed by William Metkiff, that that was the last time one was done was four superintendent ago, that the last time there was a retirement incentive here was 1995. That this was a big deal. So, we went into negotiation with the Lindbrook Teachers Association to see what we could do to encourage

014some people to retire who may not otherwise be considering it. The great thing about this incentive is it doesn't actually touch the taxpayer. We have a special fund that's put aside only to pay out sick time. That's called the employee benefits acred liability reserve. And we were able to tap that to pay for the incentive. We had uh if you ever want to see I wish we kind of had a uh if you want to see a former English teacher and a current English teacher arguing about semicolons that's what Mr. Kersenberg and I kind of did. Uh but what does is mean in that context? You know, so we crafted a a careful memorandum of agreement to make sure that we had it legally correct and then with thanks to this board for coming out

015every single week since the since the uh the holiday break to take some portion of that uh agreement up. So, and I'm happy to announce tonight tonight that that resulted in $1.8 8 million of savings for the district and literally closed the gap that we were needing. For those of you watching at home, and I can imagine who some people may be um sitting at home might be people very early in their career right now. There might be some young teachers sitting on their couches who cannot wait for me to hear these words. There will be no layoffs this year and that is only due because of this retirement incentive. So, you can rest a little easy. uh and because it does two things at once. It closes next year's budget gap, but also it

016takes people off of the roles so that in the future we are able to actually reduce the number of teaching staff through the process of attrition and that creates structural changes to the budgets that um has that happening without accessing staff. I do need to do full disclosure here. So now that was just the good news and everyone's all happy. The one thing we have to keep our eye on is I think it's probably why you see many people dressed in red tonight. Uh we depend on $1.2 million of federal funding. So right now we are anticipating that we will be receiving all that federal funding. If you hear any changes out of Washington regarding the EA grant, the Individual with Disabilities Education Act grant, we fund salaries out of that grant. If that is

017disrupted in any way, either by not appearing or if it is delayed because of New York State's non-compliance with federal law or if there is something where they move it to another department and there's going to be changes in the way the paperwork is done. All of that's bad news for us. I have to say, I've been reading some of this. I haven't seen any of that yet, but I just want full disclosure tonight that we kind of have to um put that out there. But otherwise, the good news is the good news. Why can we actually see? So, let's go back to this one. The structural changes to future budgets. So, what we're what those of you who are here in September heard is that we added 25 to 26 staff members in the

018last four years alone. So we balloon staff with a purpose because of mostly uh to do with the social emotional learning, mostly to do with hiring PPS staff, all with good all with good reason. But at the same time, we need to look at structural changes to our schools in light of this. So we just got our uh our projections. Uh we every year we do a demographic study and what it does it kind of takes a snapshot. So here is the snapshot of the enrollment of the district starting in 2013 and you can see that we are on kind of a steady decline in enrollment. So you can see uh 2013 the year I became assistant superintendent we were over 2,800 kids. Right now in 2024 we're somewhere around the mid uh 2700s. And

019then as you're going to watch the line, we kind of level out for the next couple of years and then we anticipate a large decrease in overall enrollment. So what I want to introduce tonight is a concept of how we're balancing this budget and how we're balancing future budgets. It's going to be through a process of what I call thoughtfilled rehiring. So what normally happens in this district and in most districts is a fourth grade teacher resigns, we hire a fourth grade teacher and it's almost an automatic reaction. Somebody leaves, somebody comes, somebody leaves, somebody comes. What I'm asking all the administrators to do at this point is to really look at our needs and our future needs and say, "Okay, if this resource has left us, if this person has decided to retire, are

020we able to create efficiency with the people who are here already to create a long-term savings?" And why is that important? A, it's the right thing educationally, but B, it saves future jobs because I don't want to be back here again next year or the year after that. So, we want to take very care as we have students walking through the back. That's okay. It's class night. That's that's much more important than what I'm talking about. Uh, so so that's where we want to get to. And, and I have to give credit to uh, again, I don't know with with a lot of the administrators are sitting in the back of the room. I don't know why this pension for Friday afternoon meetings has hit me, but uh they seem to always be in these

021Friday afternoon meetings where we're talking about this type of stuff and it's going to be work that's that's hard. It's but it is doable. I think we have some preliminary plans. Uh Mr. press is going to be presenting an unbalanced budget tonight because we still have some more thinking to do and I think uh hopefully if we get all that together we may be able to present a fully balanced budget as early as next week. So that concept is uh thoughtful rehiring. So that's kind of where this budget comes from and I just want to give you know a couple of big thank yous. So, a I thank this board uh for being so very careful about uh you know, doing your jobs. You know, we asked you to come out and you came out

022again and again and again. Uh you you met you asked tremendously good questions. The last thing folks you want from your board is to just let us do what we we you know, just let's do this. No, they asked very thoughtful questions. They made sure that we had the plan set. They had concern for their teachers. They had concerns for their students and and they did their jobs. I want to thank Mr. Kersenberg and the Lindberrook Teachers Association. Regardless of all the arguing about semicolons, we got it done. Uh and I think that was important that I think that cooperation that we have with our collective, you know, I we always say we don't see eye to eye every day, but when it really hit the road and it was about let's see if we

023can save some jobs, I say I think we got it right. And then the final people I want to thank and I hope I don't get too emotional here. Uh but I had some incredible wonderful conversations with retirees. Uh and most of those you don't know their names yet because last month we did uh kind of the people who were on the block to retire. So, the last couple of weeks have been me sitting down with people who were almost ready to retire, who if you know, you've got another year or two left in you and you really kind of want to do it and they just weren't like kind of psychologically in the place where they were ready to go. And these people came letters in hand and to a person handed the letter

024over and said, "I hope I'm saving a job." And if that is not the owl spirit of the people who are once an owl, always an owl, and whose names we will be announcing next week, um I don't know what is. So that that that's the biggest thank you I have to those people. And I can't say their names yet, but you will hear them their names next week. And quite frankly, Lindbrook, you will be sad that you are lo losing some really wonderful educators. Uh, and I think uh, but you know, and and I got to hear some great stories. I got to hear that I didn't realize that uh, that's the Burn Ciderman Gallery. He was an ineterate smoker and apparently my office used to be filled with so much smoke you had

025to almost like cut the air with it. I mean, these are people who were telling me stories from old Lindbrook that were just like, you know, uh just, you know, when when they came in and Dr. Broy was sitting there and and there's nothing I love more than spending Terry half an hour, 45 minutes, which each of these people and letting them tell me the story of their career and uh and then I always end by saying on behalf of this district and the children you served, I thank you. And uh it ended in tears a lot. and uh and I you know there's just no words to talk about those owls that we're going to be sending off next week. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Mr. Mr. Press who's

026going to do the the line by line. Thank you, Dr. Lynch. Can you all hear me out there? Should I No. Move the mic closer. Is that better? Ah, much better. I can tell. Um thank everyone for uh coming out. Great presentation is up there. Um, you know, I I did I want to really um mirror what a lot of what Dr. Lynch had said um in thanking all the folks involved in this process. Um I think Dr. Lynch won't um bring himself to really thank himself. Um that would be a little odd, but I do want to thank him. Um when I came to him originally and I I said we have a problem. Um after we all freaked out a little bit and panicked um he jumped right into action. Um your central

027office team here um I'm not including myself but um the two folks to my right um really just jumped in as well dug real deep into into um not only the budget but the entire educational program. I'm not sure if Dr. Ble has slept much um in the last month or so. Um they put in a lot a lot of time on that on this budget. Um, and as someone who's not here very long, I'm very fortunate um that they have been here very long because they know this district like the back of their hand. Um, and I also want to thank the administrators in here, our budget administrators, um, who spent a lot of time developing their initial budget only to have us say, "Yeah, go back and and and trim a little bit

028more." Uh, and they did that willingly um, and without complaints, at least in front of me. Um, and it's, you know, on their behalf. Um, as well as I do also want to thank the the LTA for that retirement incentive because that brought us a long way toward our goal. Um, as Dr. Lynn said, we do not have a balanced budget yet. Um, but we are so much closer than I thought we would get um, at this point based on where we started uh, a couple of months couple of months back. So, having said that, we'll just jump in. Um, in terms of the programmatic priorities, Dr. Dr. Lynch talked about profile of the owl a lot. Um but what's on this slide are the uh the things that we focused on when developing the

029budget. So um included in the budget here is a continuation of building out the continuum of special ed at West End North and the high school. Um we continue to leverage our partnership with Northwell Health for social work and mental health support. Um we're integrating ruler program into the classrooms. Uh we are continuing to integrate science of reading and the writing revolution in the intermediate elementary grades. Um and we are introducing uh next year and I guess we started a little bit this year. Uh the micro credentiing opportunities at the high school and I know Dr. Bleis spoke about that um in a previous board of ed meeting. So here's the gap that Dr. Lynch mentioned. We're close. Um the original gap when we started was had a couple of more zeros on there. Um

030so we're close and this is why I believe um we will be able to present uh next week a budget that is balanced. Um we just need to take a look at the responses from uh from the retirement incentive and see how that works with the educational program. Uh how we're going to bridge that gap. Uh we have several options that we sort of threw out on the table. Um Dr. Lynch mentioned some of these piercing the tax cap, accessing positions, um otherwise reducing expenses, using additional reserves and fund balance, uh and uh you know looking at potentially additional aid, state aid from the um the adopted New York State budget. Um so we pretty much immediately ruled out piercing the tax cap, but we didn't feel um as Dr. Lynch mentioned that really that

031was something the community would uh be at all in favor of. Uh and as also as Dr. Lynch said, we've gotten to a point where we don't feel at this point uh in order to bridge this gap, we need to access any positions with the caveat about federal funding. So it really leaves us um looking at these last three options and these are the three that we will take a look at um over the uh the next few days leading up to next Wednesday. So, jumping into the budgets themselves, our superintendent budget is flat and our board of education budget only shows a slight increase. It's largely due to increases in um the cost of actually renting the voting machines and transporting the voting machines here. Um and also, um paying for the uh the

032pole workers themselves. our curriculum instruction and assessment budget. We're seeing a decrease here of just under 10%. Um this is largely due to our adoption of a train the trainer methodology where we um you know we do we pay to send our uh staff out to be trained uh in the in the professional development that we need. Those staff then come back in district and provide the training themselves. So we don't have to um either pay to send our staff out or pay to bring other uh professional developers in. Um and Dr. Bleus feel free to jump in and correct me if I say anything incorrect. I don't Mr. Press. Excellent. Thank you. Uh the other decrease here is in charter school tuition. Um just it's really the reduction of of one student. Um just

033for those I think there was a question about charter school tuition. Um there is a rate that is set by New York State. So if any uh student from uh within the Lindberrook school district uh if their parents choose to send them to a charter school and they enroll, we send them uh this this tuition. Um it's the same tuition rate regardless of whatever charter school they go to because that rate is set by New York State. Okay. Excellent. Moving on. PTSS, personnel, transportation, student support services. Um, here we're seeing this is a sizable increase. This is almost 36%. Um, so there's a there's a there's a story here that I will try to tell correctly and again I will say Dr. Burma, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, around this time last year, uh,

034our main transportation provider um, came to us and said, um, we are unable we're we're choosing not to renew your contracts. We have two contracts um with this provider. One for generally small buses, one for large buses. Um the effect of coming to us at this point when we're presenting a budget um is that we don't have the ability to go back really and change that budget to incorporate uh any increases from having to rebid a contract. At that point, um Dr. Dr. Burman, who has a very good relationship with our provider, was able to negotiate with them to um if they were going to not renew contracts, renew uh choose not to renew only one this year, not both, and then you can not renew the second contract in the following year, which they

035agreed to, which was a huge help for us. Um still resulted in an increased budget for the current year of about $500,000 over what we had budgeted. So, um what Dr. uh Burman and I did at that point in the fall, we said, "Let's get ahead of this. We know they're not going to renew. Um we did a bid for transportation in the fall, which is very early and not usual um for doing this, but we wanted to do so so that we would have numbers that we could plug actual numbers that we could plug into the budget for 2526. So, we did our our bid there. Um the rates came back. They they increased and we knew they would increase. Um just a note that the rates that actually were um bid by the

036company were actually still below what our neighboring districts were pay are paying. So we're still actually doing well even though our our costs have increased. Um having said that when the second bid came back we when we plugged those numbers into the budget um at that point we were looking at an increase in transportation budget to budget about $1.8 million. Um, which again added to adding to all of the other cost increases that we were seeing. Um, added to our consternation, I'll say. Um, Dr. Burman uh went back spoke to the company again and was able to negotiate a a slower increase. They chose not to do increases on one of the contracts um for the for next year and a lower increase um for that second contract. So, we were able to uh on

037that second negotiation with uh Dr. Burman save about another $200,000 there. So, um we're still seeing increases. Um but they're just not as bad as they were when we first got the numbers. Um and so what we're seeing here, the first two bullet points here, increases based on those uh renegotiated and rebided contracts. Um this is not the entirety of transportation. You'll also see transportation in the special education budget and in the athletics budget. Um and you'll see it to a lesser extent um these increases show up at the building level in terms of uh field trips. So good. All good. I did not Okay. Excellent. I'm two for two. U Okay. Uh the third bullet point here again uh so we had our own challenges with our own contracts. Um Nasoboseis handles some of

038our transportation as well. uh they have some of their own vehicles, but they also contract out with other providers and their provider chose not to renew their contract um this year. Uh when they bid that out, they came back with increases at NASA Boseis this year of 27%. And then another 5% next year. Hence, we're seeing a 30% increase in our Boseis transportation. So, um we got hit with a lot in transportation this one year. And now I'll move on because that's a big that's a large number and I don't want to look at it. Um, yes. Yes. Dr. Burman put in she made a yman's effort in in in getting those those numbers down and honestly and I've spoken with other school districts and again the numbers that we're paying now are below what

039other districts are paying. And those districts are now being told by their providers that those providers are not renewing their contracts and they're going out to bid and again they're already higher than us and they're looking at 20 to 30% increases. So So we're paying more but we're we're not doing we're not doing bad. Um finance operations and information systems. Uh this is uh my budget line. Another number I'm not happy looking at. Uh there's an increase there of $353,000. That's uh almost 12% increase. This is largely due to increases that we're seeing in insurance. Uh as I'm sure a lot of you out there are seeing in your homeowners insurance and your auto insurance, our rates have been going up um at doubledigit rates for the last several years. Uh additionally, our main insurance

040carrier um was unable to provide us with flood insurance any longer this year. So we had to go out and get additional separate flood insurance. Uh and then we added in insurance for our underground storage tanks. So um that's contributed fairly significantly. Uh additionally uh every five years or so we have a an outside company comes in and appraises our assets. Um when they came in recently they told us that our property uh assessment increased by about 45%. Uh and so that's hitting this line as well. Well, I do have a meeting with them tomorrow um to maybe yell at them a little bit and see if we can um maybe I'll bring in Dr. Burman. She seems to do well negotiating people uh to maybe not increase the rates as much. Um but I

041did also reach out to our insurance company to see if they could put some pressure on as well uh to see if we can get some savings here, but at the moment um we are looking at a fairly large 43% increase in our insurance. that second line um $13,000 increase in our um financial system. Um we are looking to roll out a timekeeping system um so that we can replace all of the paper that we use here um to keep track of people's time. And I expected at least a little yay from the administrators in the audience, but I got no not even not even a clap. Okay, I got a couple of smiles. This is good. So, that'll go actually a long way to finding efficiencies in our payroll process. Uh, and then position

042control. I won't bore you with the details. Needless to say, I'm kind of excited about that and I think Dr. Burman is also uh debt and interferes. Not much here. Uh, we're in the sixth year of 20 years of debt service. Uh, and that payment generally uh remains relatively flat. There's a slight variance here. and our interfund transfers to support summer special ed. Uh and the food service program is uh flat as well and it continues our $5,000 contribution to the food program. Facilities is up about 3%. Um we're we actually um kind of able to squeeze a little bit in the utilities area. um leaving the rates kind of where they are but um tightening up a little bit on our usage of fuel, oil, electric, natural gas, and water. Um so that's a

043net decrease there. Um it's offset by an increase of $68,000 in our asbestous and lead abatement testing code. So there we are required to test the water in all of our buildings every several years. Um we did that a few years ago. we test uh there was a limit of uh 15 parts per million I believe is the threshold um and so anything that exceeded that we were required to remediate that threshold has been lowered now by 2/3 um and so we anticipate we know from the last time we had some of our water outlets that exceeded that limit but they were below the previous threshold we didn't have to remediate uh we now we're going to have to remediate so there's going to be an increased cost there. Uh in terms of maintenance codes,

044this is at the building level. Um we're increasing those by 10% to really rightsize those codes. Uh and to take into account um the reality in the marketplace with inflation. Um and I'm hoping that's not affected by um any of the any of these the tariffs that have been put in place, but that remains to be seen. Um and then additional increases in HVAC maintenance. Um and then other security supplies and materials and uniforms. Capital projects in the budget. Um slight increase here are $50,000. Uh we are looking to finally um do some renovation on restrooms, the student um bathrooms over at West End. Uh some of them are in very bad need of repair. I'm getting a nod from Yes. Okay. Yay. Okay, we're getting some responses. Everyone, they're not People are not They're

045still awake. This is good. Um, so we're going to redo three of the student bathrooms up there. We're also going to take the opportunity to um carve out some additional um bathroom space for faculty. Um that's been severely lacking in that building. Uh so we're going to take this opportunity to uh to increase the amount of space there. Additionally, um especially because now we have this uh the special ed continuum moving in there. going to have additional staff um in in the building. Uh and then another 150,000 at also at West End um to help build out uh the classrooms needed for the con the continuum of special ed there at West End. On to our school budgets. Uh we're looking here in total elementary and secondary an increase of about 18%. Uh just around

0463% at the elementary schools um due largely to uh increases in uh instructional supplies and equipment and office supplies and things of that nature. Um there's also we're going to see this across the the buildings and athletics as well. Um contractual increases in activity salaries that are the result of our um finalizing of the LTA contract. Um here you we're also seeing an increase of $10,000 in transportation again due to the rebidding of contracts. Uh and that those increases are offset at least in part uh to a decrease of almost $30,000 in textbooks. Uh that is the result of textbooks being purchased uh in the 2020 2425 year that are not needed to be purchased next year. Uh at the secondary schools, uh the largest increase there is again uh contractual activities salaries. Part of

047the LTA contract um is increases of $32,000 in uh instructional supplies which is largely due to supplies needed for new science exams at the middle school level. And then again, uh we're hit with a transportation increase of about $31,000 across all of the secondary buildings. special education, we're actually seeing a decrease here, just over 1%. Um, we're seeing a large uh almost a million dollars of decrease in private tuition codes. Um, for a number of reasons that are listed here. Uh, excuse me. Uh, sorry, water break. Did you want to jump in? I do just want to jump in. because uh this is an important uh because I've been talking so much about the increase in special education costs. It's only fair to know that the the the other side of the story was we

048were doing we were keeping kids home for two good reasons. One is because they liber kids belong in liberals. That's the primary reason. The secondary reason is it is more economical to educate them in our own buildings than it is to send them to private tuition codes. So while those increased costs in special education would be mostly due on the salary line. So we still see you know increase there. What happens is you start to see a decrease on the other side. So that is I'm happy to say as predicted because at one point you start this process years ago and you kind of is it really going to work? Like are we going to really see these tuitions go down? And I think this is the first year we start to see appreciable change

049in those tuitions. So I just that's what I want. That's why I took your water break to throw in this book there. Uh yes. So we and so in this code we we've had a number of students coming back in district. We've had students graduating um from private placement studenting uh students aging out uh as well. So um you know again seeing decreases like this in special ed tent usually makes me a little queasy. Um, but we went over this. I went over this with um uh you know with Susan and this this is real. We know where all the kids who were budgeted in the current year. We know where they are in this year and they're just not in here. Um so that is a that decrease is real. Um we also we

050so we moved uh the Northwell Health cost was budgeted in special ed before. We thought it was more appropriate in the guidance and social work code. So that's why you'll see a decrease here of $132,000. Um here's the another part of that transportation increase, $470,000 due to the re bidding of contracts. Um we've got a $400,000 plus increase overall in related services. This is across all of our buildings and including our out of district placements as well. Um we're seeing in the increase is largest actually in the out of district placements. Um there's a lot of students. So this is students at OOLP or students that are parentally placed. Uh and we're just seeing a lot of increased needs there. So there's an increase in related services which actually is offset a bit um by

051the fact and this is showing up more on the salary slide. The only position we are adding this year to the budget is a 1.0 FTE occupational therapist. This will be the third year um in a row that we're doing this. Um and this is offset by a reduction actually in the related services um code. So we've been bringing we've been hiring occupational therapists um as opposed to bringing them in from outside agencies. Uh and then there's a $106,000 increase in public tuition codes. That's just really due. There's no increase in students there. It's just an increase in the actual tuition rates. Communications and technology were up a combined roughly 8% um almost 9% in the uh the IT side and about three and a half% on the instructional tech side. Uh so variance here

052of 164,000 there's a increase there of 168,000 uh which is largely due to our uh sort of the one to world onetoone um device project. We tend to um we what we do when we purchase these devices for students and staff is we we finance them over a period of years. We typically have three of these finance projects going at any one time. Uh and so every year we we we add one, one falls off. In this case, we've added uh a project that runs over $200,000 for about 650 devices. The project that's falling off was about $84,000 for 250 devices from a few years back. So, um there's there's a shift there. Um and then we've also um sorry, I'm looking at the instructional technology line. Um there's additional um device replacement and software

053products being added to this uh to the Bosey's network administration code from another software code. So, uh that's contributing to the increase there. We've got a $51,000 increase in in the telephone code um due to us having to upgrade our telephones, some of our telephones, and we're also adding additional um new internet lines at each backup internet lines at each of our buildings. Uh and then finally, there's a decrease of 32,000 in district computer repair. Um that's due to uh items that we purchased in 2425 that do not need to be purchased again uh in 2526. Athletics and health up about $130,000. Um this is that third uh part of the transportation increase. So $167,000 increase in transportation. Um which is a large large on a percentage basis large increase in transportation for athletics. Um

054and then we've got contractual increases in coaching salaries and athletic supervision. those next two bullets um offset in part by a decrease in supplies and equipment um there and a decrease in our athletic trainer code. This was a position that was uh contracted in the past um in the uh current year we hired an athletic trainer. So we're able to decrease the athletic trainer the contract services code here. fine and performing arts. It's a decrease of about 10% um largely due to there there being there were coral risers that were budgeted in the current year. Um we purchased them. We don't need to purchase them again next year. Um so that's showing up as a decrease here. Uh and then a slight increase in uh transportation again um due to that rebidding of contracts. Guidance

055and counseling. this uh really this increase is largely because we moved as I've previously mentioned Northwell Health here from the special ed codes. Uh we there were also this is to a smaller degree we had supplies and printing and um postage for guidance at the buildings in this code. Um this year we decided that move that actually out to the buildings. So that's no longer showing in this code. Special programs uh our summer playground, our summer school and adult ed. Um this is an increase of about 16%. Um this is largely due to an increase um as a result of the academic program that we're looking to add uh uh into the summer as well. So uh and then smaller increases um in uh rates for counselors uh and administrators of the summer programs and

056the summer school and and things like that. All right. Uh, salaries and benefits. Salaries, we're looking at an increase of about 2%. Again, this would have been much larger uh in the absence of the retirement incentive. Uh, and the salaries here do include that 1.0 FTE occupational therapists that I previously mentioned. uh these these increases again since we're really only adding the one uh the one new position these increases are largely due to contractual requirements uh in our benefits code uh a lot of increase here um the health insurance is increasing uh because we're building in a estimated 10% increase in the premium uh that's generally what we've been seeing when they do increase rates they held rates fairly steady this year for calendar year 2025 Um, my personal opinion is that that they should

057not have done that because the last time they did that, we got hit with a 15% increase the next year. Um, I'd rather that they smooth that out, but um, I don't make those calls. Uh, we've also seen an actual increase in the number of people participating in our insurance program. Um, and okay, that's all I'll say there. Social Security is going up just as a result of salaries. Um, we have our two pension lines, ERS and TRS. Um, ERS is for our non-instructional staff. TRS is for uh our instructional staff. Um, both rates that we're required to contribute are mandated to us by uh by the state. So, we don't have control over it. They set the rates. The ERS rate has been going up. This is now the second fairly what I would

058consider significant increase in a row. uh last year the rates um went up. The rate went up so much last year that it actually allowed us to have an exclusion in the tax cap calculation. That doesn't happen a lot. Um but that's just a statement of how much it went up. So this year it went up from 15.2% to 16.5% which doesn't sound like a lot but that's actually an 8.6% um increase. That's the the effect of that is 8% 8.6% 6% regardless of whether the salaries increase or not. So we're looking at a total increase there of about 13% in ERS. The TRS rate on the other hand has actually decreased. So it went down from 10.11% to about 9.6% which is effectively a 5% decrease. Um so when when you offset it with

059the increase in salaries that we're seeing the um the net decrease there is only about 4%. So this is our summary of all the slides we presented so far. Um showing our total budget, an increase of 3 point almost $3.9 million. It's a 3.65% budget-to-budget increase. So how do we pay for it? Uh several ways. This is we looking at our local revenue projection. Um not a lot has changed here. I did increase the summer playground um revenue given the um uh the increase in in programs. Actually, this is the point. I should have taken this point earlier. Um to talk about so summer playground, it's a it's a community-based program. Um it should operate at at break even. Um it has not been operating at break even. Um and so we are increasing the

060rates um to to help that happen for this summer. So, the rate for IND district um students for the summer 2025 will be $300. Uh and the rate for um uh non non out of district um non-district resident um will be $330. We're maintaining that $30 difference between the in district and out of district um students. And I just feel like jumping in there just I did some quick math just so you know that even with the increase that is now $3.50 an hour that people will be paying for. So it's a I still say it's a pretty darn good deal. It's a very good bargain. Um our pilot payments payments in lie of taxes gone up about $200,000 there. Um other lines have kind of remained the same uh with a slight increase in

061use of reserves which we'll talk about on the next slide in more detail. Um but our local revenue projection is about $8.7 million. Uh in terms of use of reserves um no change actually no I I apologize. The ERS reserve is increasing from $ 1.5 million to $ 1.7 million. our use of that reserve. Um that's to offset the budgeted $1.7 million in ERS expense. Um all the other use of reserve lines here uh have remained unchanged yeartoyear. Um in terms of the ending balance, you see the the asterisk on the employee benefits. This is that employee benefits acred liability reserve that Dr. Lynch had mentioned earlier. Um the balance there uh represents uh includes an estimate of what we're thinking we're going to pay out as a result of the retirement incentive. We don't

062have those final numbers yet and and really we won't. It's based on unused sick days and we still have the rest of the year u for people to who are retiring to use their sick days. uh state aid revenue projections. We did in the executive budget um see an increase of just over a million dollars in foundation aid. Um I'd like more, but you know what? I'll take a million dollars. Uh the 7% increase there. These numbers that we're showing are um largely from the executive uh budget run. So our transportation aid here has decreased a little bit. Um I I was nerding out a little bit earlier today on um aid ratios. Um because some of these expense these the aid that we receive, they're called expense-based aids. So for transportation, for example, we

063spend money on transportation, we get reimbursed the following year based on what we spent. Um but part of the way they calculate what we get paid is the aid ratio. Uh and those ratios will change on a year-to-year basis. um what's happened and this is not just a Lindbrook thing. This we had conversation with colleagues back in February. Um someone did an analysis and most of the districts in Nassau County, this was a group of Nassau County business officials. Most of them saw their aid ratios decrease. Um, and that's a an effect of um there's a comparison of wealth in Nassau County districts as compared to the wealth of uh an average for the whole state. And so while our our wealth is increasing it's increasing at a larger rate than the rest of the

064state um for example in in what I was looking at earlier today um our the the wealth measure that um I was looking at went up for us about 17% u when it's compared to the statewide average that went up 11%. So we start to continually continually look more and more wealthy uh and that pushes down our aid ratios. So, um, that's the extent of how much I will nerd out in front of this group, but anyone wants to come and talk aid ratios with me. Um, just make an appointment. I'll be happy to talk to you. Um, the Oh, the other increase here, building aid, um, has increased. Uh, that is a function of us closing out some of the capital projects uh, that have taken place throughout the district. So, we're seeing an

065increase there. And so, our total budgeted general fund state aid is just about 21 million. Um I broke out the UPK below the line here. Um this the state when they do their runs like include that 842,000 in the mix. Um but that money is handled separately. It is not used to support the general fund budget. Um that only goes to what's our special aid fund which we call our F fund. Um and basically that money comes in it goes right back out for us to Tiny Tikes and to JCC um for the UPK program uh that they run on our behalf. Um in terms of the tax cap, we'll just kind of go through this fairly quickly. Um the calcul this is the calculation over these next two slides. Um we start with the

066last year's levy in this case 2425. We build there's there's two main factors in here. Um these are factors that are given to us. Um the tax base growth factor is given to us by the state and that's a measurement of the growth in the tax base. Basically, typically that's through um construction. Um it also goes up when you have pilot payments, payments in lie of taxes um when those agreements end and those properties go back on the tax role. Um which is the case here. Um all right. In terms of our pilots, we then we put in uh we add back in the pilots that we are receiving in the current school year. Um we back out these exemptions, basically capital work that we have done that is not offset by building aid. and

067we get to our adjusted prior year levy. That's at the point after that um where we get the adjusted prior year levy where that CPI factor comes in. So the 2% that you see on the cover of News Day when they mislead everyone into thinking that oh your tax cap is 2%. Um very rarely have I actually seen a 2% tax cap. But this is where that factor um is plugged into the equation. Uh then we back out our estimated pilots and we get to our tax levy limit before exclusions and I see people still awake in the audience. This is good. Any no questions so far? All good. Okay. All right. So we take this um this adjusted levy um and then we add in our debt service, our capital projects and the budget.

068Uh the Bosey's capital exclusion which is essentially the um the assessment from Boseis of their capital work that they assess on us. Um and so that's an exclusion here. Um I left the ERS exclusion line in there just to show it was zero this year. It was um it was less a little less than 10,000 last year. We take out our building aid and that gets us to our allowable levy limit uh which is just uh under $79 million uh which represents a $2.2 million um budget-to budget increase in the tax levy or 2.93%. Um so typically this slide um kind of balances out but I have included our gap in here as well. uh we take our proposed expenditure budget, we line up all of our revenue. In this case, our revenue is 31,

069you know,.1 million dollars. Uh and then we would typically add our estimated tax levy and that would equate the revenue and expenses. Um in this case, those two don't balance. So we're showing that budget gap um which again hopefully by next Wednesday we will have eliminated and present with a balanced budget. So, Proposition one is the the uh school district budget. That's what will show up um when voters go to the polls. Proposition two is our use of technology reserve. Um in this case, we are asking the community to approve the use of $400,000 from that reserve. $175,000 on wiring uh replacing the wiring, updating the wiring at the kindergarten center and at on the admin side of that building at Atlantic Avenue. Uh and then $225,000 for device replacements. Um this is uh primarily

070uh this year we're looking to replace the um the the touchcreens, the smartboards at the middle schools. Um and Stephanie just nod or go like this if I'm wrong. The boards there are operating on Windows 10. Is that correct? No, not all of them. Okay. We're just replacing the boards. If you have questions, we could you get into more detail. There's about 46 boards that we're looking to replace um with touchscreens at the middle schools. That part I got correct. Excellent. Um additionally, there's uh replacement. We built in about a hundred um laptops into that number as well. Um so again this is use of funding from the reserve. This has absolutely no effect on the tax levy or the budget whatsoever. This is just us asking the community to pull money essentially out of

071a savings account that we have um that's whose sole purpose is for the purchase of um technology equipment. Similarly we proposition three will be the use of facilities um reserve. Uh the high school here on the old portion of the building is um past its useful life. Again, Mr. Sa just go like this if I'm wrong. Um the roof, yes. Uh the roof itself, the building is fine. The roof has passed its useful life. Um and so we are uh it is in desperate need of being um replaced. The cost of that is about $2.7 million. Uh, additionally, uh, we're looking to renovate, uh, a science classroom at North Middle School. Uh, the their third science classroom up there is, uh, is way too small. It does not allow for the proper, uh, education of

072the students. The students can't do all of the experiments that they are required to do. Um, there's a lot of movement back and forth of classes so that when they're doing these assignments and these experiments, they're going into a classroom that has the equipment and that class is being disrupted. Um, so we're just looking to uh build out and renovate a science classroom so that they have three um functional science classrooms at North Middle School. That's a a half a million for a total of 3.2 million. Um that will leave us with reserve balances in our capital reserves of just over $4 million after that use. Uh again, similar to the tech reserve, this has absolutely no effect on the budget or the tax levy. This is just us pulling money out of the capital

073reserve that has been set up for strictly for that purpose. Proposition four, we're going to ask the community to reauthorize u one of our capital reserves, the continuous facilities improvement capital reserve. Um that reserve was established uh in June of 2020 for a period of 5 years. So that's coming up uh this June. um that reserve was originally established with a capitalization threshold of $12 million. We're just asking for an extension of three years up to a maximum capitalization of $18 million um with funding annual funding thresholds of $2 million, which is in keeping with um the annual funding thresholds in the original proposition. Um just to be clear, we're not looking to accumulate $18 million in this reserve. Um, and even the $12 million, um, we're not even close to that. As I, as

074I mentioned, there's, uh, right now there's about six million in this reserve. So, we fund it and then we spend the money out of it. So, but the way these are set up, we have to set a maximum uh, amount of money that we can put into the reserve. So, we're asking the community to authorize uh, to reauthorize this reserve. Again, no effect on on the tax cap, no effect on the budget at all. Um, so that's really it on the budget. Just reminders, the budget adoption meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, March 12th. Um, our required budget hearing, uh, May 7th. That is the last, um, time we will present the budget to the public. Last day to register to vote, May 14th. Uh, and the budget vote Tuesday, May 20th. Uh polls open

075at 7:00 a.m. They close at 9:00 p.m. Uh and voting is at uh either North or South Middle School or the high school depending on where you live. And with that, I'll just ask if anyone has any questions. Yeah, I mean I I'll just start out. I want to commend uh Dr. Burman, Dr. Blechis, Mr. Press, and Dr. Lynch, who even though he doesn't admit it is secretly a budget official at heart because he he loves the finance side of things. This is actually I know we see some you know increases in this budget about a $3 million increase from year to year. That's actually pretty incredible when you look at what we're facing, right? The overwhelming bulk of it, the largest category is an increase in transportation costs. That's something completely beyond our control.

076And actually in the other direction, Dr. Burman took out a big sting from that by getting that reduced in this coming year. And that was a lot of work on on her part and on the entire administrative team's part. Even with that, we're still looking at $800 or $900,000 just from that area. We have some, you know, contractual increases. That's the other big one. And insurance, you know, insurance premiums are up massively. Um I was at the Boseies meeting because I'm the Boseies rep for the board. Every single district is looking at at least as much on those increases, right? Everyone's talking about the insurance up. Bosey's insurance is up. Um, you know, transport costs are up everywhere and obviously salaries and benefits go up every year. I think this is actually, you know, incredible

077work on on the administrative team's part just to get to these numbers and really constrain costs and what we all know is a really tough year. And a lot of that is the result of you guys seeing this coming 18 months ago and giving us a heads up and doing the work for this year to say we know it's coming. Let's make sure everything else is constrained so we don't have to go to the community and pierce the tax cap and we don't have to lay off teachers and we don't have to really I mean one of the overwhelming themes is uh social emotional protect that area. We also protected the classroom. There's nothing that's been cut or reduced in this budget or held in check that touches the students in the classroom. So I

078just want to commend you guys. I think it's actually incredible that you were able to get us within a rounding error of a balanced budget given what we're facing everywhere else, you know, from the state and everywhere else. Uh I just have a couple of quick questions. Um we Dr. Burman, you were able to, you know, defer some of these transportation increases till next year. Do we have any idea what that amount would be next year approximately? So, one of the decreases that they gave to us was um a couple of percents off of one of the set of contracts. So, next year I would anticipate that we would just be going up CPI. Okay, great. And if if I if I read the bullets correctly, uh of the 870,000 approximately an increases, 600,000 of

079that is for private school/bosies. Yes, that's correct. So that that's a good chunk of the increase that's coming from the private schools. Correct. Okay. Just checking. And uh just to echo what uh Mr. said, "I would also like to congratulate you guys. Two months ago when when you brought this to our attention, the deficit was significantly larger than what we're looking at right now." And yeah, and and um it's uh it's remarkable the amount of work you guys put into this. And you know, we see it. I don't know if the community sees it, but we know how much work you put into this. And we also know uh how you were able to maneuver the these funds and cut without actually hurting these kids at all. There are so few direct cuts, you know,

080uh there are other schools that are closing buildings and laying off, you know, uh a fair amount of teachers and that, you know, could be considered possibly lazy or just not creative. you know, you you guys have definitely put the work in and got creative and it's going to show with with the with the amount of stuff that these students still have at their disposal because of your creativity. So, it's it's a great job and I'll echo what they said. Thank you. Particularly as the new board member, I plague our administration team with questions and taking them up on their offers for meetings. So I very much appreciate really your transparency and your willingness to always meet. So thank you. I have a few questions. A few um Dr. Burman, could you just confirm for

081me please that when we talk about our major transportation provider that is one company correct? Correct. that has routinely given us a break and kept us to CPI and just really done this district a service if I'm understanding all the numbers and the history correctly. Absolutely correct. Independent has been a part of this district for a number of years. Yeah. So, thank you to Independent if you are watching. Um, that was my first question. The next few are for Mr. Press. So follow my notes here in the um central projects budget. So I just wanted to comment on the renovations for the bathrooms and then the classrooms based at West End. Having done the building tour, I am so appreciative that that's being addressed. Um they need to be done. It's not even questionable. I

082just wanted to say that if anyone's been in those bathrooms, this is a much needed project. Um, with regard to the special education slide that you shared with us, I had a question regarding the figures. Do the figures you presented, so this was slide uh 13. Yep, there it is. Do those figures include the 611 and 619 grants that we get for our elementary programs in special education? Uh they they do not. Those uh special ed grants that you mentioned, the 611 619, those are part of the the idea grants that um Dr. Lynch had mentioned earlier. Um those similar to the UPK funding um that I mentioned go through the special aid fund. So does that all go into the F fund and it's separate from general? Yes. So these are these figures here

083that you presented. That's just the cost to the district. That's not the overall cost for educating our students. Correct. Okay. Yes. Um and another comment there if I may. So, I was at North Middle School last Friday for the science fair in one of our special classes and just bravo. Having these kids here doing great work is unreal. Absolutely unreal. Um, okay, that was my question there. guidance and counseling where we moved the um the Northwell expense just that we moved it from guidance to or to guidance from special education. How do we go about ensuring kind of the the oversight of the Northwell partnership or how well it's how well it's working? That's a great question. So, we have bunch of administrators in the in the and we always say we're never going to

084hit one to the one of the administrators unless it's a a question we can't answer. So, we're going to put our rookie up there as if we So, I'm going to ask Mrs. Boyce if she could just address that topic. So, sorry about that, but this will go a long way to rookie of the year. I think this will Good. Of course. Of course. Good evening. Thank you so much for having me. Um, again, as the rookie of the administrative team, I am the liaison for the Northwell partnership through our guidance and social work department. And one of the things that we are working on is better communication with Northwell. As you guys know, this partnership is fairly new, a couple of months, as old as I am here. Northwell Partnership is here. And one

085of the things that I've been able to do is work closely with uh our liaison through the Northwell partnership, Dr. Vera who is in charge of all the processes that we do with crisis in crisis intervention. One of the things that couple of things that we've have set in place after our first initial meeting. One of the things that we do is we do every couple of months we do a check-in to see where we are in terms of the services that they provide. We are doing regular monitoring and accountability which basically is checking in to make sure the response time is accurate. Um the there's no bottlenecking. There's no concerns where students and families are waiting long periods of time for service. Another way that we're um implementing some better measures to ensure that

086our students and families are being serviced is through clear communication. Our direct contact within each building is our social workers along with the school the school um principles and once a referral is made um there's direct contact with the Northwell team directly after the referral has been submitted once the referral has been submitted and a point of contact has been made then there's followup in terms of what what um resources what services that family has been provided. We do have there has been some hiccups in terms of um connection to care. They've admitted to us that since we've been signed on with them, they've picked up additional 20 30 more schools. So, they're very very busy. But their response to that is they've done a lot more hiring. Since then, we haven't seen much lacking

087in terms of um communication and students getting the services that they need. Once we put in the referrals, um the feedback is from families, schools, administrators has been key for us. Getting the feedback from these um these key stakeholders has helped us enhance our overall effectiveness through the process. um the communication from me to the community in terms of through Paris Square and things like that to share some of the amazing things that Northwell does has offered does keep the district as well as the community aware of everything that we're Northwell has to offer. Um we we do agree that you know the the Northwell partnership is fairly new so there has been some hiccups in the road but our challenge is to service students and families to the fullest extent. Thank you so much

088and I know that was thrown at you so I really appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. All right. I think I only have two more. Sorry. I'm really not sorry. Um on slide 21. So this is the local revenue projection. First question is on summer playground and I love summer playground. My own children enjoyed it very much. Can you clarify whether or not is it a net zero? Is there some cost to the district? I know it comes up on the expense side and the revenue side and I didn't flip fast enough to of of course it is illegal for the district to fund a community based program. So, but it's hasn't been net zero in a very long time. So, we the the district has been subsidizing it for a number of years and

089actually even with an increase uh we'll continue to be subsidizing it. So, right. Okay. Um next is on the interest. Same slide. Could you speak to how, and I know we had spoken about this at our meeting, but I thought it would be fun for Mr. Press to answer it in public. Um, could you speak to how aggressive you are with kind of capitalizing on interest possibilities or interest potential for those, you know, revenue bearing funds that we have? Sure. Um we we haven't uh honestly we've been very fortunate in that we haven't had to be overly aggressive in that area. Um we have uh a fairly sizable amount of our funds um in uh NICLASS which is an organization that um works with municipalities and uh we've had a a number of funds there

090um earning interest rates in excess of 5% um leading up to this year. Um the rates there tend to track in the same direction uh as the rates set at the Federal Reserve. So Federal Reserve has been reducing rates. So the rates we've been receiving have gone down. Um they are still in the mid fours 4%. Um but knowing that and I keep a very um close eye on at least what people are talking about. I watch the Fed, I watch their moves and then I read the news about what the plans are. Um when the rates came down, we moved additional funding into NIClass. So we had basically the reserve money which we don't use very often. We use it when the community approves the use but we use little bits at a time.

091Um so initially it was largely reserve funds that were there. Um but we've tended started to move a little bit more of the operating funds there and then pull them out when we need them. Um so we there are periods during throughout the year where we get funds in um in terms of like tax revenue um state aid revenue. It's not a steady flow kind of peaks and we have peaks and valleys. So we'll move money in, we'll move money out to take advantage and try to maximize um interest. So just as a point there, our um interest um income from 23 24 we're tracking to to earn about the same amount this year even though the rates have come down almost a full percent. Sure. I also want to echo and say thank you

092to Mr. Press, to all the administration, all the building administrators, and the LTA for working during this really difficult budget season um for really coming up with a fiscally responsible budget for us. I do have a few questions. Um when we're talking about the OT's, are there any contracted out at this time or are they all I think we're still contracting out OT's say we we do have a couple. Yeah, we we hope to reduce it, but there'll always be need for contracted OT. Okay. And then in the budget, I saw I don't know which page $5,000 towards food program if in the budget um the governor's budget right now she has um for fully funded um meals. Would that eliminate that budget line? No. Oh, no. we would still um I I don't I

093don't know what her plan um would be um but I don't know that it would cover the the cost of the meals that we're serving to students. Okay. Um and then more of a concern than a question just looking at how we're using um reserves for like replacing the roof and renovating rooms. And when we talk about um the aid that we get from the state and everything, I just think that this is something they're not taking into account. All of these buildings, not just in Limbrook, but you know, throughout the state, are old and need repair and they're not giving enough money to, you know, balance our budgets in addition to keeping our facilities pristine and safe for the students to learn in an effect effective environment. So, it's just, you know, really a

094concern. Thank you. Any more questions? I have two more if I may. So, to go to Leslie's comment, and thank you for bringing that up on the food because I wrote it and then forgot it. Um, with regard to our use of reserves, it's actually a double question. First is we always see those articles in News Day and social media, what have you, about districts getting in trouble for their reserves. We're never on that list thanks to you all. But can you speak to um just how we fall into what's allowable versus what gets us into that kind of gray zone? Um it's it's it's a it's a very good question. Um and it it's interesting because there are really not any guidelines on what is and is not appropriate. We do have a reserve

095um plan and in that reserve plan we spell out what it is that we are looking to um keep in reserves. Um but at the you know when the state comes down when the comproller comes down and audits districts and says you've got too much in in reserves. Um actually typically what they're talking about initially what you'll see is people have too much um unassigned fund balance. That's that what's supposed to be 4% the sort of rainy day fund. Um there are a number of districts that exceed that. Uh we do not. Uh that's one of the that's an easy area for the state to come down because there is a law that says that limit is 4%. if you exceed that, they will cite you. Um, outside of that, the other reserves that we

096have, there's really not any firm guidelines on that. Um, I've asked that question of auditors in the past and they're like, well, it's there's kind of generally accepted guidelines, but there's nothing firm on that. So, um, I think the funding levels here and and I mean, Dr. Lynch has a lot more of a history here, um, are very reasonable. um in a in in in a prior district um I I think we skirted the line of what was considered um reasonable and not reasonable but and the levels here are much lower than that. So I think we're we're well below the point where uh the comproller would come in and say you have too too much in reserves and I think the other key is what you mentioned with transparency that you know if we

097are transparent with the community um that's that's to whom we're accountable you know so if if if Mr. Mr. Belmont, we're here right now. He would go on a rant uh regard this because, you know, there are high restrictions as to why we can use that money and what we can use that money for. It's our money. You know, you've given it to us over the course of all these years and you know, when we have fund balance, we put it into those reserves, but that's exactly what it's for. So, we have strived to be as transparent certainly with the board, but with the community every single time that slide up there. Here's what we're using. Here's what's left. Here's what we're using. Here's what left. Here's how we accumulate it. And yes, the reserve

098plan is great reading if it's on the website at any time. Yep. And I just want to add on top of that because you know, we we talk about the controller comes down and you see the stories in News Day about um reserves and fund balance. Um and then uh you know up in Albany, they have billions of dollars in reserves, much more than 4%. Um but we're we're held to four we're held to 4% and and we've done it and we've been able to do that successfully. Uh, I just have one question. If if you go to slide eight, um, one of the pretty large ticket items was a $293,000 increase in insurance premiums. And as I understood it, that was two components to that increase. One was the rate that's going up and

099the other is that they're reassessing our district property and they're using a higher value for that property. Right. Yes. So, you know, for those out in TV land, when you calculate insurance premiums, they charge a rate per thousand or a rate per million on the value of your property. If your home is worth 800,000 and versus 600,000, your premiums are higher on the $800,000 home, even if the rate is the same. You can't do anything to touch the rate. That's going to be set by the insurance company. But is there a process in place under our policy to go back and challenge the TIV, the total insured value of the properties? Uh that was um so I met with the regional director for NICER which is our insurance company uh a couple weeks back and

100we went through all of the different coverages that we have uh and I said that I mean that's that's an the increase there. I said I need someone to explain that to me because we you know Dr. Lynch had told me, I went to him and I I said, "Oh my gosh, maybe the last time they came in was before we did the extension on the high school and he said, "No, they've been in since then." Um, so I we have a call tomorrow um with the uh the company that did the appraisal and I'm going to ask them many many questions about what their methodology is. Um because, you know, it's not an area that I'm I'm expert in. Uh but I do plan to uh follow up that conversation with a call with

101the insurance company again to say you know I you know they I need their help in understanding whether or not that those appraised values are correct and this because this was in our transition period so that I just don't buy it. Uh and the reason I don't buy it is because we purposefully we built 48,000 square feet behind me here and we bought all sorts of casing and we bought all sorts of equipment. We renovated all our science labs back there and purposefully we said, "Can you come in and evaluate?" We paid for it. Normally we get this from our carrier for free. We paid for it that year because I wanted to make sure it was accurate. So if it were to hit, it should have hit two years ago. I don't know why

102we would have a delayed response for a 48,000 foot edition. Why is that not hitting the books until that point? Did they provide a breakdown as to where the increase in values came from? meaning, you know, the high school building is now appraised at 2,000 or $2 million more. Did they give a breakdown? Yes. Yeah. It's done uh it was done by building and then even in some of the buildings um like here there's that um storage building out back they have, you know, appraised value on that as well. Okay. Yeah. Because a lot of insurance policies and I happen to I do this as one of my areas of prime practice is insurance. There is a mechanism under the policy to go and actually challenge it. we where the insurance company has their appraiser,

103we put our own appraiser and then they there's a hearing before a neutral appraiser there. Every policy is different and I haven't I will look at the district policy actually now now that this has come up. Uh we'll chat after about getting the policy but many policies do have a mechanism to go back and challenge it and it's a straightforward challenge. If we can do that that may bring down some of that value right there. One thing that we're very kind of cautious about is like we get their evaluation from their so it's CBiz. It's the famous CBiz that comes in and they pay for that. So they're paying the person that's evaluating which I I did bring up with it's caused for a little thinking. It's no different than any appraisal dispute. The side

104that thinks it's worth more has their appraiser and coincidentally that guy comes in with a much higher value and the side that says it's worth less has an appraiser that says less. So, right, what you're saying is a practical reality. It's not uncommon. So, but that's an area it seems that may be rife for a challenge on a discrete line item that's a big ticket item. Thank you. Two more and I promise they're quick. She said two more before. Oh, I'm sorry. Going to what Leslie had said earlier regarding the aid. So on slide 23, our projected state aid revenue is nearly $22 million. But that's projected, correct? We're not guaranteed. No. No. So some of these numbers, that's a very good question actually. Um some of these numbers are based on uh again I

105mentioned previously they're expense based aids. So these numbers are based on what we had um put into our budget. So there's uh there's a financial form that we file at the beginning of September every year. And on that form, we put in, you know, what were our expenses for the prior year and then we put in what are our budgeted expenses for the coming year. So the last one we filed in September had our budgeted expenses for 2425. These aid numbers are based on what we put in as the budgeted numbers. um if we don't spend as much as we budgeted in some of these areas, transportation for example or Boseies, um we will not receive as much aid as is projected here. Um so so those those numbers can change. They could also change

106between now and when the state finalizes their their budget. Yeah. And very last question, Proposition Three and Proposition 4. Yes. Are those referencing the same reserve funds or different? Oops. too far. Um, so this this is they're both referencing the same reserve. We're pulling the funds out of um this particular reserve, the continuous facilities improvement reserve, and then we're asking um to to um reauthorize that same reserve. Thank you. You're welcome. No more questions. Okay. And I just wanted to say while we're on this topic about the aid, I happen to have been in Albany today and our senator and assembly member recognized from touring our schools. We talked about um the need for these things that are not, you know, accounted for for the aid. Um at this time, I would invite the public

107to come up for public comment related to the budget, but since there's an overwhelming response of the public here, we will skip right over that. Um, our next regular meeting will be March 12th at 7:30 p.m. And I need a motion. Okay. Yeah, just while we're referencing the audience, so the the I do want to thank the administrative team because when we're in when you're in another district, sometimes you find out that people are protecting their kingdoms. And when we came to them and they said, you know, folks, we need you to produce like a million dollars worth of cuts. They just came and they issued a million dollars worth of cuts, you know. So, we have very serious conversations, wants and needs, and everyone wants their wants. That's what makes them wants. Uh, but

108the fact that they were able to say, okay, is this a want or a need? And kind of really take a look at that. Um, and we didn't have to cajol them, we didn't have to trick them, we didn't have to bribe them. uh they saw on our faces that this was just real and uh so I thank them very much for all the work that they put in. So great job. Thank you. I need a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Second, Mrs. Kellya. Thank you. Have a great night everybody.