001Okay. Hello and welcome to the February 24th special meeting. Let's stand for a salute to the flag. 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. Roll call for tonight. Mr. Belmont and Mrs. Aragona could not make the meeting tonight. So, we have five members of the board present. So, we have a quorum. Dr. Lynch has asked us to convene a special meeting to consider an addendum to the memorandum of agreement with the Limbrook Teachers Association with regard to a retirement incentive. So I'm now going to turn it over to you, Dr. Lynch. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Dino, and thank you members of the board for coming out on a Monday night after
002the break. So we we greatly appreciate your dedication to to what we're doing here. Uh so to provide a little context as to why we are here. So, we met a few weeks ago to uh establish a retirement incentive. So, we're having um I think it's public knowledge that we're having a tough tough uh budget year. Uh we've probably seen the most historic um deficit that we had seen in in a lot of years. And slowly but surely that deficit has been declining um and been able to kind of be be brought closer together. One of the things that we really needed to get done was we want we wanted to hurry the attrition process along. So, what attrition is is when you have people who are working a 30-year career, they they they come,
003they work their time, and they go and uh and they retire. And it's a wonderful thing. And what that process does, that essentially prevents you from needing to lay off staff because the process will take care of itself. This year, we decided that that attrition process needed a little boost. And so for the first time since 1995, so this district had not done a retirement incentive since 1995, the board came together and they uh established an incentive that uh 10 members of the LTA, that's the Lindbrook Teachers Association. And that would include teachers, psychologists, counselors, social workers, speech therapists, as well as the nurses. It's open to them. And what would happen is if they were 55 years old with 30 years of service credit, um they would and would be eligible to retire by
004June 30th, uh they would be able to get $1,000 for their first 36 days that they had accured, $500 a day for days 31 through 50, and $120 a day for days 51 through 240. So those people who are who must retire um to to to take this incentive would have been effective on June 30th. This incentive was also open to other people who don't have to retire because they're not of full retirement age uh but they would just be have to be over the age of 55. As we started to get into it, what we discovered is that uh with one or two tweaks to the original memorandum of agreement, we would be able to secure perhaps a few other retirements. Uh the goal of this retirement incentive is to bridge the gap. So,
005that's why you're out here tonight because what we would do tonight, you're adopting, I'm asking you to adopt a uh an addendum that simply adds one sentence to the original uh memorandum of agreement and it moves that uh retirement date, that required retirement date back from June 30th to September 30th. What would happen is this would involve now people having the ability to come back, maybe work the month of September as a permanent sub, establish extra time, establish extra sick days, and then we would be able to pay them out and they would be retired effective September 30th. So when we do that math, we wind up, you know, on someone making um $145,000 a year, we net about 130 out of that. So we decided that was well worth it. Um we're at such
006I I can't emphasize this enough. We're at such the point in the budget uh development process that every bit counts. So doing this tonight puts us into into a new category to maybe get someone else. So before we do that, do you have questions for the board? Feel free. I did say to some of the board members, we were unable to live stream last time. So if you wanted to re ask any of the questions that you asked last time, that would be fine of just of what your thoughts on coming to to to have an incentive at this time. Yes. So, I mean, I'll just we did go over this at the last meeting, but because it wasn't live streamed, I'll just want to clarify the whole purpose of this incentive. We're not firing
007teachers, right? We're not forcing anybody to take this incentive, right? That's why it's an incentive, right? It's there just to it's really a way of someone who is close or ready to retirement, giving them some financial benefit to them to retire a year or two earlier than they otherwise may have. And in the process, what it does is it saves the district significant money because that person's generally going to be at the top of the salary scale. And if we bring in someone to fill that spot, it will be lower down on the salary scale. Generally, that's how it's and in some cases there will be also people we may not even be replacing. So, we would be able to to to recoup all of that. And it's not just salary, it's salary and benefits.
008So sometimes someone could that that can ultimately come um a a higher person on the scale about $170,000 a person if we did not replace them at all. Right. And I think the other point that it's important for the community to understand and this was discussed at the last meeting also. So it's you know for those two or three people who actually watch uh it'll be like repeating if you read the transcript of the last meeting but the money that's going to be used to pay out this incentive because in some cases it's tens of thousands of dollars to certain teachers. There's a specific reserve that we have set aside for that, for exactly that, for paying out these types of payments. And it's a reserve that can't be used for anything else. So, it's
009money that's set aside. So, if anyone's thinking, well, why can't they use that to cover these other expenses? It can't be. It's a reserve that only can be used for this exact type of situation or or something akin to this. So, we're really it's money that is sitting there used for this purpose. It's not coming out of a different bucket that could be used for $3.1 million in that fund, right? And and if 10 people took the retirement, how much would come out of that fund? It depends really on the number of sick days, but if they all were to maximize, you know, to get the maximum payout, it would be about $600,000. And the money's there and it's sitting there and it's meant for this exact purpose. Yeah. Okay. Um, do we know yet
010how many teachers have indicated they're interested in the incentive? And how close is that to the minimum we need for this plan to to work and make sense? So I met with the eighth teacher today. So there was a someone who announced their retirement that's you know to still uh so we and we are expecting that two more would come by Friday. So that would be that would hit us that would get us to the to that 10. And is this change to the MOA what is going to get us to that 10? That's correct. Yep. Exactly. Yep. That's why we're having you come out tonight. Okay, seeing no other questions, we don't no need for public comment um because there's no public here. So, I'm just going to read the resolution 25502 G53 be
011it resolved that resolution 251 G26 memorandum of agreement dated January 28th, 2025 between the Lindberg Teachers Association regarding the terms and conditions for a one-time retirement incentive for qualified unit member be amended to reflect the following addition. Addition to paragraph three, application procedure, add option D in first sentence on September 30th, 2025 if the unit member is eligible to retire without penalty pursuant to either TRS or ERS rules and regulations on or before June 30th, 2025. Can I have a motion to accept the resolution? Shannon second. Lunar. All in favor? Um, I do have an announcement if I may. So we we uh we received late breaking word uh that that Zach Tenyas will be going to the wrestling the state championships in Albany this weekend. So uh that is breaking news as a guest.
012Good luck. Absolutely. Okay. So we have a budget work session on March 4th and the regular meeting on March 12th. Thank you everybody and have a great evening. Thank you.