001and welcome to the Monday, February 2nd, 2026 special board of education meeting and budget workshop. Um, please join me for the pledge of allegiance. 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 >> this evening. We'll begin with recognition. >> Yes. So, we have uh quite a bit of recognition and it's perfect that Tucker Bernett is here with us as a student board member. So, congratulations to Tucker. uh he recorded his 1,00 1,000th career point for boys basketball. So just kudos to >> um I do want to just a shout out to all the different staff members at each building at KCH at the middle school and the high school. Um this week
002we have launched change for hope. And so um an organization called Griffin's Guardians was actually founded by one of our graduates, our Marcellis High School graduates, uh Aaron Angel, and her um son at a very young age passed away um from cancer. And so we are supporting Change for Hope in all of our buildings. And um we're thrilled that we can do that for a member of our Mustang band. And then I do want to give a a huge shout out to Lisa McLaclin and the girls softball team. So they sponsored the second annual fatherdaughter dance this past Saturday. And uh it was just extraordinary. The pictures are incredible. If you can see here, this is looking down at the DMS gym, the new gym, and there were so many fathers and daughters. I think
003they sold 200 tickets. So multiply that by two and we had a around 400 um fathers and daughters there. It was a great success and um Lisa obviously had the help of her uh softball team but also many staff members were there on hand supporting um just a great experience for our kids and our dads. And then I do want to just uh give a shout out to our combined wrestling team. So, we combined with Anandaga Central Schools um and they won several weeks ago uh the section 3 dual meet tournament at Indian River um and they are now section three champions for uh 2026. It really is the first ever for Mercus for wrestling. They did compete at states over the weekend. Unfortunately, they didn't they they advanced pretty far. They went to the
004semi-finals but didn't quite um go further. But again, just a tremendous season for our wrestlers. And then um I feel like Lori Updike, every every time I turn, there's another accolade that she's winning. But this is huge. So, um she was recently the section coach of the year for NFHS and she now uh they've re she received a letter soon after she um got the award of section coach of the year and she was named national coach of the year. So, just an incredible honor. Um and at that same event, Lexi Fragito was named all-American girls soccer player. So just incredible um accolades for Marcelus um and again we're we're proud that they are fellow Mustangs and that is it >> and we're shifting actually to the budget presentation that's part of the budget workshop.
005>> We'll move on to presentations and go over the budget presentation. >> Thank you. Um so everybody should have your budget binders here in part of meeting to seeing those every year. Uh so this is the uh 26 27 budget the initial presentation. Um Jean go to the next slide. So I just going to talk brief briefly give you an overview of the budget. Um how it was put together the two sides of the budget. Obviously, the expenditures I'll go through first the money that we're spending. Uh then the revenues that are coming in from state and property taxes. Talk a little bit about the governor's proposed budget which uh came out on January 22nd which kind of outlines gives us our first idea of what we're going to see as far as state aid
006goes. And then the dreaded budget gap. So the the difference between the revenues and expenditures that we need to close between now and May. Uh I do want to just note to everybody here and anybody watching that this is not a draft budget. So what I'm presenting is an estimate of what our if we were to continue our current level of service into next year. What would that cost us? Right? So this isn't amount of money yet that we're proposing to spend. It's how much money would continuing what we're doing right now today cost next year. Hopefully you can kind of you can read this uh but this is a comparison year overyear uh 2526 is the budget initial budgeted amount. Of course the school year is not over yet so we don't know what
007the final 2526 uh expenditures are going to be but broken down by major category. So uh for salaries you can see it over a million dollar increase projected for next year. Um, most of our employees are contracted labor. So, we had salary increases baked into their for cost of living into their contracts. So, not a lot of control we have over that. Some very minor equipment upgrades. That's staying pretty flat. Contractual expenses about $150,000 increase. Um, that's mostly for things like gas and electric are a big part of that. Um materials and supplies are staying pretty flat. Uh you can see a jump there in Bose services that tends to happen. Uh you know as I'm looking back budget to actuals year over year over year we see that kind of growing the budget line
008growing but those are services for our students that are going off campus. Um so we're expecting that to go up again next year. Debt service is uh essentially mortgage payments on bonding that we have for capital improvements. That's stuff that's already been approved by the voters and by you and now the bill has come due. So we know what that's going to be. Employee benefits is another large number nearing again a million dollars. Uh we're seeing a larger increase in that this year. I'm going to talk about that a little bit, but um the bill from for employee healthcare is going up quite significantly. We I expect we don't know for sure yet, but uh higher than normal next year. So the bottom there, we're looking about a $2.5 million increase in spending ballpark initially
009and there's just kind of a pie chart showing, you know, what does that all make up? You can see 75% almost of our expenditures are salaries and benefits. Um, another large chunk there are is debt service. So there's not a whole lot of trimming. There's not a lot of places in the budget where if you want to go and try to find some money, not a whole not a whole lot of trees you can shake. A lot of this stuff is uh or obligations that we have to meet, right, >> John? What other kind of things fall under contractual >> uh all types of things. So alarm services we have here um >> any vendors that we pay um for any types of services that we secure >> even thing even things you wouldn't necessarily
010think of contractually but >> when our sporting teams go to u >> to meets and other places we call those contractual expenses >> okay >> any vendors that we're paying for services that they're providing >> that makes sense yep okay >> um so here I'm attempting or explaining what's causing these increases. Again, it's it's pay raises. Um, of course, everybody's entitled to a pay raise. Um, employee health care costs. This year, I'm initially estimate 13%. Historically, so we're part of a consortium with other school districts across central New York for healthcare kind of self-insured. Um, but that risk pool is spread out amongst many school districts. Going back the past 10 years or so, the average increase has been about 6% a year, which I think is pretty good if you want to compare that
011to the private sector, but uh no more. So, um I don't think it it will wind up being quite 13%. It might be a little bit less than that, but there are factors that drive that and I don't I don't think we need to get into that now, but really it's it's the cost of health care and prescription drug coverage. Yeah. you know, of our members. Um, utility costs are going to increase significantly this year. Uh, we're part of a utility consortium, NISMIC through Boseis, where we contract out with other school districts to try to try to get um secure rates in advance. Um we've been notified by them as they're bidding out that prices are going up 30 30% for gas and 31% for electric next year. >> That's just the rate increase. So
012there might be some delivery charge increases and then of course uh the A uh facility there has got some pretty significant electrical demands. So you know we're expecting the utility bill to go up. And then of course we spoke a little bit about the Boseis cost of business. So that's the money that we're spending. Uh so now we're going to look at the revenues, the money that's coming in. Uh and comparing 25 to 26 again, property tax and state aid are the two biggest parts, our two biggest revenue streams. Um property tax can only go up. Um we'll say 2%. We know it's not always exactly 2%. And and that number actually is assuming it's going to go up more than that, but uh and then the state aid number there, 500,000. Um there's a
013few factors. I'm going to get a little bit more in detail in that in a minute. Federal aid is very, very small. That's going to stay flat. Other revenues, the biggest chunk of that is interest on earnings. So, the money we have in the bank, I'm not I think our estimate from last year was a little bit optimistic. Um, you know, through we had budgeted 660,000 in interest earnings last year. I don't think we're going to beat that this year. So far, year to date, we're really at about 180,000. So, I tweaked that number down a little bit for next year just to be realistic. Mhm. >> Um, so about a million dollars in increased revenue for next year up against two and a half million that we saw an estimated increased expenses. That's going
014to still stole my own thunder. That's going to be the last slide. Uh, the pie chart there, you can see almost all of our revenues, property taxes in state aid. Um, not a lot of other that kind of carries the day. So we're pretty much state tells us here's how much money you have and now we just have to that's how much money we have to spend. That's that's pretty much it. So uh the two biggest revenue sources the property tax is capped at 2% plus some exclusions. Uh the exclusions really are for debt service. So we can we can levy a 2% increase in overall taxes, but we exclude or allowed to exclude increases on our debt service. So if voters already approved a project and borrowing for a project and now our first
015mortgage payment is coming due next year, we're allowed to exclude, for lack of a better term, that mortgage payment from our 2% cap. So we can we can go above that when we have new debt coming up. Uh for state aid, state aid's a pretty broad term. It's made up of a lot of different parts and pieces, but the two big things are uh foundation aid and expense based aids. Um foundation aid is formula driven. Uh and expense expense based aid is ratio driven. Yes. Talk a little bit more. So the governor's executive budget proposed a 1% increase in foundation a from ourselves next year. So that's $95,000. It's not going to get us super far. U the formula itself is about 40 pages long. Um but it's heavily weighted towards economically disadvantaged communities and
016communities with increasing enrollment. So we've been seeing decreasing enrollment for 10 years now at least. 10 years ago I think we're up over 2200 students. Now we're closer to 1400. So this is where we talk I know we've talked a number of times about save harmless. That 1% is is the safe harmless. It's kind of if we were to follow the formula our state aid or our foundation aid would actually be decreased. So the state has said for the last few years well we're not going to decrease it. We'll at least give you a 1%. And that's kind of where we've been at for the last few years and probably for the next at least the next few uh in terms of foundation aid anyway, right? Um we did see have some better luck with
017our expense based aids. So that's basically reimbursement on money we've already spent. Uh trans things like transportation, Boseies, and building aid. Uh it's dependent on your prior year expenses. So if we spend say a million dollars at Boseze, we might get our depending on our Boseies ratio this year, we might get back 67 or $670,000 next year. >> So you spend that money one year and it comes back to you the follow. Um unfortunately um fortunately and unfortunately I guess our sales has been getting wealthier relative to other New York state communities. So, our reimbursement ratio has been slowly ticking down year-over-year. Did show you that on the next slide. [clears throat] Everybody put your glasses on. I think I'm doing uh but there's really just a few lines I want to draw your attention
018to here. Um if you look at right in the center of the screen, New York State average CWR, that's the combined wealth ratio. So the as a factor the average a averageely a averageely wealthy New York State school district would be one. So if that factor for your school district is less than one it means you're less wealthy than the average New York state district right. Um and if you look up uh our combined wealth ratio right above that. So in the 202122 year in the in the leftmost column was 76. So, we were poorer or less wealthy, let's put it that way, than the average New York state district. We are 76.7%. But if as you look as time goes on, what's happening is that ratio is getting higher, which means we're getting wealthier.
019We're still below average, but we're getting wealthier, >> which means if you look down and look at our expense ratios down below the 1.0. So what for uh transportation aid ratio, Bosey's aid ratio, you can see uh the amount of reimbursement we're getting as we're getting wealthier is going down. Right? So in 2021 our Bosey's aid was 71.5%. And in 2526 it's going to be 67.5%. Same is true of our building aid and all all that other all those other aids that we get. So, this is kind of just paint pay painting the picture of why this is happening, right? >> Um, some other things of note in the budget, uh, aside from just basic aid, uh, the governor's, uh, proposing to expand four-year-old DPK across the state by 2829. It's going to be mandatory
020that all districts provide full day, even the BK to four year olds to anybody who wants it. Um, to do this, they're increasing the aid from the current $5,400 per student or per four-year-old up to 10,000 $10,000 per four-year-old, which sounds great. Um, and it is. Um, and for us that would equate to about $180,000. um bringing the total BK8 up to 4 540,000 assuming we serve the same number of students next year. We might might have more. [clears throat] Um so that is just barely going to cover the three UBK um teachers and three TAs. So their benefits and salaries next year are projected to be 536,000. So that 540 is going to just cover it. Um that's of course salaries and benefits alone. there's other expenses that go into running EK program >>
021and just you know we would hope that this that that aid would keep pace. So 27 28 or we be dipping back into the general fund to make that program whole probably and 20 29 even more so. Um but it's a nice win for for next year. Uh so to kind of bring it back to the beginning really we have our estimated expenditures. We we think we know about how much we're going to spend and we think we know how much money is coming in and that's our budget gap. It's going to be just shy of 1.5 million. So that's our starting number for this year. Um it's a little bit higher than what we've seen in the past. Uh I think typically you're used to seeing budget gaps in the six $700,000 range. U
022so this is significantly higher but it's not insurmountable. This isn't a crazy crazy number. >> We do know and and this is without factoring in things that we already know. We already know some teachers are going to retire next year. That's not factored in yet. >> Okay. >> We already know um I or I know anyway that um uh health insurance is not going to be 13%. I think it might it might be something less than >> and you've factored for 13%. >> This is the so at the time when I put this together that was the best information. >> Gotcha. Yeah. >> Um so you know as this process plays out the next couple of months we'll meet next month >> and the admin team will get together and we'll talk about well this
023person's coming back this person's not. Where does that put us? >> And then you know as we get closer and closer to May and adopting the budget this will be closed by May. The budget gap will be zero. fun. Um, >> is there a process >> that you'll get that we'll get more from the state or is that >> there is. So, I think that's likely. Um, >> I don't think it's going to be a windfall. So, I think kind of what happens is the governor proposes her her budget or executive budget. Then the final budget is the legislative budget. So, now the legislature has her hands on it and they get to make tweaks. And of course, >> there are 450 school districts that are only getting a 1% increase in aid. I imagine
024they're going to make some noise. Although I haven't been hearing a lot of noise, but like the headline has been governor increased uh school spending 4%. And it sounds like a great thing, but that's not helping us at all. Like you know that it's going other places. So there are a lot of districts who aren't >> getting any of that of that money. >> So yeah, I think I do think our revenues might tick up a little bit. And does this uh take into account the 10% um or a neighbor of mine was asking about the firefighter um tax exemption, the 10% exemption, is that uh in play for next year and get it mounted to lunch? >> Uh we did pass that earlier in the year. Um and that will be negligible. >> Yes.
025Very insignificant. Right. The tax levy is going to be what it is. Um the exemptions only determine who pays how much. So if someone gets an exemption, everybody else picks up the rest of it. >> So it doesn't change what we actually bring in, >> right? It doesn't change the amount of money the district. It just pays it pays out. >> It just shifts it, right? Yeah. >> And D mentioned there's a process for that, right? Like people do they have to >> Yeah. They'll have to go see the assessor, make sure they apply before March 1st. You know, the the fire department has to make sure they provide a certified list of their members to the assessors. They have a way to to verify. >> Gotcha. Thank you. So, you know, as Don has
026on on this last slide, this this is fair to normal. This is a normal process. You have experienced it year after year. Those of you who have been on the board for multiple years um although it's a little bit higher obviously than what we um dealt with before that a lot of like Don said both the energy costs and health insurance and there's really not much we can do about that. I think I mean I keep seeing people um just online talking about their uh national grid bill skyrocketing. So um that's that's what we're going to be feeling too a little bit here. And so you know [clears throat] this is nothing that we're panicked about. We really are just going to have to see where the chips all fall in the next few months.
027And um you I think you all know our stance. We really work very hard to close that gap through attrition. So with retirements um and and that's what we're going to do is as much as possible. Um it's just not a clear picture yet. So we're not panicked but we certainly are able to use this to start thinking about um you know if this then what. So those are the scenarios that we're running for right now. >> Could be better, could be worse. >> Exactly. [laughter] >> Any other questions for Don? >> Great job. >> Okay. And now we'll move on to residents comments. Public expression at the board of education meetings is encouraged in a specific portion of the agenda shall provide for this privilege. In most instances, the board shall reserve judgment regarding
028questions and concerns that are brought to the board's attention at a board meeting as it is typically not prudent for the board to make instantaneous determinations. In addition, many issues that are brought to the board's attention do not require a formal determination by the board, but instead are most appropriately addressed by the superintendent of schools or persons designated by the superintendent without further board action in accordance with board policy 3220, community relations. Do we have any residents comments at this time? Right, moving on to the business portion of the meeting. Um, item 5.1, second and final reading of board policies. Resolve that the board of education approves first and final readings. I'm sorry. Resolve that the board of education approves first reading of the following board policies. You can see them listed there before you.
0294410 professional development opportunities. 5120 school district budget hearing. Uh 5130 budget adoption. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Amy. Erica. >> Second, Erica. Questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.2. Acceptance of gift donation from Lowe's to Marcellus Central School District. Resolve that the board of education accepts a gift of one pallet of paint estimated at approximately a thousand dollars to be used by the Marcellus Central School District Drama Club for set construction. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. Justin. >> Justin. >> Second. Kelly. >> Kelly. Questions or comments before we vote? Generous >> has been a great supporter of our >> That's awesome. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.3, approval of steps plan. Resolve that
030the board of education accepts the steps plan approval. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. Sean. >> Sean. >> Second. Erica. >> Erica. Questions or comments before we vote? >> This is really the new um evaluation system for teachers. So previously we were under APR. Yeah. Which was aligned with regulations 3012D. Um recently the state moved to 312E and um we we had some time to um you know develop that but we did it pretty quickly with our with our teachers union and um we feel like it will be a much more uh meaningful process for our teachers um moving forward. So, the state has officially approved it. >> Um, and so now we're just bringing it to the board for that final approval. >> Any other questions or comments before we vote? >> All
031those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Moving on to personnel. Approval of personnel items. Resolve that the board of education approves the following personnel items. You can see them listed there before you. 6.1 through 6.7. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Kelly. >> Second. Sean. Questions or comments about any of those items before we vote? >> Just an aside, the the head varsity coaches that are um on the list for the fall of 2026, they have previously been coaches. really just assuming the same >> nobody knew they had last year. >> Yep. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Yeah. Opposed? Wait a minute. All those in favor? I opposed. Carried. Got it. Sorry. Last. Okay. All right. Seven. Consent agenda. Um, resolve that the board of education approves the following consent agenda agenda items
0327.1 through 7.3. Can I have a motion? >> Erica. >> Second, Justin. >> Justin, questions or comments about any of those before we vote? All those in favor? I >> opposed carried. Okay, we'll move on to number eight andformational items. >> Yeah, I just have a couple of uh information items. Um emergency closure days. I'm sure I know there are people wondering are we okay? We we are right now. I built in more days last year. Actually, I did it anticipating the high heat days. Um I know some other schools have already shifted to uh remote learning. Um we're not quite ready to do that yet, although teachers are preparing at the elementary level. Um just in in case um but uh we still have a bit of a buffer. So I'm not terribly concerned
033yet. Maybe the next day we'll we'll be you know after that we'll we'll start making those plans. >> Have we had three starting or >> we had three so far? >> We've had three so far. That's what I thought. >> And I'm pretty sure I built in six. A total of six. So, um, we we've got some buffer, but again, if you keep in mind the high heat days in June, >> um, I'm I'm weighing that as well. So, I'm hoping we have some left over. >> It's been a good oldfashioned winner, has >> good old fashioned winner. I do know there were some questions about um last Monday, school districts were inquiring because it was um a state of themer, a state of emergency. So school districts were um you know questioning does that
034actually relieve us of a a day a fire day. Um, and the feedback that we received was no, not not technically. Although once the school year is over, any district who might be down a day and and you know they're not meeting the requirements, they can appeal to um the state saying it was a a state of emergency. Again, I don't think we're going to be in that position. I hope not. Um, but that that was something that was thrown out there. How do delays play in? Do those count at all? >> Well, they they do and they don't. So, they don't account for shutdown, but one of the things that um Don does is he has a spreadsheet that um catalogs minutes every single day because in addition to number of school days that
035students have to be in session, which is 180, there are also required minutes that students have to be in school. So, we're all we're keeping track of those minutes all the way until like especially in June, right? As if you remember last June, we were right on the wire of minutes and we had high heat days and I had to I I had to close half days last year. Um, so Tony at that time was, you know, looking at that spreadsheet on a daily basis, reporting to me where we were so that we met our mandate. So yeah, it's it's tricky, but yes. So so half days do count in regard to we have to remove the minutes that kids are not in seats, but we still get a chunk of minutes that count toward
036that total. And then as far as the school calendar, um we will bring that forward um for 26 27 for to the board next meeting. Um, one of the things that I I did which sort of has delayed the process a little bit, I wanted to hear from our teaching staff. So, just to give you sort of a a sense, next year, Labor Day is September 7th, and so students won't start till September 8th, which is very different than the past few years. So, some of the impacts are there won't be a two week uh Christmas break. Um, but in addition to that, uh, if you recall, we always do parent teacher conferences right around Halloween. >> Um, and if you think about that, starting a week later, teachers really sometimes then won't have a
037lot of information to provide to their families. So, we did put out a survey to our elementary teachers just sort of seeking their preference for when they would want um, those conference days. And so, um, I I still I've got to go back to that survey, but it it seemed like what we'll likely do next year is, um, do those conference days the week of Thanksgiving. So, Monday would be a half day, uh, and then Tuesday of Thanksgiving would be a conference day. Um, so again, that is what I'm anticipating um, our staff would prefer. That way they have a good solid couple months to be able to give a real accurate picture to parents when they're sitting down and having those conferences. >> That's only for K6. >> Correct. Yes. K6. Correct. >> And
038that's it for information items. >> Okay. We will move on to executive session. Resolve that the meeting in public be adjourned in an executive session be convened for the purpose of discussion of personnel. Can I have a motion? >> Amy, >> second >> Justin. All those in favor? Opposed? Carry.