001Are you good evening and welcome to the Monday May 11th May 11th? 12th 12th Monday, May 12th, 2025, annual budget public hearing meeting. At this time, 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 it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, and justice for all. At this time, we will have um the board is required to appoint a permanent chairperson who will conduct the annual budget hearing. Resolved that the board of education approves the appointment of Mayor Chad Clark as permanent chairperson for the 2025 annual budget hearing. Can I have a motion? Motion. Second. Catherine. All those in favor? I opposed. Carried. Cler, we will turn the meeting over to you. Okay. First, just like to start off with
002the rules of conduct for tonight's meeting. All remarks should be directed to the chair, who shall decide all questions of order. Remarks must be courteous in language and deformment. Please avoid all personalities and do not allude to others by name or motives. During the questioning period, which Superintendent Charlo will moderate later in the program, anyone who wishes to ask a question may do so at that time. Anyone who wishes to ask a question must state his name, his or her name, so the district clerk will be able to take accurate. Okay. So, I just want to formally welcome everyone. Um, we are grateful that you are here to learn a little bit more about our uh 2025 2026 Marcellus schools budget. Um, last week all taxpayers in uh the district should have received the um
003budget newsletter. Uh, this information can also be found on our district website. If you go under about um click budget information, the newsletter is available on the website as well. So tonight, uh, Mr. Sinatio, our school business official, um, who's with me tonight, and I will be providing you just an overview, um, an indepth overview of the 2526 school year budget and our process in the development of the budget. And so we do encourage you to ask questions. Um, and if you think of something after you walk away, I do want to let you know, please reach out to us. we would rather be able to answer your questions so that there's no misconceptions or misunderstanding. So I encourage you if after you leave tonight there are questions that uh come up um please feel
004free to reach out to either one of us. Our contact information will be uh available on the last slide um at the end of the hearing. So before we actually launch into the specifics uh about the budget, I do want to just uh display this collage. Um and really this is why we do what we do and this is why um our community is so strong um because our students and all the programming and the opportunities available to them as you can see um on this slide. And so these are some terms that you um will learn a little bit more about tonight as Mr. Sonachi and I go through Sinatio and I go through the budget. Um, we will uh try to give you an explanation of what what these terms mean. Um, but
005we will also try to give you the context of what they mean in relation to our budget. And so before I uh review the fast facts, what I do want to just sort of emphasize is a budget is exactly that. It is really an estimate. It's our best estimate um of what our expenses are going to be and what revenues that we have coming in. And much like your household budgets, um there are some variables that happen throughout the year. If you think about your own home, if your refrigerator breaks or your washing machine, your drying machine, your your budget has to be adjusted based on on those. So with the size of our district, you might imagine um fluctuations in pricing such as gas or electricity uh have a a a pretty large impact
006on our budget and that fluctuation. So let's start with some of the fast facts that you see here on the slide. Our school budget for the 2526 school year is 42,338,563. And you will notice uh the first bullet point um it is continuing to rely on our appropriated fund balance. So that was one of the terms on that first slide. Um the appropriated fund balance is about 1.5 million and uh just to give you a context of well what does that really mean appropriated fund balance? So, that is really just a pool of dollars that are set aside for unforeseen expenses that happen throughout the district. Um, and again, just like I mentioned with your own household budgets. Um, it's it's really uh dollars that are set aside for us for expenses that we have
007no way to estimate. Um, just an example, we had our freezer here at the high school uh several weeks ago that broke down and that was an additional expense that there's no way we could have forecasted that. Um, but again, that appropriated fund balance helps us offset. So, um, the next uh bullet that you'll see is our tax levy increase. So, it is 3.46% is the increase. Um that's what you traditionally have heard the term 2% tax cap. Um and so there is a misconception. Well, why isn't it 2%. The 2% is really just a number that is factored into a multi-step formula. And so it's either um the lesser of the consumer price index or 2%. And so, um, in running that formula, the, uh, tax levy is a 3.46%. Um, and because it's
008it it meets that cap, uh, all we need is a 50% simple majority to pass. Um just to give you a sense, so the the levy that we will um ask our community is about $23 million, which is um an increase from last year's budget of about 771,000. Um and and again, um just to give you a sense of the last bullet there, there are three po propositions on the ballot. Um so you'll see the first proposition is our school budget. Uh the next one is a bus purchases. So every year we have a schedule of bus replacements. Um and so that's exactly what you'll see on that proposition. The one thing that I do want to just make very clear. The bus proposition that you will see when you go to vote for the
009budget this year is for diesel buses. It is not electric buses. I know there's been a lot of misconceptions out there. Um we have not moved forward with the electric bus um movement at this point because we do feel that it is not realistic. Um and there's a lot more research that has to be done. So um although it is still a mandate, I am hearing from my sources at the state that that they're going to allow waiverss for districts and um potentially move that date. So, uh, again, just an emphasis that that school bus purchase is for diesel buses. And then by law, um, a school district that has a library within their district boundaries, um, we are obligated to put on our ballot a proposition for the library levy. And we have a
010representative tonight from the library. And uh again that's something that is typical that you see uh in in our budget every year. And so one of the things again just thinking about our our overall budget and the revenues the majority of our revenue comes from two places. Uh those two places are uh foundation and expense driven aid. It's about 39% of our budget and uh 54% comes from our tax levy. And so again, Tony will get into the more specifics later, but you can see that that is our reliance. It's on what we ask our community to contribute as well as foundation aid. And something that um most people may not know is the foundation aid that has been provided to Marcella schools in the past uh two three years has been stagnant. So they
011have uh left us at a 2% and that is primarily um because we are designated a held harmless school district. our enrollment has declined. Um and also with that in uh declining enrollment um the state actually uh does a formula that's based on wealth index ratio. So property values and income values and so with the declining enrollment Marcellis is actually looks wealthier than other districts across New York State in which case they leveled our our foundation aid at 2%. Um and so that's what we plan for and that's what the final budget um that the governor put forward allows for for us. So knowing that we have had pretty stagnant foundation aid um the past couple years we have really made a concerted effort to look at our staffing and all of our needs. Um
012again ensuring that we are not negatively impacting our programming. So whenever there is a retirement um and whenever there is a a need for a staff member, we come together as an administrative team and and closely examine um one is is that person do they need to be replaced? Um and we always ask the question, will this negatively impact programming? And so with our um reliance on the strategic plan, every every decision that we made about the budget really focused on our strategic plan and making sure we were allocating funds that aligned with that strategic plan. So you can see that this slide shows some additions. So some things that we needed to add um to our budget. And then the next slide um shows several things that we were able to reduce. And I
013want to emphasize the majority of our reductions were through attrition. So people that were either retiring or leaving the district. And so um at this point I'm Tony is going to take over. And what I want to just sort of give you a sense of what Tony is going to do, he's going to sort of zoom out a little bit and give you a 30foot view of the budget. Um, but then he's also going to zoom in and give you some more granular details of the budget. And again, at the end, we encourage you to ask questions. Thank you, Chief. So this this year this budget cycle was was really quite challenging for us as a school district as Jean had alluded to the um our statuses being a health harmless district. Uh what that
014that sort of creates is a shortage on the revenue side of our budget. So for example, Marcelis received roughly 2% increase in foundation aid. um that equates to about $186,000 for us. There's a neighboring district conversely uh who although they have declining enrollment, they they're actually becoming more impoverished in comparison to the rest of the state. And so the the result is that they're not considered a health harmless district. And I'd like to give you a sense of what that means monetarily. So for as I said, our increase in foundation aid was about 2%. uh their increase is about 11%. So really it's quite a substantial increase in foundation aid for that district in comparison to us. And so what that means is that if you were to compare us in this other district, they're
015likely adding programs this year. They're likely not having to reduce. And um so we we have to operate with the priors that were dealt and um so as I said even even with this uh same pattern of time enrollment districts because we are perceived as being wealthier in comparison to the rest of the state if we were to go to our legislators in fact another district in South Kos did go to their legislator local representatives and that district was told by those representatives well because you're perceived as wealthier, your taxpayer should be able to afford to pay more in taxes. So, I don't I don't necessarily believe that to be true from ourselves and I know that other districts that that approach our legislators and um so so we're at sort of at a crossroads
016with this foundation a formula. So there's there's a lot to um a lot to to evolve on that front. But um I with all this being said, I'd just like to share with the community what a great job this board of education, Mrs. Charlotte, the administration did preparing the budget for next year. It was really a a difficult task in comparison to prior years. And so I'd just like to give them a kudos. So uh so we could go back to that for just a moment. So, I'll get into the the details. As Jean said, we're actually going to start a little bit granular right now and then we'll we'll get up to that 30,000 foot view in a second. So, um we'd like to share the slide each year just to give folks a
017sense of what's what's driving our overall budget increase. So, the increase in total this year is $629,333. So, if you were to add the larger green bullets, if you were to add those numbers up, that's what the total total is 629,000. So, first we look at uh annual contractual and staff increases. The net increase overall is $22,000. If we go down below that, we see that our initial budget included an increase in salaries of $784,000. But after going through the the previous two slides that Mr. Charlotte reviewed, after after um finalizing the the reductions in staff, that total was 667,000. That's offset by some some increases. We have one addition to this our staff this year. It's offset almost exactly by the the cost of a program that we're eliminating from both. So at Boseis
018we participated in the central business office. The the cost of that um of that service at Boseies equals the cost of the salaries and benefits for the person that will employee in district. Um so uh so just review the the net cost of of staff salary increases. We have employee benefit uh cost increases of 71,000. An increase in debt service. Um that's that label there is not not exactly correct. So there are actually two two items contributing to that. First is the 2021 project as indicates there of 131,000. Then there's another other another debt about 126,000 for bus purchases. Normally it would be for only one year. The buses that were approved back in 2023, as we all know, things are not being manufactured as quickly as they once were. And so we're actually receiving
019both the 23 buses and the 24 buses at about the same time. It's just an unusual circumstance uh that combined for those two bus purchases the annual debt services as we see here about 126,000. last two items, a slight increase in Bosey's instructional programs of 6,000. And then at the very bottom, you can see that as a sort of the junk drawer, I guess, of our budget uh for supplies, equipment, and insurance overall increase of about 92,000. Uh we also like to share this information each year just to give folks a sense of where Marcellus is as far as the tax rate per thousand is concerned. So so as you can see here we are the fourth lowest we have the fourth lowest tax rate in the area. I don't want to present this as
020necessarily, you know, some of these that there are lots of factors that go into come into play to determine what a district's tax rate per thousand might be. The largest contributor is going to be um the commercial property that's located in our district. So more commercial property uh means higher property values overall and that would drive down the tax rate the tax rate on troop. Um in addition to that would be uh that the amount of taxes that the district need the levy that the district needs to raise to support its budget. Now let's say a district is already poor. uh they're likely going to drive that's going to drive some additional state aid in some cases a significant amount that will also uh affect the levy drive the levy down which ultimately will drive
021the tax rate down. So um overall I'm going to share with you my thoughts is after being here for 13 years working here living here for um I can do the math but I'm I am good at numbers for 20 29 years actually this year worked here for 29 years. Marcelus is has historically done a great job being operating efficiently as efficiently as possible and in my opinion they continue to do so. I I would say that's the third largest contributor to driving that tax rate down is how efficient is is the school district. So I give us I give us an A plus I would say in that front. So uh this slide we're required to present our budget in uh three parts administrative program and capital. So administrative is just what it what
022it sounds like. That would be the district office, finances, that's that would be our our building principles. So that's that those folks and those those those operational components make up the administrative budget, which is 7.8% of our overall budget. That's a very good indicator of how efficient the district is administratively. uh we're on par with the the uh lowest as a percentage of overall budget administratively in the region. Um so another you know district uh near us similar size is is just under 11% this year. So what that translates to, if we were to have an 11 11% of our budget was was um uh or the administrative portion, that would translate into about one one spending $1 and a half million dollars more administrative programs here. So um as I say, that's just a
023great indicator of how efficient we are administratively. Uh program is uh is what we really care about here is serving our students. So that's our instructional programs, um our our support services like psychologist, guidance, social social workers, our transportation program, our special education program. And then last is capital. So that's a that's a big number and there's a there's a large dollar amount that's part of our cap overall capital budget. Those are the loans that we've taken out to pay for maintenance of our facility. So about half half of our capital budget a little more than half actually is strictly that it's our debt service for uh maintaining our buildings. The rest would be utilities, electric, natural gas, garbage, things of that nature. So we can see the see the totals here. So put next
024slide. All right. So we've talked about expenditures. Now we're going to talk a little bit about uh revenues. uh state aid, as you can see, our our total state aid is increasing by about $238,000. So, I mentioned earlier 186,000 in foundation aid. There's a little bit more about about $50,000 or so that would be driven from ex uh our expense driven aids like transportation aid, building aid, which building aid's not changing much because we we've already realized that the um revenue for an increase in revenue for building aid from our recent capital projects. That's really not changing much next year. and um Bosey's aid. So large chunk of that increase foundation aid the rest is expense driven aids property taxes as Mrs. Charlotte indicated increasing about 771,000 and last but not least are other sources
025you can see here federal aid missions interest tuition Boseies and uh fund balance so Mr. Charlotte referenced a number earlier of about $1.5 million. That's the last item in that text there. Application of fund balance. So you can see $1.5 million of appropriated fund balance. Another 1.2 and interest income and other miscellaneous revenues get gives us the total at the bottom of 42 million 338. Um everyone wants to know each year how are my taxes going to be affected? So I'm I'm going to walk you through the numbers and then share with you the the real caveat on this slide. Um up at the very top you can see estimated tax on true for 2425. So that number was shared at this time last year. That's the expected the projected tax rate per thousand at
026this time last year of $18.51. The actual tax on true for 2425 became$1678. So, how is that possible? How could you be so far off? What could happen? Well, uh, who here owns a home? What's happening to the value of their home? Going down or going up? It's going up. So, as the value of homes increases, that will drive down this tax rate for housing. It's that really that simple. Then, we also know that in Marcelus, we have some new developments going in. In fact, I have not in the last few weeks driven up Senica Turnpike, but most recently, my most recent trip out to Senica Turnpike on the right hand side of the road just before the golf course, I see that they're building is that that's not building. Uh, so I see some
027development going on. So, anytime there's development happening in a community, that's also going to drive that tax rate per thousand down. So, so that's why so the 1736 that we're estimating for next year, um I know that's not going to be the number at this time next year. Let me guess that that's going to be lower or higher. Anybody want to guess? Lower. Yes. So, somebody in the back was help me out here. So, it will likely be lower and I would suppose it's going to be much lower. Um, so we have to share this information because people want to know. I don't personally like to because it's never accurate. Fortunately, today the the outcome's usually better than I would project. So it's I suppose positive news, but so nevertheless, we share it. So down
028at the the second row where we say the average tax bill with the star exemption, the likely increase is about $40. That's based on a home that says that with a fair market value of $100,000. We know that's not realistic that we're doing it. Just doing it simply so that folks can do the math. So if you have a home with a fair market value of $300,000, you could assume your tax increase next year should be roughly $120. As I say, I don't like to share this information because it's never accurate. I um if I were a betting man, I would guess it would be less than that, but you'll have to look at your own tax bill to see how that's about. Let me last but not least we show the uh the tax
029rate. So what we need to show here is on the right hand side this tax rate on true. It's really important that we understand uh for those of us who live in for example the town of Anandaga. The tax rate projected for next year is $26.70. But we apply this equalization rate to that value to get our tax rate on true, which is $17.36. It's no coincidence that they are all in exactly that amount because that's the that's the map that's used to to determine those values for each town. There is the caveat at the very bottom. These will change. Uh this is not what it will be a year from now. I promise you that. In all likelihood, assessments will will rise up. We'll have some new houses coming on the tax roles that'll
030likely drive that tax rate. The uh contingency budget. Um so um what would happen if the the voters were to not approve our budget next week? Uh well, it means that we jump into action and figure out a new plan. uh what would we have to do at a bare minimum if we were to um not go out to the voters because we could go out for a second time, a second vote. But if we were to not do that, minimally we have to remove under a contingency budget scenario non-essential equipment and any uh salary increases for staff that are not in the collective bargaining unit. So those two values for equipment, non-essential equipment are $87,500 and the non-contingent salary increases are about 28,000. So that's the minimum impact. Um but also in our contingency
031budget, we cannot increase our tax levy beyond what our le was this year. And so that would mean that we uh would maybe to further reduce the budget by $655,000. I'm not saying that's what would happen because there are other strategies that we might might apply to mitigate that without further reducing the the budget. So um in many cases I say if if the voters were to not approve the budget then of course the board would have to jump into action to figure out another another uh not going to spend a lot of time here. I really want to want to draw your attention to two columns 201920 and 202425. So as we can see over the last six years uh year 1 201920 our total reserves were 5.4 million projected at the end of
032this year is 5.9 million. So uh that as a I would say I would argue I guess as a matter of fact uh is a a very minimal increase in the level of reserves that the district is maintaining. So it's about an 8% increase over a six-year period. What that tells me and it should hopefully tell others is that we Marcelus's budget is super efficient and um so whatever generally whatever we receive in reserves is likely what we we spend on the expense side of the budget. We're not generating surplus. The reason for that go back to our conversation about being a harmless district. our our revenues are, you know, really struggling to keep up with our expenses and so we have to operate as efficiently as possible. That's a very strong indicator that that's
033that's what's happening. And I should mention in the middle years, that's the that's our co time, right? Uh that's when we had additional dollars coming to us from the federal government. So we all know, you know, what it was like during CO and and years after. And so uh if we go back to 2020, there was an intentional plan at that time to construct an agriculture facility. So we all know that that facility is has now come to fruition and we were able to pay cash for that building. Then didn't have to go and borrow money and so indirectly these co dollars paid for the construction of that facility. What's sort of neat about that is that we were able to pay cash but then get money back from the state in the form of
034building a so I would say a double investment on use of public funds to construct that facility and then to get money back from the state at the same time was a really nice approach that we put into place. The other propositions as Mr. Charlotte mentioned were the purchase of buses not not electric but diesel buses were not and we're close to ready to consider to even consider electric buses. That would result in of course the disposal of four of our buses. And then as Mr. Charlotte mentioned, anytime the uh local library is looking to increase its levy, we're obligated to put that proposition on our ballot. Final details of budget vote Tuesday, May 20th from noon to 900 pm. Uh we do have three vacant seats and thank you uh three candidates that are
035running for a seat on the board of education. Thank you. Qualifications to be a voter. And thank you. Thank thank you so much for bearing with me as I delved into the details or there are a lot there. Does anybody have any questions? Question Tony. Um what do you think the likelihood of us continuing to be saddled with that held harmless status as moving forward? Uh I would not not dare to guess. I have no idea. They they are looking at the foundation a formula. um on a you know is a statewide statewide basis I guess and I'm not sure what's going to come of that fingers are crossed that they will recognize in my opinion the inequity distribution of aid currently yeah but hard to protect would you have for children like where we
036stand possibly Uh yeah, I have some some sense. So to get off the health harmless district or health harmless status um without bringing other variables into play, uh we need about 400 more children. So yeah, so we we are we are able it's a very very lengthy formula and I didn't take the time to create to answer that great question. Yes, we we need um we need families like the Sonachios to move out so that my children aren't grown so that younger folks can come in and send children. It's a it's one of the one of the wonders wonderful features of our district is that people like to stay here, right? So, uh kids are are raised and move out and mom and dad stay here because they they love it so much. you know,
037that's true. It's a reality, I think. So, so I think that's that's really what's creating that pretty drastic moment. Other questions? John Doro, hi there. First of all, I thank you all for this doing this job because I was sign up to do your job. So, thank you. I am a little confused on this reserves and in general the change in terminology like that first page you showed with all the terminology none of those are in the sheet that we got sent. So it's kind of catching me off guard that I'm being introduced new terms. It's very important that you use the same terms to mean the same thing in every publication and every meeting. So, first of all, I was concerned because you're talking about reserves and then this approved fund balance which match
038the same number, but it sounds like they're two different things. So, can you clarify what reserve that one page had a lot of it, but then it said it went from 8.6 6 million last year down to 5.9, but according to this budget we only spent 1.9. So it's just confusing. So So first of all, yeah, it's great. Over six years we're up 500,000, but we're down 2.7 since last year. Can you explain that change? Sorry, I've got 12 questions. Yeah, that's okay. That's right. So um so you're right there there's there are lots of terms thrown around and so when we I'm going to share with you how I would phrase reserves for example so the let's start with the very last line there appropriated fund balance I I myself would not refer to
039that as a losser I've referred to everything above that as as some form reserve isn't normally in your budget. Correct. It's not normally in our budget and we have not designated any independent groups for those reserves. And so unemployment insurance reserve for example and all cander that's that's the same number uh that appeared here is when I started 13 years ago. Uh so that fell into that reserve at some time prior to me and it will sit there until we like to use it. Honestly, I don't know there's no other way to uh to explain that. So a very very small number. Capital reserve on the other hand um to your your question about where did that 2.7 million go? That's where it went. So we if we were to go back to uh I
040believe it was 2023 May 23, we asked the community to entertain a transfer of funds from I believe the term we used was unassigned fund balance to our capital reserve for the purpose of constructing our agriculture facilities. So that capital reserve in my term is also appropriated. It's assigned to something. It's not for me. I was considering reserve as a emergency fund that they talk about at home. Yep. Yep. But that emergency fund had 2.5 million in it, but it wasn't for an emergency. It was pretty So this was a this was an interesting one that you know that for for me anyway. So we the proposition that was put forth to the voters did did um something that we would normally take two votes to do but we it was wrapped into one proposition.
041We had to have a conversation with our bond council about this and whether this was appropriate determined of course it was very appropriate. Um so not only did we in this proposition we established the reserve we funded the reserve and authorized the expenditure funds from the reserve all in one proposition. So that's that's a pretty unique uh proposition to for the voters to entertain. But what I also liked about it is that it's incredibly transparent. So you know so all all within one proposition very clear and you're right it's really strange that we're gonna we're gonna fun reserve but then plan to use it so that's why I say it's it's a very unique circumstance but I would say arguably that you know co in general is very unique circumstance and and I would still
042say really smart approach that the superintendent at that time you in conjunction with a bunch of compensation really really worked out well. Um the retirement contribution reserve another one you see the same number all the way across that's that's actually you know my opinion a good thing we've allocated if you were to go back to when that reserve was all was uh created the intent was to fund the reserve to mitigate fluctuations in our retirement contribution rate which is about 10% of our instructional salaries that's that's what we currently paid into retirement If we were to go back to 2009 10 and know what happened at the collapse of our housing market which you know wre havoc on a lot of things including the retirement contribution rate those rates shot jumped up to roughly 17%.
043In our case for Marcellis today that would equate to about $1.1 million jump in one single line item in our entire budget. And so to to mitigate the potential to to attempt to mitigate the potential to for that to happen to us again, this reserve is established so that if there was a large swing in those rates that we would have a reserve to turn to. So I'm glad that it still sits there because um you know I used to use this phrase I'm going back now to the late 90s that what goes down must come up. So that's speaking specifically about these contribution rates. If they go down, we can count on them someday. So we're in a position to address that if and when that happens. There's a small reserve here. It's referred
044to as a melar reserve. That money is very very limited in what we can use that for. Technically, we can only use it to pay for compensated absences for unused sick personal vacation on personal parts. So, we have not had a need to draw from that reserve. And the last last but not least is the unappropriated fund balance. You see there in parentheses up to 4% of the budget. You can see in the in two years there in 2122 and 2223 every school district in New York state looked just like that. The reserve was overfunded because money was raining down upon us from federal government and uh lots of stories to tell about those times where we're we're having to to determine within about three weeks how we're going to spend in our case about
045$1.4 million. That's the pressure that was put on school districts from eventually the federal government to spend that money. It was really insane in my opinion. So, so every district in New York State looks just like that. U we're back down now to below that 4% threshold. So, what that means next year's proposed budget about 42 million. So, the max we can have in our unassigned fund balance or unappropriate fund balance is a million 680,000. So, so that that,680,000 is the cap. That's the most we should be carrying. We're at about 1.4. A lot of information there about reserves, but you know, you're point well taken about being consistent with raising. Yeah. No, that was helpful, but I think I'm still confused. So I can't not me but you guys can't just pick from that
0462.7 million retirement next year because you want to keep our tax rate below 3 point whatever we we could um if we were to so it so that's what I mean I to me an emergency fund isn't linked to anything and here you've got it linked to five different things then you have one unappropriated. Well, so I guess here's another way to ask. Where did the 1.5 of appropriated for this year come from? Um, so if we were to go back in time, we established an appropriated fun. So sometime at some point in time some time ago the dollars available let's say in likely unappropriated or unassigned was used to apply towards the following year's budget. Okay. So in this case let's use pick on 2021 2022. So at the end of that year we
047had $3 million in unappropriated fund balance. we could have carved a chunk of that out and applied it towards the to the following year's budget to reduce the tax levy. That's generally not that's not a good approach if we're if we actually intend to use those dollars to fund the budget for plan expenses, right? So, so in that case, if we were to have carved out a chunk of that money to reduce the founders's tax rate and use those funds to pay for recurring expenses, we created a structural deficit in our budget that be a problem for the district in we were to permanently reduce the tax level. these temporary funds. That's a that's a bad approach. So So what did they do at some point some time ago? They carved out in this case
048$1.5 million and applied it as a revenue to fund unforeseen expenses which is what Mr. Charl refer to earlier. And so that's that's a scenario where you know she said we had a cooler that that went down. Let's say that repair is $50,000. It's a one-time expense that we can bite out of that one and a half dollars and not create a structural deficit because that same pool. So that's that's how appropriate fund balance is used in our budget and most school budgets is just to fund. So so that's why that's sitting there. That's why you see the amount remaining relatively stable. Back in 2022 23, we had a a challenging budget year that were we decided that we could safely assign additional dollars as in the form of appropriated fund balance but manage the
049budget going forward which we're able to do successfully. So we didn't have to fight into those dollars. We got to pull back now because even this year it's likely that we're going to end this year with form of a deficit. We're gonna we're gonna spend more than we bring in revenues absent this appropriate balance. So that's that what that means is that there is a structural deficit budget to mitate. So that's what we pulled back on. I'm giving you a lot of information that you know evolved over time possible. So this is something that you know if you were if you'd like to go through our budget in detail how it's constructed I'd be happy to do that. [Music] [Laughter] That's really interesting. School budgets are quite complex. Any other questions? So, here is the
050contact information for both Tony and myself. Feel free to contact us. We'd be happy to sit down with you if you want further explanation on anything or even if you walk away and you um have further questions or want clarification, we're happy to sit down with anybody and talk through um any questions that you have. Do we need to do that? Okay. I think at this time we should go back and read the minutes from So I'll turn it over to Colleen and then we'll turn it back over to you, Mayor Clerk. That's okay with you. These are the minutes of last year's budget hearing meeting of May 13, 2024. uh referring to the minutes of last year's meeting. After the welcome and pledge of allegiance, Mayor Chad Clark was appointed as the permanent chairperson
051who was to conduct the annual budget hearing and election. There was a motion made by Katherine Branson Dennis and seconded by Kelly Rosier that the board appoint Mayor Clark as permanent chairperson. The minutes of the previous year's meeting of May 8, 2023 were read. Mayor Clark reviewed the rules of conduct for the meeting. uh in in there was an introduction of board administrators and board candidates um by Mayor Clark, Superintendent Jean Charlo, and business administrator Anthony Snatchio reviewed the budget details and propositions. The floor was open to the community for questions of which there was one that was addressed by Mr. Sinatio. The meeting was adjourned by Mayor Clark at 6:54 p.m. Now we'll move on to turn it back over to you for item six. So at this point I'd like to introduce the
052entire board of education. We have Christine Shay who's the president Sean Eddie who's the vice president Katherine Branson Dennis Josh Musk Eric aquatic and Justin Pritchard our administration Jeene Charles our superintendent Anthony our business administrator administrator Robert Montgomery is assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction assessment and data principles Brian Ci Mike Mclliff Kath Money and Lauren Masa. The directors Michael Free, Eric Hubard, Carol Lux, Sam Ray, Amy Mitchell, Brian Reer, and Jaclyn Pierce. And tonight candidates, Josh, Erica, and Jennifer Tedesco. And we have covered the presentation and the questions. So at this time we will adjourn this portion of the meeting. Can um resolve that the annual budget public hearing be adjourned. Can I have a motion? Motion Sean. Sean second. Katherine. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. At this time, we will move on to
053our regular board of education meeting, Monday, May 12th, uh, 2025. Um, and we will move to recognition. Yes. So, um, I do want to just give a a huge shout out to the music department. So, we were notified today that um, we have been identified uh, again this year as uh, one of the best communities for music education. And um I'm sure it's not a surprise to you, but I think our music department was waiting. They hadn't heard. So uh we did officially get the notice today and there was just a cheer of excitement. So kudos to our music department. They are incredible. Um I do want to just give a shout out. We uh had a district jazz concert on Friday night and um this is a picture although it's it's probably a little
054tricky to see but we had this is the DMS group and we had parents we had a grandparent uh who came um and we also had staff members who participated alongside with our students to per perform one of the jazz numbers. So, it was uh absolutely extraordinary. And then I uh thank you to former Mayor Curtain. He came last week to DMS, the DMS library as you can see here, and provided a um just an overview, a historical overview of Marcella Schools. Uh and you can see just looking that it was well attended. Um and it was just a great event. and um he's actually going to come back and and do the same uh presentation for some of our students. So, uh thank you again to former mayor Kurt for being on hand to
055deliver that. And then a huge thank you to our KCHPTO, our DMS PTA, uh Jen Tedesco, uh and all the high school moms for showing our teachers such appreciation uh last week. So teacher appreciation week was last week and this was sort of the culminating lunch on Friday. Um and it was just amazing and I think um I don't think I know our staff felt the love from the community. So a big thank you to all of them who pulled off just a wonderful week and a wonderful lunch on Friday. And that uh is it for recognition. Okay. So at this time we will move on to presentations. Yes. So, I'm gonna do a little jump. Um, and you can see we have some guests here, some very important guests. These are our uh students
056from KCH, Battle of the Books team. So, I'm going to ask you guys to come on up right over here. They're going to do a little presentation about their experience with Battle of the Books. All right. So, I thought um besides me standing up here talking about how amazing our students are, um I'm putting them on the spot here and they've been practicing because they want to talk to you a little bit about what Battle of the Books is and what they did. And so I'm going to turn it over to them and let them [Music] even education. My name is Ellie Thompson. We are proud members of the PC. Our team name was ask of eight carefully chosen books. detail and then answer fast questions about the battle started with many kids competing in
057their own districts. This is a big time commitment. We started meeting weekly in November went to the middle of April. This season we first 14 teamms won the Marcel. Next we begin national where we faced 15 teams included first place. On April 9th, we represented Marcelis at the Central New York Battle of or Super Regional Battle of the Books and brought home or where we face 16 and brought home the third to fourth grade championship title for KCA. We'd like to thank Miss Middleton and Mrs. our teachers, our families, and all of you on the board for supporting our reading [Applause] adventures. We promise to keep, keep learning, and keep making ourselves proud. Marcel and so we have a certificate of recognition for them that Mr. Charlotte's going to hand out. So first up we
058have some shape. Next up we have Harrison Maloney. Shannon, thank you. And before you go, you don't have to stay for the whole meeting, but make sure you grab some cookies and water back there. Congratulations. We are so proud of all of your work and we've been following you all the way along. So, we can go. So, I am gonna um also just give you sort of a rundown of the DMS auditorium project. So, um, completed this past week, um, remove spotlight. So, Ryan Reer and his team and Adam Grryer, as you can imagine, uh, helped, um, just prep the area. Um, so they removed spotlights, the sound and lightboard equipment, um, the tormentor lights and projector so that they could safely storage those during the construction. Um, the seating contractor removed, uh, and disposed
059of the seats. Um they have been mobilizing the gear just ready for the sound and light roof um and started prepping the floor. And so this coming week they're going to finish the mobilization. They're going to make sure that they protect the piano and the stage floor um remove the copper base and the carpet and then the start the demo of the concrete um for the light and sound booth pad. So, I'm just going to sort of um skip through some of these pictures, but you can see um they've already done a lot in a short amount of time. Are they keeping those light fixtures, those bubble lights that have been there forever? Yes, those fixtures are are remaining. Oh, they're staying. It's Yeah. Most of this is the seat replacement painting. There's a little
060wall on the when you walk in to the right that has had some water damage. So, they're trying to get to the bottom of that fixing that as well. And then obviously new carpeting. Brian, I don't know if you have any thing to add. This is the uh new light and sound. They're actually laying out where the new light and soundboard will be. Instead of the makeshift soundboard, there'll be a full scale model that will match the architecture of the room allow for the spots come down to floor [Music] level addition and the curtains on the stage are also just to give shout out Jack McCulla who graduated several years ago. um this was a project that was near and dear to its heart that he you know recognized that this is such a grand
061space and location but it was deteriorating and so um just thank you to him for you know working with Ryan at the time he was here as a student just to um you know again sort of show the importance talk about student voice um that's exactly why we're going to have a student board member the things that are important to the students we need to listen to so um thank you to to Jack and thank you Ryan for keeping Jack up to date on on the progress. And so uh the next uh presentation we have we have students here uh from the Green Gateway. You probably um remember a few weeks ago Ryan McMahon was here to award a grant. Um and it really is for our students for the work that they've been doing
062along the Green Gateway. So, I am going to turn it over to Tyler Cooper, uh, who oversees our independent study projects and the students who are here to present. Good thing we had a little bit of buffer in between the readers, the the explorers, and these guys because they definitely had us on staff. We've got we've got some pretty amazing things happening with these guys as well. I'm just going to kind of introduce and then I'm going to be the point person to kind of lead them into some of their slides. So, we actually have um Austin RA coming back as an alumni because as you'll see some of these projects are ones that have taken years to accomplish. Um and many of the propositions that are now being funded were ones that started last
063year with last year's independent study through. Brian Welch is actually another one who is still currently a student but his junior year was part of the project um for some of the housing. So, he's going to talk a little bit more about that. And I'm going to skip over Max for a second and jump right to Abby Finn. Um, who again is this was a last year endeavor for her, but now to see it come to fruition. She's fortunate enough to be a senior this year and see um before she leaves for the next chapter some of the hard earned work um really being put to good use. And then I'll I'll jump to Max Camp. he and Elizabeth Melon are now taking kind of the helm of the project management of some of the
064site projects that are going on now. And he's going to take the lead in explaining some of those. Um and so as you can as you can see from the picture, we've gone from um a dilapidated building that was really at a at a breaking point literally and figuratively in terms of are we going to invest in this building and continue um pouring money into it or do we have a new vision? And so the village um with the help of John Curtain and now being taken over by Chad Clark as the mayor started thinking about some ways where we can really beautify the environment and give some ownership to the students to take an important role in that. We can go to the next slide. I'm going to turn it over to Austin kind
065of talk about some of the original design and then Max Camp is actually one to kind of enhance it and he'll talk about where we've gone from it in a later slide. Yeah. So hello everyone. I'm Austin. Um, I'm a graduate of 2024 and I started this project uh in September 2023 and worked on it through out my senior year to June 2024. Um, I started this project because I had just finished um my second semester of junior year working on the bridge project out there. I'm sure you guys have seen the bridge and that was a fun thing to do. So, I wanted to stay involved in the Green Gable project. So, I proposed that I'd help work on the pavilion. Um my role with the pavilion during that year was um design the
066initial plans. These plans are not my plans. They were modified by next camp. But design the initial plans and then me, Mr. Clark, um I think Ryan and Abby require this too. We presented this to um different state senators, county legislators uh to get the funding to uh get these projects off the ground. Um the purpose of the pavilion is to add a covered shelter to the green gateway. Um we think that with covered shelter, it will add more traffic to the gateway. Um it will another thing with the um pavilion, it will be um available to rent, so add more revenue. Um and obviously it's nice to have a place to eat in the green gateway and with picnic tables and things like that. So yeah, and it's 20 uh feet by 40 feet
067in size for larger group gatherings. Um I'm Abby Finn and this was a project that I did during my junior year was a water retention system in the green gateway and as coup said um the green gateway used to be an old industrial mill site. So a lot of the ground was very compact due to like the structure being there and um not being um a natural environment for a while. So, we're trying to bring back the natural beauty of the area and with this includes a water retention system to reduce the amount of water runoff from any rain or anything like that into NM Creek and being able to enrich the soil again and have um nice soil in the green gateway for the future and being more environmentally sustainable um as a natural
068green dark. So, yeah, that was my project. And additionally, we wanted to add natural pollinator plants to um bring back some color and light into the green gateway to just make it um a better space for everybody to come and visit. And yeah, that's all right. Hi, Max Cam. Um, so this is gonna go in right by on the water obviously. Um, this is the project that Liz Melon, who is not here, um, was working on. Um, they wanted to build a some sort of platform or ramp that people could fish off of to, um, obviously to bring in more visitors. Um, and they had the DEC involved with this. They went down in the river and moved around a bunch of rocks, dug up some soil to make it a lot much a lot
069nicer of a fishing spot. Um, so this right here was the first design that was made um was created last year by another student, Neil Welsh. Um but then this year someone uh I believe someone at the village found this picture here which is um somewhere out west. And this is a fully ADA compliant ramp that um the main benefit of this one being you're right down on the water level instead of here where you could be 5t off the water. Um yeah. Um, so this was a project done by uh my fellow classmate Jack Payne. Um, I'm not really too familiar with what he was doing, but I was with him through a lot of the presentation process. Um, so one of the main goals of the connected greenways was to connect the green
070gateway to the town of ourselves park. Um, the long-term plan of connect was connecting um the green gateway to lake. So that's a big pathway. Um and additionally connecting to mills and air cap trail. Um drastically increasing uh another goal is to drastically increase the ecoourism within ourselves describing areas. So like all these projects and then it is going to be accessible to all. Hello, my name is Ryan Welch and for the past two years I've been working on creating a development site for senior housing and as Mr. not saying we need 400 for students to be able to come here like school district. I had the idea of kind of starting to create senior housing that's kind of right in the middle of the village. And I my main idea was that I wanted
071kind of the older individuals to sell their houses in the village and have these younger families and kids and everything move in here which can increase the population of the village and of the school districts. So I worked with um two companies actually. I work on the third and I worked with a couple 2 plus4 and this was the basic design outline that we created and the green gateway trail is actually going to come down through here. So it's going to be accessible for the older individuals to be able to walk down by the creek and go down by the park. So yeah, I'm very excited to see what this is going to create. See this is going to increase population of Marcelis and students come and enroll. Um so this is as Austin was
072saying he began the designs for the pavilion. Um when you saw on his slide uh that was my initial first draft. Uh it was pretty bad um done pretty quick. Uh, so I updated that um a few months later and then I sent it off to um I was working with the guys over at TDK Engineering and email list and they took uh my draft and kind of made it a little more colorful, added some more detail. Um, and this is based off of the old there used to be a railroad station um in this location a long long time ago. So, it's modeled to mimic how that used to look. Um, yeah. Oh. Um, so this was a couple weeks ago. Um, on Earth Day, Ryan McMahon came down. We all met at the
073at the Green Gateway. Um throughout the year we've been working to try and get this uh this grant. Um so we we got two grants, one from the county and one from senators senator May. Um so we all met at the park and got that grant. So, if you if you didn't realize it, this work and and Tyler, just a huge credit to him with the work that he's doing with our students. Um, they're putting us on the map, honestly. And uh the feedback that I get from um you know legislators in Albany is just how impressed they are with you keep hearing that nowadays companies are looking for soft skills, looking for students that can engage and and make eye contact and shake hands. And so um there is no doubt that the work
074that they're doing here will contribute to all of their success uh down the road. And the one thing that is particularly meaningful to me that I love that Tyler is doing and and all of you as well is they're passing the baton. So these projects are getting started in high school and many of these students are moving on, but Tyler and and some of you even are helping choose the next class, the next generation to pass these projects off to because they're they're not done overnight. They're multi-year projects. And so that to me is so meaningful um and that they're contributing their talents here in Marcela. So thank you to all of you. Tyler, I can't even thank you enough for um just spearheading all of this work and just relentless pursuit of making sure
075that our students um are poised for these type of um encounters and opportunities. This does not happen in other districts around this area. So thank you you guys. You should be so proud of yourselves. We are proud of you. Right. At this time, we will move on to item four, residents comments. Public expression at the board of education meetings is encouraged and a specific portion of the agenda shall provide for this privilege. In most instances, the board shall reserve judgment regarding questions and concerns that are brought to the board's attention at a board meeting. 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
076of 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? With that, we will move on to the business portion of our meeting. Um, item 5.1, second and final reading of board policy. Resolved that the board of education approves the second and final reading of the following board policy. Policy 7240, student records, access and challenge. Policy 7241, student directory information. Policy 7243, military recruiters access to secondary school students and information on admin content. I have a motion, Sean. And then I think I heard Erica. Okay. Questions or comments before we vote about any of those board policies? So, just a reminder, these are incredibly unequated or last update on these was 2015 and these are bringing them
077up to current regulations with law and privacy. Any other questions? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.2, approval of board of education meeting dates for 2025 and 2026 school year. Resolved that the board of education approves the board of education meeting dates for the 2025 2026 school year. Can I have a motion? question. Amy second. Okay. Put Josh down. Okay. Any questions or comments before we vote? I know we talked about maybe we had a couple meetings where we thought we would only need one for that particular. There are times where our board meetings are relatively short, so we sort of condensed here a little bit. And you'll notice it's so it's very important as the you know, February um and March and April that we do um revisit the budget
078and the development of that budget. So, you'll notice I added um a couple budget workshops. So, um the board will come together to review the current status of the budget next year at those times. And again, if we need to have a meeting, we certainly can have a special board meeting at any point. Y all those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.3. Amendment to the 2024 2025 school year calendar. Resolved that the board of education approves an amendment to the 202425 school year calendar as follows. June 26, 2025 will be a nonschool day. June 25th, 2025 will be the last day of school full day for UPK through 6th grade. June 25, 2025 will be the last day of school half day for grades 7 through 8. Can I have a motion?
079Erica. Erica. Second. Second. Sean, questions or comments? So every year when I build the calendar, I do it very conserv conservatively so that we ensure you know if we had a week where there was a blizzard and we have you know a whole um week off five six days um I I build in that buffer. So typically, you know, as we get closer to the end of the year, um we have modified to half days. Um we still have a day in emergency closing day remaining. And so um we're going to build in that buffer for teachers to to end their year, clean their rooms, grades. It's it's a lot at the end. And so um Thursday, it it was initially Thursday would be the last day of school. It will now be Wednesday the
08025th. PK6 that'll be a full day. Um I did shift to a half day for seventh and eth primarily because they actually have a little bit more wiggle room than UPK6 because um if you recall UPK6 has parent teacher conferences typically on November 1st. So um students UPK6 aren't in school. So that's where the the buffer is for 78. they have a little bit more of a buffer than EP6. So, um, in the end, we're going to make seventh and eighth grade a half day. Everything else will remain the same. We have our our moving up ceremony for 8th grade on Thursday the 26th in the evening. That will remain the same. Um, and again, if the board approves, I will make sure that I make notice to families about the alteration in the calendar.
081Any other questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. All right, moving on to personnel. Approval of personnel items. Resolve that the board of education approves the following personnel items. You can see them listed before you. Items 6.1 through 6.9. Can I have a motion, Catherine? Second, Sean. questions or comments about any of those items before you before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Okay, moving on to item number seven, consent agenda. Agenda. Resolve that the board of education approves the following consent agenda items. You can see them listed before you. Items 7.1 through 7.6. Can I have a motion? Amy Amy second Katherine questions or comments before we vote so the cross country trip it's not until October but it's helpful that they get that approval now so that
082they can start planning for travel and expenses but the hotels it allows them to book at a lower rate by booking now just that's why you see it All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Right. Item number eight,formational items. I don't have anyformational items really. It was just the change in calendar. And I'll make sure that I get that communication out to families tomorrow. Okay. All right. Very good. And we'll have our ribbon cutting soon. On May 31st, we have our ribbon cutting. And so um we're continually promoting that on social media. We have invited um various um you know local uh I would say celebrities. Julie Abbott, she's coming. Um so um we we have a great turnout so far and we're hoping we get more. Great. Awesome. All right. At this time we will
083enter executive session. resolved that the meeting in public be adjourned and an executive session be convened for the purpose of discussion of personnel and contract negotiations. Can I have a motion? Josh second. Second. That was Erica. All right. All those in favor? Opposed? Carrie. Okay. I'd just like to thank Mayor Clark for and uh with our budget hearing this evening and to all of you for joining us as well.