001Good evening everybody and welcome to our first budget advisory committee meeting for the 2627 budget development year. Here we are February 10th. I'm just going to warn you in advance. We noticed um the projector is not showing some of the slides in their entirety. those that are here, you have the paper copy, so you have them. And I will be posting the presentation online tomorrow morning. So, anybody that wants to look through it, if you miss any of the uh information on the images on the screen, uh we will be posting it on our budget page tomorrow morning. Uh so, tonight's agenda, uh we're going to go through our timeline, what we do as far as the budget development process. We'll talk a little bit about the expenditure and revenue budgets because there are really
002are two budgets that we're working on right now. Um tonight we're going to focus on the revenue side of the budget. Um particularly we have our state aid numbers which I'll go through. Um the tax levy limit calculation or as you know the 2% tax cap as it's popularly called in the media. I do have to file that by March 1st. So we'll talk about that tonight and then we'll just talk about some considerations and constraints that we have uh during the budget process. Okay. So, as I mentioned, uh, on our website, if you go to the, um, main page and you click on the board of education under that menu, there is a budget information section. So, if you click on it, you'll see this on the screen here. So, we have three years
003worth of budget information online, two obviously complete years and one that we're working on right now. So, any of our presentations, this uh, recorded presentation uh, will be on there and and the actual PowerPoint, any information we have relating to budget, our schedule's up there already. um of all of our budget meetings and the things that we have to do in the process. Uh so you can find that all there. So just to give you a brief summary of our timeline um this is the meetings uh where we we'll be talking about budget. So obviously tonight here we are uh we'll be back here again on March 10th, same time, same place uh for meeting number two and then our meetings will go into the regular board meeting. So on April 14th, um I will
004present the 2627 proposed budget, contingency budget, and the property tax report card. And that is the night that we anticipate the board will adopt the budget and approve that property tax report card, which I will then have to file with the state. Uh we'll have our budget hearing on May 5th. Um, we made that earlier this year because, uh, last year it was a week later and it's a very tight turnaround time between the budget here and then and the budget vote and we have to get our six day postcard out. Uh, so to make sure we have a little bit buffer on time, we bump that meeting back a week this year. And then of course the big finale, the budget vote on May 19th at the North America Library. We do have, as
005we did last year, two makeup sessions. So, if any of the committee members are not able to come to the February 10th, which looks like most of you are here, or the March 10th meetings, um we do have on February 24th and March 24th, uh daytime meeting. So, if you are interested in coming to those, you can reach out to me and we'll get you in here. So, just to give you a little bit of an idea of our process, um, when I started here last year, I kind of followed the format of my predecessor and we did Excel spreadsheets to all of the departments and buildings and gave them their budget codes and they would give me back bit of a summary of what they would purchase from each code and the dollar amounts.
006Um, this year we are working through our accounting software. So, everybody has gone into Envision, which is our accounting software, and they've entered their own budgets. Uh, I gave all the administrators a timeline to have that done by, and once I saw that all the budgets were submitted, I locked it down. So, I'm the only one able to get in there now, so nobody can get in. So, don't try to change anything because you can't. Um, but if you do need to change something, if something comes up, we're still in the, you know, tweaking and planning phase, so if something comes up, and I do that as a control thing. I just want to make sure that if anything changes, I know why at this point. Uh so that was November. We got those back
007in December. Um I've been meeting with folks. I met with uh Mr. Marrams. I'm talking to the other principles and the other administrators regarding their budgets. Um and then between February and April, we'll have these meetings. Um the board will adopt the budget and then we go through the rest of the process. Um during this time frame, as I mentioned earlier, we do file the tax cap by March 1st. I have to uh file that on the controllers's website. The property tax report card is due on April 15th, which is the day after the board adopts the budget. Um, we have the administrative compensation forms and the presentation of contingency budget during the month of April. And uh, right before the budget vote, we do have and the budget hearing, we have to post our
008budget statement and required attachments, which we do post on that section in our website that I showed you earlier. and we send out that six-day notice. So, as I mentioned in my opening, there are really two sides of the budget. When you go to vote, you're voting on the expenditure side of the budget, but in order to present to our community an expenditure budget, I have to also create a revenue side of the budget to fund that expenditure budget, and they have to be equal. So, you'll see that on the bottom, it's a little dark on the screen, but um the revenue needs to equal the expenses. Um, so we can't have an unbalanced budget. They both both sides have to balance. Um, so you can see on the screen the expenditure budget obviously is
009everything we plan on spending in the upcoming year and the revenue side is the way we're going to pay for everything we plan to spend this year. Sources of revenue. And you see that money tree there. I wish we really had one. Uh, I thought it was a cute graphic, but um I really wish we did have one. Uh, so state aid is one of our sources of revenue. We'll talk about that a little more in upcoming slides. Fund balance allocation, uh, appropriations from reserves, pilots, other local revenues, and of course, our property tax. This is our largest source of revenue. So, you might have seen in New Day a few weeks ago, um, this the executive budget proposal was released in mid January. Um, it shows a $1.6 $6 million increase over the prior
010year um actual budget that the the revenue will get from the state for the state aid. It shows a 12.07% increase overall. And I say that you this is all of the money that they're planning to give to us, but this is not all this can be spent on the general fund budget. You'll see um the second line down is our universal prek. Um we have to only spend that money on prek. We cannot use that to lower our tax levy. So, I like to show it without the UPK to show what really is the increase in the budget in the excuse me, in the state aid that we're allowed to put towards our budget. So, you'll see I'm going to go to the next slide. The numbers are small here. I'm sorry. Uh $1.1
011million, which represents a 9.2% increase over last year's budget. And that is part of the revenues that we can use to offset our tax levy. Other things we can use to offset our tax levy as far as revenues are fund balance and reserves. I put a little description there of what each of them are. Fund balance is basically what's left at the end of our budget year. Um things that we didn't we plan to buy but maybe came in less so we have a little bit extra in our budget or revenues that came in a little bit higher than we anticipated. Um that's what fund balance is. And reserve funds are basically savings accounts with specific rules and specific purposes. So you know last year we did talk about the capital reserve that we created.
012That's a mechanism for saving monies for projects that we plan to do in the future. It has a specific way that we have to set it up a specific way that we have to you know go through a process to withdraw the money. Um each reserve fund is set up that way. They will have their own rules and regulations. Um the auditors noted last year we did um in previous years use appropriated fund balance which is leftover monies from the current year budget to put forward to next year's budget as a revenue source. Um we zeroed that out with this year's budget and the auditors commented on that and they were very happy that we did that. We're one of few very few of their districts that have accomplished that. And although that's a a
013source of revenue that if you need it, it's there. If you have a little bit extra money left over, it's not something you want to rely upon. So, they were very uh appreciative that we got that, you know, the reliance on that number off our budget for the upcoming year. And I'm hoping to keep it that way. Pilots are payments in lie of taxes. And very simply, these are agreements that businesses make with the local IDAs when they come into communities uh to grow their business. They have a set payment instead of being on the tax roles and paying um you know their assessed value for a period of time. Um we only have one pilot here and that's the LIPO pilot and every school district has a LIPO pilot. um it it tends to
014vary every year as far as increases and decreases and I actually was talking with some of my colleagues and we are kind of surprised that it's gone up a little bit but you never know when it's going to come down because it it kind of is a roller coaster. Um but that's the only pilot we have uh which is a good thing. The other uh local sources of revenue are all the other things of the revenues we bring into the district. So those are uh interest income on our bank accounts. Uh revenues that we get for charging tuition to other school districts when our uh you know other students come into our district to be educated. Health services um facility use charges if we um charge folks to use our facilities. Uh any kind of
015rent or uh you know a per use charge, gifts and donations, fees build to other municipalities. Um like we discovered that uh this year we are able to bill the county for our CPSE charges. So I build the last two years I was able to go back. We will continue to build that going forward. So that's another source of revenue that can be used to offset our tax levy increase. And of course the largest is our property taxes. So I put in there just a kind of very simple formula. when we look at our proposed expenditure budget, we subtract out all other sources of revenue and that's where we come up with our property tax levy. So, right now I'm looking at all of our other sources of revenue and what I tend to do
016is look back three to five years to see what our trends are, see what's come in, see what our history is and and try to project the revenue for the upcoming year in that way. So that's where I stand right now with that. Um the tax levy limit calculation or that they call it the 2% tax cap has been in existence for a long time now. Um it establishes how much we are able to levy and how quickly that levy can grow. So some key components um these are the things that we wait on. A lot of them come from other you know u sources. We get the tax base growth factor which measures the growth of taxable property in the community um like new construction or improvements or additions. Um our tax base growth
017factor decreased slightly this year. It went from 1.0078% to 1.0073%. um the allowable levy growth factor which is the lesser of CPI or 2% we're at 2% this year. Uh we ended the year with a 2.64% CPI but of course we're not able to go up to that number. So if it's higher than 2% then 2% is our ceiling as far as that number. Um in in years past it's gone as low as 12%. Uh so we're happy to see it at 2%. Pilots we just spoke about that's also part of the formula. capital exclusion. Um what the state does, it allows us to exclude monies that we have in our budget for purposes of improving our buildings. Uh they don't want us to have our buildings go into disrepair uh because this tax cap
018formula is in place. So they give us an exclusion and we're able to um exclude uh debt service from bonds uh expenditures on capital projects. uh if districts purchase their own buses or uh truck leases, uh you can also put that into that calculation. And last, the retirement contributions. We don't have this exclusion this year. I think we've only had it once in my entire time in schools. If the rates increase higher than 2%, uh they allow us to exclude the amount that's over the 2%. But we do not have that this year. So, just for demonstration purposes, that's the tax levy limit calculation. Um, but to make it look a little nicer and it's a little small up there, so I apologize. Um, so that this is the steps of that we saw on
019the prior screen and where it lands at the end here is our allowable levy increase and that's to keep within the tax cap limit. Uh, $681,673 and that represents a 2.53% allowable levy increase. So, if we are 2.53% or lower, we're compliant. Anything higher than that would be piercing the tax cap and would require a supermajority. So, some things to consider as we go through the process. Um, and and before I read all these to you and talk about them, um, my my plan is to change our process a little bit. As you can see, I'm not following the format that we did last year. Um, I wanted to talk to you about revenue tonight a little bit and then when we come back in March, I will have both the expenditure and revenue sides
020of the budget. And prior to that presentation, it is my intention to provide the board and the committee with the line by line budget because I feel like instead of presenting it to you and and showing to you on the screen, I'd like you to have it beforehand and be able to review it and ask questions at the March meeting. So, I will have that to you before the March meeting in time for you to look at it and then be able to ask questions at the March meeting. Um, so some things that I'm thinking about and we should all be thinking about as we move forward, you know, now and even into next year, increases in insurance premiums. Um, they continue to go up. Thankfully, not double digits this year for the health insurance.
021um the liability insurance, which is all of our lines of insurance with nicer. I've gotten so far from them and it's very early in the process, but a range of 13 to 15% increase. Um which I was initially unhappy about until I heard a district out in Suffach had a a 42% increase. So, I guess it's better, but um it's concerning that that the insurance rates continue to go up. Um we have CSSE meetings ongoing which will impact our placements and support services for students next year. You know, I know Dr. Murphy goes through and he budgets what he knows and anticipates what he think might happen. Um, but some of the things are unknown until he goes into those meetings. Transportation costs, as you know, we are fully contracted. Uh, but we will not
022get the CPI for increasing our contracts usually until mid June. Uh, so that's a guesstimate again of of what to plan for that. Our Boseies rates are starting to trickle in. We got some tuition rates in the last week. Um I anticipate uh by April 1st they will release the electronic letter of intent so we'll know what some of the other costs are. We've gotten some quotes for services that we currently use. So we're working on you know going through those to project what our budgets and the Boseies lines will be for next year. State aid allocation and budget initiatives. So what I showed you a few slides ago is our initial state aid run. as you know, we'll get another run in late March or early April, um, which will be our final budget
023number. Um, they tend to be a little bit higher, you know, on the second run, but who knows? I can't predict that it will stay that way. Um, but some of the initiatives that they've put forward this year, I'll talk about just briefly the UPK. Um, UPK, they're proposing to go up from a a reimbursement rate of $5,400 per student to $10,000 per student. So, we're asking all of our providers now to give us the their maximum capacity because apparently the state's also going to not cap us at 114 students. They want us to get to a point where we're offering prek to any students that are eligible and want to go. Um, and that's by the 2829 school year, but I'm told that they're going to start allowing that us to do that work
024toward that now. So, while we're capped this year at 114 students, at $5,400 that they'll reimburse us for, that number is potentially going to go up to 10,000. Um, creates a little bit more administrative work for us because there's more kids that we're dealing with. There's more visits, uh, there's more testing, you know, so there's a lot of things that come into play. Um, but it will also potentially bring us, you know, kids that are readier for kindergarten. Uh we do have uh we're in negotiations right now with one of our bargaining units, the teachers. Uh we have two additional units that will be up at the end of the 2627 school year. Uh so also to consider that. So there's a lot of things that are happening now that you know working on thinking
025about as we do this budget process. um because we want to make sure that we we come in with a levy uh of course that's within the tax cap and we don't want our taxpayers to feel the you know burdened by that. Um but there's a lot of things that we also have to consider to keep our district operating and to keep our students um staff uh you know being able to do all the wonderful things that they're doing. So with that I will answer any questions that any of you have. I have a question about the DPK. >> Yes. >> So, obviously 10,000 is a lot more than 5,400. >> Do when they give us that money, is it this is $10,000 that must be spent on one student or do they give us
026a 10,000 times 123? I mean, what I'm asking is can we get a few more kids out of that somehow? So potentially I I think I'm going to explain it the other way. Um they're saying $10,000 per student. And what they've done now with the $5,400 per student is they we have a little bit more than 5,400 times 114 students. So we're able to plan a little bit of extra like I I put portion of somebody's salary into the grant and um you know some other things. with the 10,000. They're not giving me a lot of information yet because the the Office of Early Learning that runs the UPK program said that they really can't advise us how to move forward until the budget's finalized until we get that late March, early April run. So,
027the way I worked around that, and I ran this by the person I deal with in the office of early learning, I said, I'm going to put in my RFP, and I did um that the state's intention is to raise the amount to $10,000 for next year, but that proposer should keep in mind that that$10,000 not just for tuition that's going to go to them. That we have in-house administrative fees that we need to, you know, have some of that money to spend for. And I'm not going to tell them what to propose, but I ask that they keep that in mind when they're making their proposal. Um, you know, a lot of, you know, the considerations when we go through and we look at it, you know, we have to look and make sure
028they all meet the criteria that the Office of All Early Learning puts out. Um, but price is also a consideration. So, if somebody puts down $10,000 and somebody else doesn't and they put a lower amount, they could price themselves out by putting a higher amount. So, it's it's really up to the proposers to kind of balance that. Um, and I you know, unfortunately, I don't know what that if it's truly going to be the $10,000 amount until we get to that point where we get that budget number. Um, but I I anticipate if they do do that and I I'm hopeful that our our proposals will certainly bid higher than what they've gotten in the past, but also keep in mind that administrative fee part and hopefully we'll be able to find that happy medium.
029>> We're still at 114. I don't know why I thought I heard 123. >> We're at 114 for this year. Um, but going forward, they're saying that there's no cap so that they would reimburse us the 10,000 per student. >> I have I have 123 applicants this year. >> Oh, yes. I knew I heard 123. >> So hopefully, you know, if everything stays the way that they've proposed so far, we'd be able to offer seats to all those 123 students so long as the the providers that proposed to us have enough seats. Now, I sent to our four existing providers this year. We had a fifth uh preschool that's in MER that reached out earlier in the year, but we had already completed our RFP process for this year. So, I kept them on the
030list and I reached out. I asked for their address. So, I did send them a copy of the RFP. I also advertised it. It's going to go in the Herald this Friday. So, if there's anybody that's out there that we don't know about that's coming into the community that has a prek program that meets all our criteria, uh, and they want to propose, they certainly can, too. Um, you know, I'm all about taking the state's money. So, if we have enough seats and we can get these kids in, why not? >> Also, who who decides that um the tax base uh growth factor? I see an awful lot of big houses being built out there in >> 1% increase tax. >> It comes from the office of real property tax. It's a one of the
031state offices. Um, I'm not exactly sure what they look at. You know, obviously they're looking at the the what's going on in the neighborhood, but I don't know how they calculate that, but they provide us those numbers. Of course, Nassau County is always the last one to get their numbers because we didn't get them until like I think it was early January this year where the rest of the state had them in December. Um, but yeah, it's they they I guess they must be looking at all the things that are going on in the community and throw it into their formula. So, it's a slight difference this year. I mean, it's a a slight reduction. You know, it's not terrible. Of course, you want to always see that go up. But >> But isn't it
032true that you have I'm just gonna throw numbers out there. You have 5,000 residents homes in North America. Out of those 5,000 houses, everybody send in and I'm just going to spitball here, $10,000 a house for schools. >> Not all that money goes to North America. >> No. >> Right. So that answered your question. So that's the whole thing with the with the increase. So that money goes to the city, goes upstate, goes everywhere. So our numbers that we pay is not just >> North American American >> which that's what that's what it's all about. >> I just think that percentage should be higher >> of course >> looks that way. >> Now also with next month's meeting I will um provide you with the information that I that had my predecessor provided with the
033you know percentages that we spend on the budget on salary and benefits and all that stuff. I'll do the charts for next month as well. Um, is there anything the board or the committee would like? >> You know, I'm sorry. Do you know off the top of your head how many houses are in North America? >> No. No. >> I can find that out for you though. >> I'll just be curious to see what what the numbers are. >> I will find that. >> I guarantee you the average person's paying, you know, 12 $15,000 a household >> for just for school taxes. >> If you multiply that by that, that's the number that the amount of taxes that we send. And I'm sure it's a heck of a lot more than 32,000 $32 million or
034whatever our budget is. >> I don't know if it helps, but we have about 12,000 registered voters for our school district. >> That's really not You can't go. >> That's just a district school district. >> You have you have multiple people living in one house. You know, like my house alone, I have four registered voters. >> Yeah. >> So, it's really You're right. You're right. >> They vote. That's all the story. Any other questions, comments? >> One quick question. Do we ever get a a break including a tax cap like you have for ERS and TRS if it's over 2% for something like healthcare healthcare goes up? >> There's nothing there's nothing in the formula about that. >> Yeah. >> So, that could be a big issue with a back something we really can't control.
035>> Yeah. Every district in New York State is facing the same thing, unfortunately. I mean, I wish it was something that they would include in the tax cap formula. I believe that's one of the items that some of the professional organizations are talking about. The tax cap's been in place since 12, 13, you know, it's been a long time now. Um, some of the things that we're using in the formula maybe need to be tweaked a bit because times have changed, of costs have gone up, and there are things that that might not be affordable to school districts if they're not considered in that tax cap formula. >> Line by line, you're going to give us the line by line. I like it. >> Yeah. >> I like seeing >> Yeah. I I feel like
036it's more important for you to see it on paper and let you look at it rather than see it for the first time on the screen and to see it on screen of course gota shrink everything down so there are tiny little numbers up there. I'd rather give it to you and let you look at it and then ask your questions while we're here. You know, because I think that, you know, if there are questions, let's spend the time and asking and answering the questions rather than going through and just saying, "Here's the next set of lines. Does anybody have a question?" You know, I feel like your time is valuable. Um I I'd rather spend it answering any questions you have than just hearing me tell you that how much each budget line went
037up or down. So, um I will have that for you before the March meeting. Okay. >> Thank you, Marie, for always being so thorough. >> Oh, thank you. And everything will be posted tomorrow on our budget website. And when I come in in the morning, I will send it to our PR folks and uh they'll get it up and post it. So, if you missed anything or you want to look at it on Friday night, they'll be there for you. >> Thank you everybody. >> Something to look forward to. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, we can't start till 7. >> 7 o' break. >> We have a break. Okay. >> It's freezing in here, isn't it? All right. Good evening everyone. Welcome to our February board meeting. If you can rise for the pledge of
038allegiance 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. >> I want to thank Miss Donnelly for a uh we had our budget meeting prior to this meeting. So, I just want to thank Miss Donnelly and Dr. Siniac and your team for uh putting together a great presentation and we will have another uh presentation at the March meeting um prior to the March meeting I should say. Uh at 6:15 again. >> Yes. >> Okay. 6:15. Okay. I will turn it over to Dr. Sign for her her comments. Thank you. >> Good evening. Welcome. Uh so what's been going on in North Merrick? Well, we had our wellness retreat for grades four to six at Old Mill
039Road. That went o over very well. We have our next one Thursday night for grades K to three over at Old Mill. Looking forward to that. Uh Shark Tank was a huge success. We have a lot of innovative, creative students uh in our wings program and they put together great products and great inventions. Uh so we think they'll all be rich when they get older. So God bless them. Uh our UPK registration closes on February 27th. As of now, we have 123 families who registered for the lottery. The lottery will be on March 13th at 9:00 a.m. Last week, we had our world readaloud. uh our students interacted virtually with authors. Thank you Dr. Canalopoulos for putting that together. It was a huge success. Uh I think this is about our third year, Dr. Bramberg.
040Third of Yeah. So it's a great success and we do it in all of our schools. Tomorrow night we have our art night with SEPTA creative cupcake art night. Always a huge success over at Old Mill. Uh we have our February break coming up. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I see all the hearts. the bows in the back, pink. Uh, no Saturday scope this Saturday the 14th or next Saturday the 21st. Believe it or not, we're starting to plan our summer programs. I know it's hard to believe and just thinking of summer is difficult at this point with the weather outside, but today did feel a lot warmer. It shows you what your body's become accustomed to with the cold weather. And we have our science fairs coming up. looking forward to those in all
041of our buildings. So, everyone enjoy the February break and we will see you after that. >> That's right. Thank you so much. If I can have a motion to approve 3A through 3C. Motion by Mary, second by Tracy. All in favor? I. Motion carries unanimously. Um public comments on agenda items only as uh stipulated in 4A. Do we have any commenters on agenda items only? Okay, moving along. Uh, a motion to approve 5A through 5G. Motion by Tracy, second by Mary. All in favor? I. Motion passes unanimously. A motion to approve our personal actions report 6A as detailed in the mailing. 6A by uh Kathy, second by Will. All in favor? I. Motion passes unanimously. A motion to approve policy 7A as written in the agenda. Motion by Tracy, second by Mary. All in favor?
042I. All right. Brings us to our report of committees. High school report. >> Ed, you want >> You're welcome. It's cold. Go home. I'm kidding. High school report. >> Yeah. Okay. Central High School District Board of Ed meeting on February 4th. The board recognized Cole Stern uh from Kennedy High School for his accomplishment of being a Regeneron Science finalist. The board also recognized Nattie Martin who was named the Herald person of the year for MER. Uh that was actually a uh a senior okay at Calhoun for her work with autism. And the board also recognized Stacy Brief who is a graduate of Metham High School for her achievement as being named the Belmore Herald person of the year from uh Memphis for her work in suicide prevention. student reps. If the board doesn't mind, I'm
043only going to focus on the Calhoun reps instead of the whole district. There's a lot to write and if I can report on other things, but just kind of focusing on what's happening right here in North America. So, Cara Dobs is our Calhoun rep. Uh the choir performed at Westbury Gardens and the high school rock band has a performance at the school for a Valentine's Day theme event. Uh the boys and girls basketball teams both made playoffs. Both Calhoun boys and girls track teams were the team conference champions and onour put on a performance of the play the old man and the old moon and apparently the playright came and checked out the play and spoke to them afterwards. The board was given a presentation of college admissions process and the assistance program at Belmo
044America uh Central High School District and they explained to us a little bit about what's happening right now in the uh the world of college applications and it's very very different than even I remember from just about uh less than 10 years ago my own children applications the volume applications are way up um average of seven up from five just uh four years ago. Um they also said many students are applying up to 15 or 20 applications because there are more free apps available and also the common app. They also spoke about the shift of student applications to the southern schools and I know I've seen that you have so many students now applying to these big uh SEC schools in the south as opposed to what it used to be. Uh, also in the
045agenda, the a uh the district voted on agreement between Belmo Central High School District and Bingington University for us to accept qualified student teachers each year from that college. Uh, during public comment, a North America resident raised concern about the ongoing federal government investigation into a civil rights complaint stemming from a transgender athlete who tried out for a Calhoun sports team. That's it. >> Right. So, um I was going to mention that uh as an update, uh we did receive a uh OCR complaint. Um papers will be filed by uh February 12th. Um so we are in the document uh exchange. There's no lawsuit. Um I think there were some misrepresentations or mis inaccuracies online as usual but uh yes so there is an investigation that we are a part of and uh we will
046keep you know Ed and I will keep you briefed on that. um you know more to come on that >> and when you say we you mean the high school that >> I'm sorry the high school not not elementary it's the it's the Belmore America uh but we are all one right it's the Belmore America it's not uh it's not it has nothing to do >> per se with uh with the elementary school but that's just at our update for the high school um all right uh school community relations PTA council miss Keane >> thank you PTA's continue to be extraordinary so I'll start with FET Park began February 2nd and will run through the 13th. This this year's theme is reading Olympics for Black History Month. Prismatic Magic will be uh coming on February
04711th. So they were there today, right? Wait, right. Tomorrow. >> So coming tomorrow. Holy cow. Uh for an assembly to pay tribute to important figures in black history. For international day of happiness in March, we will be having a meteorologist visit here. Math Olympians, mindfulness club, drama club, and chess club are all running smoothly. Boys bowling night was January 23rd at Wall Lane. Seems like so long. Uh the sweetheart dance was February 6th. The Scholastic book book fair will uh be here on March 13th. Bingo night is set for March 26th. Oldm Mill Road students were very engaged at a recent assembly with the author's inspiring story of perseverance and determination from parolympian Blake Leaper. Mr. Leaper arrived with books for all students and each copy of his book Why Not Me was signed by
048him. Park began with the theme Rock of Ages. The readathon has raised over $10,000. So the kids love the competition. Camp Avenue part began with the theme pirates inspired by the author Daryl Cobb. Mr. Cobb also celebrates custom books and inserts the teachers names into his stories. Mr. Cobb also was a guest speaker at our assembly that included an interactive readaloud with students and staff about writing and reading skills. Highly recommend uh inviting him back. uh fundraiser at multiple restaurants for PTA uh were successful. We reached out to OMR regarding their success with a readathon and are very pleased that we were able to begin a readathon at Camp Avenue. The money raised to date for the PTA has been very impressive. Students are thoroughly enjoying the reading program. And last, but certainly not least,
049SEPTA, we will have our creative cupcake craft art night at Oldm Mill Road tomorrow, Wednesday the 11th. Um, we are in the preparation stage for our auction and family night scheduled for March 6th at the Long Island Children's Museum. Except a really they were concerned about the cost. >> I think it was the previous fundraiser >> Dave and Busters. Was it Dave and Busters last year? Even though it's a fun event, they noticed that the tickets were pricey, so they switched up to the uh Long Island Children's Museum. >> Great. >> A lot of events going on. Very nice. Um Mr. Carter Buildings and Grounds, thank you on behalf of the board for all of your hard work >> despite to the children's uh should about getting everything cleared and ready every day. >> Yeah.
050They they hate the custodial staff. They do such a good job. >> They're too good of a job. Yeah. So, to sound like a broken record, but snow removal again and again and again, and it's they just keep doing such an amazing job. Our sidewalks are literally dry um where sidewalks in town aren't even uh shoveled. So, uh always uh they always rise to the occasion and they outdo themselves each time. Um with that comes equipment repairs. Plows break, snowblowers break, you know, the salt spreaders break, and the guys are always right there to fix them and get them back running, you know, just in case there's another event. Um the extreme cold taxes our buildings. You know, we're worried about bursting pipes and stuff like that. So, uh we have been running in an
051occupied mode day and night just to keep the buildings warmer uh throughout the night just because fuel is cheap compared to an emergency response or you know classrooms with water dripping out of the ceilings. So, uh that's been one of our tactics along with a lot of other districts. Uh theater art supplies uh has started to trickle over to Brookside. So, that's coming soon. That's going to be great. Um, always look forward to these, uh, the plays that they put on. They do a great job every year. Uh, work orders and maintenance are ongoing. Um, and we're doing, one of the projects we're doing is emergency lighting. Uh, we've had a couple of blackouts. One in December, one more recently, uh, at, uh, HDF. And, uh, what we've been doing is putting emergency lighting in
052rooms that don't have any, you know, exterior lighting or windows and stuff like that, some bathrooms and things like that. Um, so we've been pulling wire and adding uh emergency light fixtures just in case we do have an outage again, we're not completely in the dark. And uh that's being done in-house by our guys. I mean, this is how good they are. We don't have to outsource that kind of thing. They they're they're capable of doing it in house. And uh good news is that the camp bids were received last week. Uh budget came in uh it come in a little bit under budget, which is great. And it's being awarded tonight. So uh we'll be ready to do a new camp roof soon, which is a big relief. Uh it's way overdue. >> When
053is that going to start, Mr. Carter? >> Uh we're going to start when the weather gets better. Uh hoping I'm hoping we can do it during the spring rather than wait for the summer. Um they want to do a second shift. So we'd be doing it, you know, in from like after school into like a 10 11:00. Um that's what the contractor wants to do and it's not often you get a contractor who wants to start early to get done early. So I think we're going to take advantage of that if we can provide them with the logistics we need. >> Great. Great. Thank you. >> Thanks, guys. U Mr. Long, any communications? >> Yes, one communication we received and the board is distributed to the board. >> Okay. Um any unfinished business board members?
054Any new business? Any public comments at all? On that note, if we have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion by Ed, second by Will. All in favor? I. Have a great break, everyone. Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day. 10.