001uh this is the board of education's uh meeting and uh we're glad that you've joined us today is june the 15th 2021 and um it is now 5 34. we are again pleased that is the board of education is pleased that you have chosen to join us i just came in from outside as i'm sure perhaps some of my colleagues have and it's a beautiful day outside in fact mr clark will be happy to hear that i'm wearing a golf shirt uh although i'm terrible at the game but in any event um i wanted to welcome you all and indicate that today our goal is to get through as much of this business as quickly as we can this is much a comment to the folks who are watching to my colleagues because there is
002a critical vote tonight city council is indeed voting on the rochester city school district's budget i just want to make this point um and this is good news and i don't know if any of my colleagues caught it but there have been some polling going on obviously as of late uh regarding the upcoming elections and did you notice that the the status of city schools is no longer the number one issue i think it's like number four or three now that's not uh good news i guess but it's better news uh sadly and perhaps predictably the number one issue is crime which affects us all but um i just want to deliver that bit of news that citizens are less concerned doesn't mean they don't have concerns but they're less concerned about what is happening
003in our schools than they are on other significant social issues and what does that mean for us the board of education what does that mean for you all watching it means that perhaps it means that people observe our meetings they observe the budget that is going to be voted on tonight they see that it is a responsible budget they see that as an on-time budget they see it as a balanced budget they see that the graduation rate in all likelihood will go up for what the seventh eighth ninth year in a row we're at a 20-year high our out-of-school suspensions are 40 down i think was the last number i heard i i believe or at least i hope that the the focus that the citizens have on crime and violence is a natural focus
004but it's also perhaps reflective of the fact that citizens see what we are doing in our meetings what they're seeing in the headlines or what they are not seeing in the headlines and they're becoming less concerned about this it doesn't mean we don't have a lot of work to do but it is encouraging it is an encouraging sign that uh citizens perhaps are gaining greater confidence in our ability to lead this district and provide our students what they need all right having said that i have called the meeting to order uh i am told by our staff that there are no speakers and there have been no written submissions is that right all right uh next item on the agenda is um july 2021 meeting schedule proposal madam clerk you want to tell us about
005that yes i do so um i did want to approach um the board there was a brief discussion in the board officers meeting regarding the schedule for the july business meetings in the past um we have generally as the board had a break for a month's time wherein uh persons take time to reassess and then to prepare for the upcoming academic year um last year we did not take a break because of the kovid pandemic we were all working so there was no break last year but typically we do a break for the month of july and come back strong in august um the question is out to board members as to whether you would like to have no board meetings except for the business meeting and two special meetings only to consider h human
006human capital resolutions um at that time so there would only be as i said two brief meetings just to consider human capital resolutions the month of july and the monthly business meeting and there would be no committees meeting for the month of july to allow administration and board staff to reassess and to prepare for the next um school year so that is the proposal on the table at this time no man clark you submitted that to all of our colleagues right i don't believe that i i believe that i've touched base on on with a few in board officers meeting but not the full board this is the time you asked me to put on the agenda so just if you could repeat that one more time what and succinctly what the proposal is okay
007the proposal is not to have any committee meetings meeting for the month of july it would only be two special meetings convened just for the purpose of uh considering human capital resolutions um so that would be two tuesdays and then the business meeting on the fourth thursday of the month so there would be um we would essentially not meeting for two additional tuesdays for the month okay i got my participant screen up and i see that commission malloy and then commissioner lebron have raised their hand commissioner malloy thank you president white uh just a quick question um talia which committee meetings would we be missing then if we change the schedule there would be no committee meeting so there would be no finance no policy no governance no cigr no hr no audit under normal
008circumstances we would have the governance meeting policy meeting on um well um with the new schedule that the board came up with it would be um essentially policy would be paired with i believe it's being paired with it would it's scheduled to be paired with cigr that first month of july um and then it would be finance um and then the business meeting based on our new schedule where we're rotating we're doing the rotation okay so governance wasn't one it wasn't slated yeah i wasn't saying it anyway thank you uh thank you commission malloy commission lebron yeah so i just want to say i actually personally don't care which meetings were slated i am voting yes if we are taking a vote on taking a break in the month of july um and as kalia
009mentioned in 2018 we did take up a break um and unfortunately because of covet we have been going ever since so yes to a break and if the board chooses to vote not to take a break i will still be putting in time off so i just want to put that out there because my own personal self-care is just as important as everyone else's thank you thank you commissioner lebron commissioner powell uh um i'm sorry to be a stick in the mud but uh we've been reviewing the the uh the um timetable for reviewing policies and this so this comes at a big surprise is not on our review to to skip any time off and um and i'd have to push back i don't remember any time any year to be honest with you
010where meetings were where committee meetings were um canceled except that very often the finance committees uh meeting was canceled in july because the books aren't closed yet these are decisions generally left up to the committee chairs and in that spirit i would ask that the policy committee continue to meet i mean if if we don't have perfect attendance that's fine and under the heading of self-care i schedule my vacant vacation for august so taking time off in july doesn't do anything for me is it possible for me to respond to president white yeah let's go ahead but we have just to let you know we have uh vice president elliot on deck so go ahead yes i only wanted to address commissioner paul's the policy review which definitely was a factor i did look into
011that with um with rahima briefly just to make sure that things stay on track that is a really important part of the board's business prep meetings and things like that will still continue for the month of july it would just be where the board is meeting as as one um during the special meeting so um the policy review committee would still be meeting um in order to make those um make those deadlines happen and there's nothing slated for acceptance in the in the um july meeting that wouldn't be able to be um reviewed ahead of time um for the schedule so there's we wouldn't have to do a first second reading for anything on the schedule before we get to you vice president i wanted to hear what uh commissioner powell give a response to
012that how do you feel about what you just said uh well it the first second readings and so on aren't really the important ingredient it's the actual uh hearing the uh the progress of the administration on the dispatch batches of work that are done at the sub committee level and and getting them passed through the committee so it can start for a second and clock yes and the subcommittee will continue to meet will continue to meet um and have those discussions with administration um so um policy would take place in august the first week of august tuesday and um we would be able to pick back up with with considering um policies at that time i wonder if um if gar doesn't need to meet maybe we could be paired with a you know postponed
013and paired with another meeting or another committee that does intend vice president elliot yeah i thought that we had on the table july and august so i'm wondering how did we get down just having a conversation about july as opposed to july and august well since i don't have any conversation so let me just put it out there to the colleagues i was i was suggesting uh that we did july and august um so let me just throw that out there uh i mean i'm willing to meet in august but um i was just thinking that we really do need a rest from committees and i was thinking july and august so i'm just putting that out there uh for the board's consideration that we do um both july and august commissioner molloy thank you
014um honestly i i don't really care either way um i just a helpful for me at least as as the chair of governance would i i don't know when this proposal came forward but um you know just in the future if this something like this comes up at a board officers meeting and it's getting you know talked about at an upcoming uh meeting it would be really helpful for me as as governance chair seeing as how i you know i'm in charge of these calendars and and need to be in the know on that it would be super helpful if if i could be included on that type of correspondence thank you and i i just like to say mr president you can respond that's a point well taken and we i apologize for not
015including you in that um commissioner very well thank you by way of background commission malloy this came up at an officers meeting and as a proposal from uh staff and from administration i think that's a fair characterization and the conclusion was since it would impact all board members that we should that obviously the board officers couldn't make a decision on their own that we should bring it to the full board i i don't know when the next uh governance meeting was but i know it wouldn't have been in time to make the decision before and as you know governance is a as all of our committees are committees of the whole so the most efficient way to bring this to the full board was to uh have it at a full committee meeting but in
016terms of your point about notifying you that uh this was something that was brought up at an officer's meeting so that you wouldn't be caught off guard at this meeting that's that as vice president elliott said quite well taken but the goal was to take an idea that came from staff and administration uh and put it before the full board where the decision has to be made yeah i understand the rationale completely then so thank you i just accept just a matter of courtesy thank you absolutely um in terms of i don't see any other hands being raised in terms of my feelings about it i i july and august i i i said at the officers meeting when this proposal came up my personal opinion was that there's no time to waste and i
017realize staff and administration and and our colleagues are all working very hard everybody's being very diligent but there is so much work to do and one of the things i said was that um i saw september coming up like it was right around the corner and i i said to our wonderful superintendent i don't know exactly what the plan is for uh you know um how we get those ela scores and math scores up and we're so far behind do we really have uh a week or two or four or eight to lose i was convinced after a number of conversations that certainly that the idea should be brought before the full board but that maybe just the month of july but i just personally i just think that we just don't have any time
018to spare and and and if you were talking about the only thing we were measured on was graduation rates personally i feel like we're making the kind of progress that is credible that's believable but ela and math scores and and and suspect out of school suspensions we're doing really well there but uh in terms of the other performance indicators like ela and math scores and attendance uh what you know while our students and our families may be taking the summer off i just felt like maybe we should but as a compromise i thought july was good um and in terms of commissioner powell's concern um you correct me if i'm wrong uh kyle i'm his way but there is no reason why at any one of those special meetings or at the business meeting we
019couldn't take up uh you know commissioner powell's agendas and concerns just to keep that moving along as somebody said it really is in the past it's been the determination of the chairs to do this although there have been discussions about whether to take the time off or not during the summer but uh you know you know commissioner police has a specific need it sounds certainly reasonable to me i i can't imagine we couldn't find some time on at our two special meetings or at our business meeting to put that on the agenda as if it was uh whatever she needed to have on the policy committee meeting what do you say uh uh ms wade uh yes and and i wanted to say that was part of the proposal is that um the um portion
020of time that is taken up for board reports commissioners have that opportunity to use that time to update commissioners on what work is taking place behind the scenes essentially the finance reports those have to be accepted monthly so it's not like we wouldn't be able to we would we would still have to have or cfo present the financial data and everything to board members the same thing um for um the special education report and esa things like that we'll have to um shuffle so that in the business meeting it might be a little bit longer um but um we would have time during that during the board report section to to do any additional um check-in mr powell and commissioner braun before i get to you and just finish up my thoughts you know we
021we talk about what our needs are individually as a collective body what we should be doing um but the other reason why i was persuaded that this made sense at least july or certainly july was because while i may have um a desire to as they say plow through it or um may just have the this desire to do that i have to be just personally i have to be mindful that there are other people uh whose lives and whose energy levels i am not aware of but equally committed public servants who when we meet as committees we tax we we drain we call upon these individuals to commit to themselves and on the issue of personal mental health and wellness we are charged only with being responsible for what happening to our students but
022our colleagues and our staff at central office so i think the argument about wellness uh is is an important one even if we feel like we must continue to go on there are all kinds of people in this operation at central office and beyond but particularly those folks we work with central office who it is important that we be cognizant of their needs and to at least give them a break from the rigors and we have serious committee meetings there's no joke about them and they and they come prepared for those meetings and to uh allow them not even to take a month off no one's saying that they're not going to be at work because many of them will be but um it allows them just some breathing room to operate and other spheres
023of responsibility so um it is it for me it was my quote-unquote personal compromise was uh also a reflection of the fact that it is important that we register as we were told this weekend the humanity uh and needs of others um so i see commissioner powell and then commissioner lebron uh yeah thank you i do except for the compromise of merging the policy committee with a regular board meeting our regular board meetings usually start at 6 30 our committee meetings usually start at 5 30 assuming we don't have any special programming going on for our business meeting i have no problem with merging uh the policy committee work with our business meeting that seems like a very reasonable compromise if my committee is the only one that really needs to meet uh commissioner lebron
024yeah i just want to clarify also for anybody who's listening it might be a little bit confused that we're just talking about not meeting in the month of july on our tuesday nights we will still have our board business meeting because we still have business to actually do and vote on and then we have to have two additional special meetings for resolutions related to human resources so that we don't tie up or hold up the district and moving forward and hiring who they need to hire for the um the new school year that's happening but also just to also reiterate what um our board clerk mentioned is that we still have to do the finance report so that would happen in the finance committee i mean in the board business meeting with the new structure
025of the finance committee that's what it's going to look like moving forward anyway so it would be a part of the board business meeting every other month and every other month we're gonna have a committee so i think that'll be a good opportunity to get us acclimated as well but um again what you all decide you know you decide and and van i hear your argument so there's never enough time um i do agree but i won't be attending and i just want to put that on record because yeah i can have all the conversations about it and i'm telling you i'm going to take the break that i need the other piece is that um when you turn over the meeting to me i do need to talk about time and the changes in
026the agenda for tonight's finance meeting because of city council's vote sure um i don't see any of their hands being raised so um i i what i take from this and someone can tell me if there's any objection that we will go with the proposal as described by our clerk ms wade with the alterations amendments as suggested by commissioner powell one question on that one um president white because we do have a recognition in june um we usually do the student athletes in june um to recognize them are are you suggesting commissioner powell that we that we that that uh policy would meet ahead of the business meeting or are you saying that you would be comfortable with doing policy items during the board reports i'm trying to figure out the two you said june
027did you mean like july sorry july so we always do the the scholar athletes during july um i did i did envision 5 30. not just during board reports because it could go long i mean long longer than the five minutes usually takes us to deliver our reports in any event um and and to that point you know that there are policies coming up that are going to require feedback from the board uh case in point i sent out an email um the other day asking for feedback on a a new long-term financial management policy i understand most of us have had breaks in our email feeds working and not working but i didn't get any feedback from anyone i did have a phone conversation with dr jala today but i haven't if i'm not
028getting any feedback then we're going to have to have those conversations during the meetings so you know because um the brainstorming takes a lot of time so if even if you just feed me the most abstract of ideas at least we have a framework around which we can have those conversations so um but i did envision a 5 30 if the student athlete recognition is if this is by zoom that might go faster than usual so again we can compromise but the difference and call it a six o'clock start uh you know i'm trying to be as flexible as i can what do you think a six o'clock start ms wade at the 5 30 for the athlete of athletes recognition uh well um i will i definitely have to to to touch base with
029a couple other departments before i can exclusively say so but i will try um and then we would have we would just notice the public um because most people know that we start at 6 30 for business meetings so we will definitely be sure to communicate with the public if we um are able to um make those changes mr malloy since this is your committee any parting thoughts on on this whole thing before we move on to the next subject um again just the communication piece is very important for me governance doesn't meet again until august i believe so you know any clear communication would be helpful i'm wondering now though if we are changing meetings et cetera um at some point we do need to have an update on in-person meetings uh just given
030with the state changes or the state guidance i'm wondering if perhaps our acting general counsel can maybe provide us an update briefly at this time it didn't take long steve what's going on i mean i get occasional emails from the big five what's going on with that well so as you know the executive orders have had been extended every week um the last extension took us through july 5th there has not been an extension of those in the last two weeks so uh reading the tea leaves i think that they may end on july 5th which would mean that we do need to return to in person in july so i think that the smaller you know board meeting the smaller special committee meeting that's being proposed by italia might be a good opportunity to
031test the waters for our first re-entry into this um i will continue to keep an eye out if there's nothing explicit um in the current governor's guidance but he didn't it was really more of a press statement today there wasn't a written executive order produced um so but you know on the safe side i think we should be prepared to return in person effective in july um i i do need to talk to the facilities people and and see you know that there's some discretion in the current guidance that we have that says that you know pre-k through 12 schools are not being released however offices are we kind of fall somewhere in the middle um we'll see what stacy uh if if stacy darby and mike schmidt and his team are getting any guidance
032independently um you know through other organizations as to where where we fall in that so it doesn't mean we don't have to go back in person it's a matter of whether we have to space our chairs out six feet and you know and enforce a lot of other mandates or if it can just basically be back to what the conference room looks like so we will continue to dig into what we can get our hands on but i think that it's fair to assume that come july will be will be somewhere in the same physical location steve real quickly there's been conversations uh professionally and personally about the impact of people who have vaccinations and those who do not i was out at a store today and it's very catches catch can some people are
033wearing them some people are not some stores have signs that say if you've been vaccinated you don't have to wear a mask what is the if you know what's the status of uh you know for example what we would or would not have to do if we returned to the uh building setting well in in the most in the most non-restrictive setting under the under what the new guidance is the way i read the press statement is that non-vaccinated people still need to wear a mask regardless of anything else so you know we we would we would be able to put that you know sign up how exactly you test and enforce that is being left to the individuals you know some sporting arenas and others are allowed to actually require a proof of vaccination
034or somebody has to wear a you know be compelled to wear a mask or sit in a special section i don't know that i mean i that's that's how i'm reading the law at the moment how how we choose to respond to that is a whole whole other question that i i think will involve a team approach but we'll talk to the same people who've been so hopefully leading us through this through this ordeal all along which would be um you know mike and stacey and aaron grautman and get their input and the collective wisdom of the other school districts in our area um they all communicate regularly so um well i think somebody from administration will go back to you on those details dr meyer small sure thank you president wayne good evening to
035everyone since i have the opportunity and we're speaking about this there's been very confusing and dis frankly ambiguous and discrepant information but since i have the opportunity as of right now even though masks are not required outside we have been explicitly told we call it the june 7th memo that kind of opened some things out up and allowed masking for commencement ceremonies you still must wear a mask and we will have to communicate that so it's it's very confusing there's a lot of information out there but i've been working with medisol and melody to make sure it's very clear we'll make sure we have ample supplies as we continue to move forward but as of right now masks are required outside for commencement well we know that ms wade has been working on this transition
036for quite a while and she has updated us at least twice that i can remember perhaps more we obviously know that mike has been working on this steve our superintendent um as uh again as commissioner molloy has asked and others please keep us up to date obviously we don't want to be caught off guard on the day before meeting saying come on in we all have plans and preparations to make to to make that transition so please keep us informed i want to just very briefly go back to the issue of uh the the commissioner powell request um what i'm going to do unless there's some objection is leave it to our commissioner paul commissioner i'm sorry commissioner malloy who's obviously our governance chair and uh kyle wade our clerk to work out those details
037in terms of uh the the policy committee and how they will meet it's no one has an objection to commissioner powell convening a meeting the task therefore for the three of you ms wade miss powell miss malloy is to figure out a way to make that happen i i haven't heard any other chair say they want to meet during the month of july but i do hear commissioner powell making that request and given the work that she and him have done to keep us on track and i commented on it and complimented her on last week i think they should be able to continue to do that so if you all could figure out a way to make that happen board members who can be there will be there to support that good work okay
038uh next item on the agenda is ask you actually commissioner powell you're going to take care of our second reading for three policies changes or amendments well it's more than three but we're taking in three batches i don't have them in any particular order uh the the code of conduct is the is one of the three um we don't have any speakers at all so obviously public comment we're not going to hear but if there are any questions or concerns or comments from my colleagues uh this is the um second reading so uh the third being when we vote so if you have concerns now is really the last time to raise those concerns hearing none oh wait let me just quick check i've got my participants screen open so um hearing none the next
039uh set is all the part three of the special education policies [Music] following the same template we did before i'm not going to call out each individual policy for um for comment uh but these these eight are the remaining of the special ed policies and if anyone has a ques a question or concern about any of these eight i open the floor for those comments seeing none kelly what was the what's the last one i don't have the agenda open sorry about that um the last one um in terms of the series right now this is the no i mean wasn't there one other policy besides these education policies in the code of conduct no it's just the code of conduct and then these these three the third part of special education okay so that
040concludes my portion of the meeting uh commission uh president white thank you um commissioner powell uh next item on the agenda is the consideration of resolutions we have three and i'm gonna depend on our clerk to correct me if i'm wrong we have three before the board today 51 and 8 52. um unless just so let's let's begin with 850 because that's a little bit different than 851 and 852. i need a motion to discuss resolution 850 is there a motion i can commission malloy is there a second second thank you commissioner clark any questions or comments regarding this resolution entitled 850 to amend the authorization i'm looking at uh for boces by the way looking at my participant list i don't oops commissioner clark yes thank you president white i just had one question
041regarding this i went through the uh the resolution and one thing i didn't see do we look at the dei policies of the uh of the bidders and take that into consideration also did we take the what of the bidders i didn't hear that i'm sorry diversity equity and inclusion policies do it do we look at that to make sure that incident that we're bringing in an inclusive workplace i'll have to have uh deputy superintendent martinez davis respond to that for this one yes good uh good evening commissioners um so i am gonna actually have mr schmidt come on too and help me answer that because i know that an rfp process was completed so i've messaged you can provide with a little bit more of information about the nurses contract because we do subcontract
042our uh nurses through boces yes good evening we also have uh tim schmatt and uh aaron roberts here as well so i can i can and carly so i can speak to certainly the uh the the nursing product over there but in terms of the other part of it i'm going to have to defer to um some others with some expertise in that area excuse me can i could i speak please uh to the director of procurement thank you um so commissioners the uh as far as rfps rfis um in every uh instance there's a that's part of the scoring for professional services part of the scoring rubric and also we we require the respondents to also provide the eeoc report for their organization as well as there's a whole section that they need to
043fill out as as part of their response explaining how their business entity values inclusion and diversity in their organization so yes indeed it's part of it's actually ingrained into the boilerplate of the rfp rfi processes and it and it always makes the scoring rubric as well as far as evaluations thank you commissioner um malloy uh just a question about the first resolution um do we always contract through boces one for our nursing services is that typical yes uh yes i'm sorry yes it is i have aaron here as well i'm the reason why i'm hesitant is i've recently uh uh taking on the nurses in the operational department so uh i've asked aaron to join me for any technical questions but yes the answer would be okay so do we have any type of like
044history behind that or has it always been boces one or yeah we've we put out an rfp every five years and the people who bid on the contract seem to generally be staffing agencies um so boces one has always been the preferred agency just because they really bring a whole program with nurses who are more experienced and more educated we haven't really got a quality other than boces one okay thank you so much yeah and commissioner malloy i think the key thing too is that so a nurse is a nurse as a nurse certainly but the ability to work in a school setting as you know is is really critically important and with the dynamics of working with younger students and patients so that's critically important and then just the only other thing is that
045i'm um just so others know who may be listening certain boces that we contract have certain things so monroe one might have a compliment and list of things monro two might have another list the genesee valley boces might have yet another so sometimes it's not offered at the other in our joint management team or jmt and again that's just point of information for others who might not know i'm sure you do thank you mr powell uh yeah so um commissioner molloy's questions it was have we always um just to restate history you know it so for as long as the responsibility has been ours directly the answer is yes but before that the county provided those um services and when the county ceased doing so and we accepted the monroe boces bid many of those
046county uh uh nurses uh resigned from the county and and took up positions with the boces so there has been some continuity uh if we if the rfp were to upend that if the rfp process were to upend it uh we may or may not have that continuity going forward depending on how many nurses were willing to you know um you know relocate to another um uh vendor because in fact if uh if boces lost the loss to bid they would immediately be laying off nurses and and those nurses would in all likelihood go to another bidder thanks for the help thank you bill real quick one of the things that we did many years ago after i got on the board was we recognized that the responsible bidders policy prevented people from getting contracts
047for a whole host of stuff but if you had a determination before the eeoc or the human rights division that said you discriminated against women people of color etc etc etc you could still get district dollars and we're one of the largest municipal operations in this community so we were finding people that had outstanding uh determinations by these federal and state agencies that they had discriminated and they were getting taxpayer dollars uh we changed i'm very proud to say we changed our responsible bidder policy i see commissioner powell nodding her head because she was here when we did that i know vice president that was here when we did it so if you have a determination from the eoc or the human rights division that you've violated somebody's rights you cannot even bid on a
048contract now we used to have regular check-ins with mike it's i heard uh mr schmidt say that tim say that there was a process for doing that elaborate series of questions uh and so i assume and perhaps i should check in with commissioner powell because she's chair of policy that that is a policy that is still being enforced and by what tim said it sounds like that's how they check in to make sure that that's not the case but i'm very proud of that people haven't talked about that in years but you could get millions and millions of dollars and you could be treating black people white people women like dirt and you could still get taxpayer dollars that's no longer the case in this district and actually uh another municipal operation followed us in
049in that the creation of that so i'm very proud to say that we have that protection because sometimes people are not motivated by their hearts but they are motivated by money so uh any other questions um regarding resolution 850 there being none let's go ahead and take a vote all those in favor of resolution indicate by saying aye aye aye aye aye any opposition eyes have it next we'll take as a bulk unless somebody has objection resolutions 851 and 852. i didn't hear any objections but i did hear a motion thank you commissioner malloy is there a second to that motion thank you commissioner powell any questions or comments regarding resolutions 850 and 852 851 and 852. i'm sorry thank you i don't see any hands being raised in the digital world i don't hear
050anybody waving me down saying hey man i have to ask those questions let's go ahead and vote all those in favor of resolution 851 and 852 indicate by saying aye aye any opposition and of course appears that the eyes have that as well i now turn the gavel over to uh our chairperson of finance uh commissioner beatrice lebron thank you i just wanna as note as noted earlier just um share that we are going to i'm gonna be changing the agenda unfortunately unfortunately we do have city council voting tonight both on their budget and the school district's budget and our superintendent and our cfo have been invited to go to that and as you all recall last year city council voted against our budget we are hoping that tonight they vote in favor of the
051budget um and we have some strong indication that they will so we hope that they will and we will keep things moving along but so tonight i will ask for the minute to be reviewed and accepted um at the board business meeting i'm also removing the july 2021 resolution review for tonight um you all should have received the resolution plus the summaries from administration so please take a moment to look through those when you get a chance but also i spoke with the board clerk and if you do have any questions that you want to document on record we can put out a board log question log specifically to the july resolutions if need be um so i will just ask that you all email the board clerk those questions and our staff in addition
052to that um the order i'm going to have our cfo pierce do the may 2021 financial report and trend analysis the third quarter 2021 student activity funds and elementary activity accounts report um and that is all we will be reviewing tonight and going over and then i'm going to turn it over to steve for a very brief review of contract processes at the board um at the next finance meeting which will be in july kylie give me one second i will um send to you all some proposals on um the h k funds and a proposal that's been put forth but i want to have a discussion first with dr jallo and this is part of dr jallo's report and requirements and recommendations so we do have something in place but not up for tonight
053for discussion kalia yes i just wanted to let you know that i i think you're using um the previous agenda so the activities report was accepted last month so that's not on this agenda so it's just the um the may financial report and then i know that carlene has um um the trend report and things to to discuss all right thank you it's still on my agenda just as the fyi it stays june 15 but i'll have a sidebar conversation with you about that all right carlene you're up thank you so much um good evening president white vice president elliot chairperson lebron and commissioners it's a pleasure to be with you this evening to serve the children of rcsd um as stated earlier this evening we'll be reviewing the may month end reports and kalia
054i think you're going to bring that up as you saw in your packet for this evening our positive financial condition continues as we bring fiscal year end 2021 to a close as a reminder the fiscal results are that we're experiencing are the culmination of several factors and and again i want to make this clear because i think sometimes this gets lost in the translation over the series of uh several months we forget what we we endured earlier this year and so we know that the superintendents put in place the um spending and hiring freeze that was implemented back in july 2020 we also know that a budget reduction was made in november 2020 in the amount of 18.9 million and we know that we have experienced a reduction in the outflow of cash resulting from
055the fact that we did not utilize budgeted contractual services so again just important to keep that all in mind it's all very relevant these actions were taken as measures to offset the looming 20 reduction in state aid as well as to balance the 2021 budget and again i i know that this is familiar to all of us but sometimes folks are forgetting that as um as being reported into the media et cetera but that's the reason we went through what we did was because we knew we had a situation to correct and we absolutely did we took the actions necessary to make that come to fruition so um as usual i'd like to keep it in us going with regard to our our typical review we will be starting off this evening and calya thank
056you we will start off with the cash flow analysis or cash flow projection and again i'd like to remind folks that we have to keep in mind that covid19 has actually masked our structural deficit we are where we are because of the factors that i mentioned previously and again just please keep that in mind as we bring this year to a closure i'm not going to focus so much on may but now that we're really halfway through june we are looking at a very favorable ending of the year 176 million which represents approximately 48 million um to the positive over last year at this time and again keep in mind why we are at that point so we will uh what you'll see in that june projection and the last line right above the projection
057of the year enclosure is the payoff of the 86 million dollar ran i'm very happy that we're bringing that issue to a closure and i don't know if you have any questions with regard to the cash flow at this time or we can keep it to the end but again everything is very favorable as we we come to an end of 2021. and callie if you could go to the revenues please the most notable item as stated in the cover memo with regard to the revenues is the 1.4 million dollar increase in the special aid fund and that resulted from the rollover in the title grant money so again this is bringing monies forward from 2020 excuse me it'll be bringing monies forward um from um previous year into this year and it's going to
058be allowing us to again carry that money forward into 20 21 22 getting my years mixed up and it's easy this time of year because for me and my team we live in three years at this point in time three fiscal years as we roll the budgets i don't have anything extraordinary to report with regard to the appropriations other than we're continuing to monitor all of our expenditures in an effort to attain a more disciplined spending culture that we're taking that task very seriously and we're abiding by it and we are enforcing them so with regard to the finances this evening do you have any questions commissioner powell yeah can you back up and tell me about that regulation change with workers comp um the regulation change i'm sorry you said that i i read
059very quickly early in your the report that there's a change on the reporting of workers compensation to treat it as as revenue instead of expense can you can you flesh that out a little bit for me sure and so i'll have to bring myself um familiar with that again that's going to carry forward for the last several months all of those comments basically keep coming forward so that was reported some time ago um what there was was um there was a reconsideration in the way and i'm going to have to actually commissioner powell before i say anything further i'm going to have to go back several months and bring that data forward what i do know is that it was recognized as a revenue revenue influx into our budget instead of an outflow um i
060will have to get the specifics on the regulation to you just so i'm not misquoting it but that has been in place for several months now and and i just want to make sure that i'm stating it correctly i'm not prepared to discuss it this week i apologize for that maybe that a summary response could be just put in a question log format absolutely i'll take care of it for you no problem thank you any other questions i don't see any other hands up currently okay and i and if i heard you correctly um commissioner lebron you would like me to pass on the presentation for the recommendation of um uh recommendation number 17 in the financial plan we'd like to table that okay that's fine until july but i'll have a conversation with dr
061jallo as well um we do want folks to we want you guys to go over to the city council yeah absolutely but um dr jallo i will reach out to you so that you and i can meet as well around the proposal and then we can talk about how we move forward with it to bring it to the full board and so you will see it before it even comes up for conversation [Music] and oh i'm sorry curling i'm sorry i i know on my agenda and i'm sorry if i'm not working with the most current one um there was i was supposed to also bring to the forefront the discussion with regard to the year-end budget transfer request did you want me to table that as well because we will need action on that
062for i i'm i'm fine with it being discussed at the business meeting if you'd prefer that to occur at that point yeah we can discuss it at the board of business when i do the finance reports and i'll work with kalia on um putting that on there when i give my report and then having you give some time to that thank you so much i i greatly appreciate it thank you and rebecca um yeah thank you um i was wondering if you could give light to any foundation aid or other stimulus money that has come to the district at this point or what the expected arrival date is on some of that we do not have any of the monies inflowing yet for 21 22 so we'll have to wait till after the first of
063the year for that to occur the foundation aid will follow suit with our regular state aid funding so if you if you take a look at the cash flow and thank you for bringing this up because the trends are pretty typical if you take a look at that cash flow line for state aid you'll see where the money is received from the state in a regular cycle um so i would take you back to to that document and um rebecca i'm very happy to meet with you separately if you want to go over that um also with regard to the sirsa and the arpa we do not have yet any indication because obviously we have to get our application of approved first we need to take all of the recommendations into consideration those recommendations will
064be brought forward to the superintendent and the deputies as well as to dr jallo and and then once submitted we would start the process in working with the state for the receipt of those funds it's my understanding that we will be working on a basis where we will be reimbursed for our expenditures as opposed to the money being sent to us up front so um again we're just waiting for more information on that but nothing as of this point in time we have not received anything thank you um commissioner powell on the point of having to submit for reimbursement i think thank goodness the state has come through with more uh foundation aid or we wouldn't even be able to prime the pump as it were uh you know these just you know one more
065example on top of all other examples of how the in the institutions that we rely on routinely set us up for failure imagine if we didn't get an increase in foundation aid we would have to make us a serious investment in arp or sirsa [Music] spending and hope that we got the reimbursement we needed you know the the risk is always on us and not on the institutions that have made the promise but uh thank you for clarifying that thank you seeing no other questions thank you carlene um and i'm gonna turn it over to steve to talk about a quick review very brief very brief steve i am not the one who is not brief anyone in particular president one just a statement um so i think the the agenda item as it states
066is i i don't want to be misleading it's it's not going to be an explanation about how we process contracts it's it's a direct response to uh finding from the state monitor and recommendation that um more contracts need to uh go through the legal department and i think after talking to her it's become more of a more contracts need to be seen more visibly um there there's a fair bit of money that that goes through the district um through purchasing in particular that the board does not see and it's in part because of some existing board policies and some um interpretations of these existing board policies and so what what i'm really talking about um the primary one is uh is board policy 6745 and there's a there's a in it it authorizes that the
067board has to you know see all these contracts but then it carves out um some complicated exceptions let's just say that that have been throughout the years interpreted by various um people you know in in different ways there used to be a regulation attached to it it was 67 45 are it was first put forward i think by manny rivera and and then it was pulled down at some point because the the dollars didn't match anymore the problem is we really do need some guidance and and so what what i'm gonna recommend rather than getting into a lengthy discussion about altering policies because i don't know that that's necessarily at this point needed i i'm going to recommend that we work to develop another regulation that puts some clarification around some of the terms that
068are used in there i think it's going to result in more contracts or or even commodities purchasing coming through the board because right now the primary exception and it's huge is if things are purchased through what's called a piggybacking contract which is the state designates certain vendors as pre-approved in your policy those don't have to come to the board or at least that's become the interpretation and it's it's a little unclear as to whether that was the original intent of the board and so um that we're talking you know millions of dollars in at a time in in such things as computer software purchasing hardware purchasing um it could be books it could be physical plants anything purchased through that through the use of these piggybacking contracts um which are you know generally the vendors
069have been pre-sorted new york state is vouch for them there's contract there's standard contract terms that are in place so it's not something that would come through my department i'm not worried about it being a matter of contract it's more a matter of being visible and and and the board knowing that this is that these are the expenses i mean i kind of i kind of like it to somebody saying well you know you can shop there are dozens of grocery stores to shop at but i'm telling you you can only shop at tops but i don't tell you you know how much you can spend or what you can buy and then i don't see your grocery list when you're done and so um that's what we're trying to clarify and and i think
070that that that should hopefully i think that's the the best way to do it i can work with you know with dr zhao with the finance team and and then bring that back for for maybe board consideration as to whether that's what people are thinking it we don't often bring the regs we don't have to bring the regs through but i think in this case it's a good idea um you know after we work on one to bring it and say is this what people want this is what people think but it because it's not necessarily a matter of the policy language is wrong it's just that over years it's been so long since anybody was even around when this was developed that and i think i hope that that addresses um you know the
071primary concern for dr jalal which is really more of a matter of transparency um in in both uh procurement and and even i don't even think in some of these cases that you see a report afterward because that there's no calling for that you know we we provide for example with a full report of all contracts executed under thirty five thousand dollars because those don't come to the board in advance um but there's there's not a requirement there's not a similar requirement for purchasing and and so i think it's kind of fallen into a little bit of a a black hole that we want to open up so um tell me your thoughts on that and um you know or if you prefer to proceed another way we can bring it to the policy you
072know we can make it a matter of policy and we go to the policy committee um and we can start we can pull it out of order and start working as fast as possible um i'm i'm on point but i think that's my suggestion is where i think is the the quickest pivot on that thanks the commissioner paul yeah um to your point about the piggy backing presuming that it was in the budget something as big as the peoplesoft upgrade of seven million dollars uh could go through without the board seeing it because it's we've been told that um that that's one of those pre-cleared vendors um i think we might find ourselves in a position where we have to split the baby where some policy language uh needs to be uh part of the
073solution where the vast majority of it would be an updated regulation and even if you have an old version that manny signed as as the starting point that's better than nothing um but it doesn't really need to be taken out of order because the finance commit the finance policies are next in the pipeline unless um until something changes um that i look forward to hearing from my colleagues on that even if it's just an email to say that you're comfortable with with steve's uh recap or you're concerned enough that you'd want to see us really dive into the policy language that exists today thank you just a brief point um the oracle the new oracle system did go because it went through an rfp so we we we do have that under contract luckily because
074that is a massive expense but other other things you know smaller but still significant are what we're talking about thank you thanks steve rebecca um yeah thank you um so what account do these um these items get paid out of because from what i've been seeing that there's audits on everything so where are these expenses tracked to um whatever individual department is making the purchases so there it's it's many many accounts it can be you know it could be imd it could be um teaching and learning could be everybody uses the procurement process so it could be any account commissioner malloy but just for example you know i'm sorry but just to clarify why i mean that you pass a budget the budget allocates say six million dollars for you know infrastructure improvement that department
075is then free to make the purchases necessary to act on that in whichever way they deem and if they choose to use piggyback on piggybacking contracts you may not see those that that's that's the i think that's the the the hole that we've fallen into here commissioner thank you um steve i think it would be really helpful uh just at least for me if we could get like some visuals on this it's hard to follow a presentation that's just presented in this manner um so just more clarity if you could maybe provide some type of visual for us powerpoint anything else it's just hard to follow and ha take part in a discussion when we don't see it in front of us thank you okay so for the future steve you can take that feedback
076for tonight um the policy is in the 6 000 series under the finance and i'm actually going to on record agree with commissioner powell um on her terminology of splitting the baby as she stated i do agree um that it could be taken from both approaches and personally i'm interested in the policy for finance so i'm glad to hear that that is coming up next in the series commissioner powell um which means i'm pretty sure i'll be working a little bit closer with you over the next course as those come up um but you know i didn't get a chance to go and review the policies on our website and just so folks who are watching at home if you go to our website and you go to the board tab and you click down
077to policies it's 45 um and this is something that has come up multiple times in multiple ways and i guess we didn't realize that there was this little loophole that was allowing these um contracts to go through the other loophole that i always saw was that if resolutions came to us and they were like for ten thousand dollars that that for me was the loophole that we've already paid 35 000 minimumly out to this individual otherwise we wouldn't see that resolution um but i am interested in understanding all of those things and i want to tie it in before we wrap up to a conversation that commissioner vice president elliot has mentioned around mwbes and that is the conversation that she and i are going to work together on to bring to this board through
078a finance committee in the future um to really start looking at that process and it kind of goes back to uh commissioner clark what you kind of brought up with the boces piece right so we have loopholes in that process for us internally too so there are some departments and some systems in place in some areas of the district but that is not universal and so for me all of these things can kind of actually tie in um so that there is more transparency on all of it on how we put out rfps how people are eligible for rfps what are we doing to then educate individuals in the community that fall under mwbe to get them to connect to those things but a step further is that we should know all of the expenditures
079if we have a policy that stays anything above 35 000 has to come to the board in my opinion and my view vision that means everything that is slated outside of that piece um so to hear that there's a loophole i'm glad dr jello found it and put it in her report that hey there's some discrepancies here that the board really needs to look at and focus in on um but i just wanted to agree with commissioner powell that in the the now we need to do something now about it and that now could be to update the regulation but certainly the board should look at that policy and the language that exists from to determine if that's how we still want to continue moving forward and with that i'm going to officially conclude if
080there are no final other thoughts conclude the finance committee at 6 42 p.m and turn it over back to president white and um want to wish dr meyer smalls and our cfo good luck tonight on the city council vote thank you commissioner lebron next item on the agenda's new business there is none at least that i'm aware of and i don't see anybody raising their hand finally we have to as members of the board of education go into executive session those of you are regulars know what that means their matters which we cannot discuss in the public setting because they involve personnel matters and so i'm going to request a motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing the terms and conditions of a particular employee's uh employment been moved by vice
081president second by commissioner adams all those in favor of doing so indicate by saying aye aye aye any opposition seems like the eyes have it madam clerk we will be going into executive session i will tell you those of you are watching we are likely as a result of these executive session conversations likely to come back into public session and we are likely to have a vote so those of you are interested in knowing what that vote is or how our meeting will end please as they say stay tuned this is the board of education meeting as i promised we are back in section there is a resolution that we have to vote on is resolution 853 is there a motion thank you commissioner malloy is there a second second thank you commissioner clark all
082those are there any questions or comments regarding resolution 853 uh commission lebron thank you i just want to implore this board to pay attention to this position and as it move forward to review the data the effectiveness and the future to ensure that it's doing what it says it's going to be doing i just want to put that on record um thank you commissioner lebron any other questions or comments all right madam superintendent we're gonna go ahead and take a vote all those in favor of resolution 853 indicate by saying aye aye aye aye any opposition name no notwithstanding those two nay votes appears that the eyes have it madam clerk uh madam superintendent your uh resolution requesting the appointment of the particular employee has been approved um i think uh this now calls just
083for motion to oh no we have to do our survey right can i just say just one quick thing tomorrow um the rochester city school district the city of rochester monroe county public libraries we will be doing a press conference to let learning know that we have some unbid unfinished business and we will be talking about all of the supports that will be available both academically and enrichment wise for rochester city school district students so we will be doing that at school 33 because of the unique features of that school and uh so please stay tuned for that we're going to kick unfinished learnings but so we look forward to providing lots of supports for our scholars over the summer excellent we appreciate that information and uh hope that parents and students take advantage of
084it now to the survey that was put up but had to be put back down while we go and put that up for those of you don't know at the end of every meeting the board of education takes a survey to assess our own performance so to see how we're doing and then at periodic points we sort of look at the results of those surveys so that's what we're doing now okay one last thing president white please and thank you i promise it'll be quick to you president white commissioner clark and to commissioner adams i've already uh wished my cabinet members i want to wish you a happy father's day in advance thank you for being super dads and i hope as i shared with our cabinet that you are able to do what you
085want to do and not what your family wants to do and thank you for accepting the multiple gifts that we made at school the ugly ties that we bought for you and all sorts of other gifts that we gave you in love but we um and we meant it with the most sincere heart but thank you for being amazing dads and i hope sunday is all that you hope for it to be and yes president white i will find you commissioner clark and commissioner adams and you will have a sweet treat okay thank you yes but happy father's day and happy father's day to all our our fathers all right we just thank you very much superintendent uh we need them did we do a motion to adjourn motion thank you second i heard somebody
086say second second second commissioner lebron always in favor of journeying indicate by saying happy father's day