001okay welcome to the March 12 2025 Board of Education meeting please conations to the flag of the United States of America to the rep stands naice first order of business is second of the agenda have a motion please second any discussion in favor I any oppos agenda is approved next item is the consent agenda which is resolution 387 2024 motion please Nancy second any discussion on the consent agenda all in favor I oppos consent agenda is approved that brings us down to public comments any members of the public wish to address the board thank you we'll move on to financial reports Vicki um so I want to start with the budgetary transfer report the all these reports are saved to the share drive like always uh you'll see that there were quite a few trans
002this um weeks nothing substantial there were a couple over 10,000 as we realigned the salary get still um we were clearing out some negatives that we had in the substitute budget Cod lines we substitutes no questions are you ready for the resolution uh resolution 088 2024 approving the current budgetary transfer report as presented by the school phit executive motion pleases second any more questions on on the transfer than all in favor I any opposed the resolution is approved thank you and the warrant same there as well so the next topic I have are the voter propositions for the coming budget vote uh we have two this year the first one will be our standard Transportation proposition we we looking for authorization to purchase two assess student transportation Vehicles they are classes um up to not
003to exceed 324,000 and then the second one is the library proposition which the amount is blank on your paperwork but just seconds ago we did get it and it is um a 4% increase 532,000 $378 um 37080 okay let's get this on the table for potential discussion our resolution 2024 for the transation the library propositions for the 25 District vote motion please second discussion uh I I have a kind of question what if you have to say Diane that we generally turn our buses over earlier than the max that we Ed because of problem and it comes a time where you can't have right right so the problem with our buses is that they rust and any rust on a bus can't be on the road for a school so our buses turn over about
004every 8 years so if we were down state that might be every 11 or 12 years well because of the the we do over 100 miles a day per bus and they're on these salted roads for eight months a year so that's really what happens and that's probably why we're doing this every year yeah yeah and we're on a rotation cycle so that we don't end up three years from now needing to buy Six Lessing so some years we buy two some years we buy three we have 15 or 16 buses a little aside we also have to have an extra bus because the Department of Transportation can show off any morning and they have a rotation of what buses they pull so they come on announc to say today we need 59 and 62
005those have to come off the road at 8:00 a.m. so we need to have a couple extra buses to be able to use because we use our buses all day long yeah yeah and that's pay for our to so not yes we use our uh our trans ation Reserve any other uh questions on the uh resolution for the propositions no question just for clarity sake in public comment the library proposition we're are pass through we have no say in this correct correct we don't develop the budget we don't get to restrict goes on there um when the taxpayer pays the tax bill are paying the library portion we simply collect it and give it to them and that's by state has and you said it was a 4% increase you have to have a roll
006call before do can we just are we automatically asking the library to come in and give a presentation on their budget at some point the next meeting or the meeting after that okay their meeting was also T that's question go ahead all right Mark yes Nancy yes Justin is's absent Joe yes Mike yep Zach yes Tori yes so that takes care of 089 2024 anything else next just um the budget for Andrea is so excited to be here so first off congratulations Andre Andrea is here from s and they are our our community based organization site for next year glad to have you back and L she's come for a very exciting evening I can't sneak out now she hand me things but you can I would not be offended if snuck out so we're
007beginning our budget forecast tonight uh and we're going to begin with a look at our um fund balances and reserves and our um anticipated revenue for the 2526 school year so you have three pieces of paper in front of you you have forast number one and then you have a little chart that talks about all the different Reserve funds we'll talk about that in a little bit and then you have a look at our current fund balances and reserves we're going to use all three of those as we walk through and if you have questions stop me and ask there's a lot to a school budget so I want you especially this year we have some interesting challenges that we've not had in the past in putting our budget together so we're going to focus
008on the anticipated revenues and the current fund balances we're going to review our Revenue sources so you know what each of those mean um as you look at the top of the forecast number one we'll examine any fluctuations that we're seeing and discuss the current allocated and unallocated fund BS tonight's work sort of sets the stage for what will happen on the 26 which is to look at the expenditure side of the budget and and we really need to look at it in pieces because our our job is to make sure that our revenues we understand where they're coming from from we believe them to be accurate so that we're building a budget that at the end of the year actually and get to June 30th um with with our funds so we'll start with
009some federal and state grant funding a lot of people have asked me about that you don't have to watch the news to know that there is a lot of discussion at the federal level over um what's coming back to the States and especially what's happening with the um us education department so we do receive quite a bit of federal education money we receive title funds every year the money fluctuates a little bit so I'm just going to talk about last year last year we received $441,500 Title One title two title four uh idea special ad that's 611 and 619 these These are kind of intermixed when you hear it on the news uh special education additional funding 379,000 finishing year three of a fiveyear grant for 21st Century Learning Center Grant received $756,000 per year
010on that Grant we also receive Universal pre kindergarten funding which is a mix of state and federal money of a total maximum allocation of 756 th000 that says we would have 60 five students in the program we don't have that many students and you get a per pupil allocation but if we did we could have a maximum of 65 students participating so when you add all of that up uh we get significant money from federal grants they pay for a lot of Staff members in these grants we've Ted our staff members in there and I've tried to tell I've had staff members who were concerned because they've been watching the news and it talks about the funding coming out of the State education the the National Education Department where the title go won't they go
01121st century Grant was one of the grants that was cut with that Friday afternoon letter however it does seem to still be flowing that doesn't mean what we're doing right now is using money that was allocated last October through the government so this is money that's already been um allocated that does not mean that there will be money allocated this coming spring for next year so we're we're g to paid spot with all of that so our staff members were concerned because if you are paid for through a grant you have to sign off that you're doing the grant work that you're being paid for and blah blah blah so we tried to make it clear to anybody who chatt with us how you're paid and where your seniority and tenure lie are two different
012things just because the GR do goes away doesn't mean that you automatically are without a position that's all based on seniority and other places so but that is a real unknown that for many many years we've been able to count on these funds coming in they fluctuate a little every year but we but we'd have received them we're a little concerned about all of that so that's uh state and federal grants let's take a walk through the revenues that are on forecast number one and I'm going to talk about line one line two line three you can all see that right down the the side of your paper so the first thing is the tax cap um kudos to Nikki who has spent a lot of time the tax cap is what 21 calculations to
013get to the end or some crazy number um but not a whole lot of explanation so she's used all her resources over and over again and we're feeling very comfortable that our tax cap actually is a maximum of 4.44% increase or an increase of 1,84 I'm sorry 1, 84,3 43 Happ because I thought last time L yes can you talk just quickly to that nck yet don't mean to put you on so it it takes into consideration our debt service and with last time when we submitted it it included existing Debt Service and I had some back and forth with Bernard Donan and financial advisers and we know that we're going to have additional debt that we're taking on at the very end of this year and that was not calculated as part of that
014first calculation and so when you add that in that's why it increased yeah there's there's a good side to this and not so good side to this if you look at lines 23 and 24 you can see that we have an increase in our debt service cost which actually nobody likes to spend more money but over the years we have not spent enough money keeping our old buildings going the celebrating its 100th anniversary this year and what we have been spending on Capital work was not reflective of the work that was needed in the building so actually we're building that all it so that we can um so that we can continue to keep our facilities up to date and healthy so what you're really seeing is we've seen a nice increase in our tax
015levy cap but that's because we have this it's almost directly tied to the increase in cost for the capital work that we can do so line number two is other income and you you can see that it says it's Pilots payments and L taxes interest fies if they don't spend all that they collect from us they give them the refund the next year it's all those rental people come and use our facilities all that kind of other income all those little pieces together you'll notice that there's a decrease in $997,000 that's only on paper because we've changed our accounting practices so we have some people who are paid other ways you have a dental hygienist and she's paid for through the voluntary health Association and we have uh caraman who actually works halime as a
016CTE teacher for bosies we used to put their F their full salary in the salaries instructional line and then we would put the a the payment for them from bosies or from voluntary help in line to and we felt we want to be more reflective of what was actually it wasn't really Revenue right because it was already spent on a person we were expending it so we changed our accounting practice this year so it looks like our revenues decreased by 97 they did but it also decreased our salaries by that 97,000 so it's just an offset and a change in how we we want to go about doing our business line number three is the state a projection and I heard that conversation before our meeting started today so uh yeah it was great news
017but it could be worse news much worse last year was much worse that's correct we're a we're a whole harmless District according to the state we receive more funds than we're entitled to and so we received the minimum allotment of a 2% increase and that is the $1 12,240 uh the one house budgets came out yesterday uh one was uh an increase from 2% to 2.9% the other was an increase from 2% to 3% so now three men get in the room well two men and a woman get in the room and um fight that out I would nobody anticipates that there would be anything larger than that 3% nobody's going to get in the room and fight this out and say let's go for 10 wouldn't that be fun that's not where we are
018so just quick math at most we're looking at an additional $80,000 there so from $1 120 to $200,000 small government assistance is because we have uh Forest Land Management Programs in our district a lot of money that we get is from the state because of forest land so that's a little government assistance for those of us districts that have uh Forest Land Management Programs offset the lack of Revenue that we could be have the houses were on that land I'm not sure $177,000 really offsets the difference in the cost but that's what it is missing some zeros it's missing some zeros yes it is but that's that's what we're coming um other state aid would be we sometimes we receive aid for various projects they do the lead testing and we get $3,000 for the
019cost of lead testing always some other state aid that comes in kind of in DS and grads um the other federal aid really is e- rate so you pay a little bit of that on your Interstate telecommunications service and then it comes back to the schools um that too is up for debate whether or not e rate will be continuing so we left it but we certainly didn't feel like we could do anything to pretend that we would get more of it because that's pending that SC decision correct more out of anybody that is sitting right there Medicaid also we do bill for services um when we receive um approval from families and so again Medicaid also is one of those Federal things being discussed so we didn't feel we could have any movement in
020that but none of those so significant either that if we had to make up the 100,000 that we couldn't so we just left them flat um so line eight is the fund balance appropriation it comes from two sources one is the unallocated fund balance and the other is the transportation reserve and we talked about that a little bit when we did our our proposition so the 324,000 comes out of a transportation Reserve but the additional money uh comes from our unallocated fund balance and we're going to talk about that in a couple of minutes we we're going to circle around to that again to about it so just a reminder to the board the board approves a total budget amount not necessarily a line by line it's it's super important that you understand what the
021main structures are of the of the budget itself so last year we used a little over $2 million of unallocated fund balance to balance the budget and there was there was a method to our Madness last year they were talking about schools that had unallocated fun balances that were over 4% having to actually give back that money that you would get your foundation Aid minus what you had over 4% so and and our we are one of those people that do have one of those districts that is over 4% and so this was a way to back that money down so that if that was what this year looks like um we were sitting out there so I want to just take a a s I promise we'll come back to that fund balance but
022I want to take a switch to talk about our um reserves because this is also part of the financial fure sure yeah we're going to come back go ahead I just we were talking about Federal that's not that is correct of the budget so we have historically for many many years we we have not included any of our title grants in our revenues because every year it's different every year it's voted on um and we have tried not to put the people who are in our title grants in our title grants before we know we've gotten them last year our budget was very tight we knew that so last year was the first year that we actually moved mov people out of the instructional piece that's paid out of the general fund before we approved
023the budget so their salary was already in those title funds we' already banked on the title funds so again it was that was because they weren't in the they weren't in the budget we didn't include them in the expend in the income side of things right yeah but we're going to come back to that so remind me if I don't come back to talk about that hit me or have t do it talk about that so school districts are allowed to have some Reserve accounts the state of New York tells us what we have what we can have there are 14 different Reserve accounts that we can have and they really act as a financial buffer they allow us to make some long range plans to put some money aside for future needs or when
024we have some unexpected costs some of these allow you to do them to use the funds especially the equipment Reserve so if the boiler died tomorrow here at the high school we could have a public hearing and be able to actually fix the boiler without having to touch our general funds which didn't budget for such a big cost so the status of the district reserves also affect our bond rating having money in reserves when we go to borrow funds is very good for us so our cost of borrowing goes down by having reserves so New York State sets the parameters on the establishment and use of the the reserves and we are pretty lucky when I got here uh that we had we had exactly this many and so over the years we've been able
025to build our reserves uh and and use them as appropriate and um the handout lists all the different ones that are available but we have 10 big one being the capital reserve and transportation and maintenance equipment Reserve so we use those so that we buy our buses so that we don't have to borrow for our buses and pay the cost of borrowing uh we have a repair Reserve we just talked about that ERS and TRS reserves um ebl I'm sorry I can't tell you what that stands for workers cop unemployment property loss and tax ciori tax ciori is an interesting one uh I'll just quickly touch on because you'll see how it varies from year to year so every year when you get the notice from um your assessor good news your house has gone
026up in value or you know you'll be you'll be thrilled to get your next set of taxes because your house value has doubled so when there is someone who um appeals their their taxes and they go they they actually um go to court for it we get notice of that and often these are very big places these are people that their taxable bill is $5 million and they think it should be $3 million that they're being over you know their assessment is wrong so we still while that is going through the system we still collect on that $5 million so if a year from now the judge says you're right it should only be three million we have to give back the difference of what we've collected so the tax ta theary is really where
027we hold that money from any notification that we've received that there are there there's a litigation out there about someone's assessment and we put that money in there and you can see some years those were big assessments 238,000 215,000 other years it's a little smaller but but that does vary year to year so that it's it's a spot to hold that money um we did have there was an issue down state where a uh were a Factory closed and it wasn't usable property so their tax value their assessment value went right to the toilet and the district had to give back the money when that's your big employer in the community and that's gone and that value is gone so this helps us make sure that we don't run into that we also have funds
028that are unassigned and these it's currently sit at 3,812 190 every year we use these unassigned funds to help offset the budget and as I said earlier last year we used just over $2 million so the question is where does this money come from a little of it is budgeted because we're trying to establish some of these funds so we build some of that into the budget and you will see that those are lines 27 28 29 and 30 we want to make sure that we continue to fund those they're important to use them so we build that in fund transfer right into our regular budget but obviously there's a lot more money than that so this These funds that we took into these uh balances and reserves are unspent funds at the end of
029the fiscal year so we have a budget freeze at April on April 1 and you'd be shocked the number of POS people putting because they want to use every bit of their money but we still have the custodian spot that we could fill all year that that money was allocated for um last year we came to the end of the year with about 1.6 million unused and that sounds like woohoo look at you over budgeting what actually happened last year was that it was the last year of our Essa grants the federal grants we had anticipated having well over $2 million to go to the fund balance we hadn't anticipated that the cost of everything would go up like it has gone up so it sounds great on paper like look it but the truth
030is we we leveraged our our last year of our es grants in order to have some money to put into our reserves to help us uh and we did not end up with the money that we thought we were and I our hope this year year is to end up with about a million dollars but again have if you've opened up your light bill uh I think now that Greg is retired he is just doing laundry 24 hours a day I don't know what's happening in my house but my usual electric bill of $70 is $128 this Mon and uh our electric bills as a district are that much and our um our very cold winter on a cold winter day Petrova uses almost 4 gallons of fuel a day so and those costs are
031not going Down's another potential liability there too right which is that New York Cate gets a lot of electricity from can correct Canada so we should anticipate that as well so we hear an awful lot about that 4% rule as a maximum to be on allocated funds we heard all about that last year 4% 4% 4% we're sitting at about 10% right now and as we've talked about year after year 4% is not fiscally responsible for your community it costs money to borrow money so um every time we go to borrow money it it's like payday loans right and that's what happens to a district that doesn't have enough ready cash these These funds the money in these funds can't be mixed can't be used and so we need unallocated funds because we get the
032last of our federal money or state money sometimes in may we get the last of our foundation Aid sometimes the beginning of June we do not get money again until midt when school taxes start coming in and so what do we do all summer we spend money uh on all our materials and supplies we still have 12-month employees go but we go almost two and a half months without funds we can't touch the money that's in the reserves so the money that carries us over so that we don't have to borrow for the summer is the unallocated fund balance we are able to call on that to keep us floating during the summer months when money's not coming in we have had to borrow my first year my second year I can't remember which but
033as a district we had to borrow funds to get through Su so it just Begins the payday loan so it's the balance of giving back to the taxpayers the money that they gave you that you haven't used and keeping a healthy enough fund balance that you're not actually costing the taxpayers money by not having enough in reserve that you have to borrow we actually are very lucky right now in that we have the capital project going on in 18.75 we have the EPC project going on and we have the beginning of the turf project going on so we actually are able to use our unassigned fund balance right now during the school year when we're healthy and receiving funds every month so that we don't have to borrow for those projects until June and we
034can borrow all at once it'd be between 20 and $40,000 to borrow for each of those projects separately each time so there is there's a value to keeping a healthy fund balance without being gluttonous and that's the balance right like what's healthy and what's too much so I I said to Gina Fairington today because we've been talking about payroll I said how much was our payroll paid it on Friday her payroll this week she just closed it out was $744,000 that's our twoe payroll and our last payroll um at the end of February was over 800,000 because all our winter pushes so 4% on our back to your forecast sheet 4% on our 37,500 $500,000 budget is 1.5 million that's two payrolls if our money ever gets held something happens and that has happened back
035in whatever when the state did I see Bruce shaking I was here too I can't remember the a when the state did that hold right so people expect to get paid every two weeks and so that is not a reasonable expectation at 4% that would cover two Sals period so what is reasonable that's that's it so I think that looking at what we would have left right now we have 3.8 million we anticipate using a million in our fund balance appropriation we did a little over a million because you know even though Cindy's not here and in homage to Cindy we wanted a nice even number our suggestion is 37,500 th000 we anticipate we will have some unallocated funds this year but we will not we will not have millions of unallocated funds you really
036feel that keeping that 3.8 somewhere between three and 3.5 which is probably what it would turn out to be is that healthy media it's about I wrote it down I don't think put it down apologize it's about 7% um seven or 8% that's not Blutman that's enough to get us through our times of um of state and federal fund famine um and and appro use of the fund balance to offset the budget n the number that NW has been looking for passord what is he goes well ideally you'd have six months of salary put away and we both laughed hysterically and I said well what what give me the number and he said the number they're actively working on is 10% yes he said it's he goes it's not as much as we would like
037to have just with the state of the world it is but he goes it's definitely an improvement from 4% that um they're actually getting removal in R governor's office and that'd be great that would be great so so I've swung back to the forecast number one and back to line eight when I promised I'd come back to that which is the fund balance appropriation keeping it at 2 million we use up our fund balance and and when it's gone it's gone and and it's just fiscally unsound for that uh we're recommending the 1.14 uh to put forward towards our budget so that really shows at the end of the day a difference in funding from this school year to next school year of about $200,000 Nancy you asked a question I was going to come
038back to it Federal f with the federal funding so I'm with you as we move down just took me a moment thank you did you watch me think with that was sorry so one of the things we've done so if we're not really going to talk about the blue section tonight but we have put in some figures that are rollover figures U we have not worked on the bottom part 32 38 we're meeting with our administrators and supervisors next on that so there's no funding down there The Debt Service is solid that's what we anticipate that to be for next year no change in our in fund transfers school lunch fund just a reminder on that school lunch fund must be made a whole at the end of every school year has to come out
039at zero and it's a wonderful thing we feed our kid we did a sushi a sushi tasting yesterday like we do great things for our kids with food it's very nice it's not inexpensive and so in order for them to get to zero U the general fund does help with the cost of food Serv we've been lucky in that's another piece that Nikki and I talked about I'm sorry don't be moving Nikki and we should be sitting next to each other so I just keep poing at you um it has been good we're a SE School Community eligibility program so all of our students are receiving free uh breakfast and lunch and snack the reimbursement for that is actually higher than what we would have students self pay normally so that has been a net
040positive for our food service program but guess what else is on the on the Block federally and that those funds come both from the state and the federal level so we didn't feel we could take that out because it's it's all so nebulous right now so we don't know what's happening at the federal level with back no that is correct so we could be on hook for that as well correct so that's why we left it right there as it as it was I'm trying to get right now is trying to tease out because For the First Time Ever we've got the governor on board with the assembly and Congress so state whyde state they want to do yeah New York state is on board it might be the federal government right now if it
041were to go through the numbers that come off the top of 900,000 kids um because it's 12 billion and it jumps the set from 25% to 60 and like we were talking about before it was 40 we always hovered just below that 38 39 we never quite got to the 40 but it would put it would I mean we would it's a huge it UNS everything yes it does so Nancy asked about the federal grants and and uh Staffing and so on line 10 we have moved all of our staffing out of the federal grants that's all in one place for right now so that that Staffing cost is Complete Staffing cost we didn't leave anybody in a grant for now that's what it would really look like so when you see us in weeks
042we're going to be working on the blue part of the budget and we will be back with more information on that you know I'm never anybody who likes to come we talked about that before some people come and the sky is falling and the sky is falling and the sky is falling and then they find 50,000 here and 100,000 there like to put the budget together that way that's that's not bit disingenuous with that um there is a lot of work to be done on this budget but we will come back to you with a a fully completed recommended budget on the uh fund balance and Reserve sheet yeah um just curiosity in the reserve boxes at the top uh I'll use Capital Improvement uh inim it says Max 10 million turn 10 years equals
043225 is that you can only have an average of 10 million for 10 years like what what's the max in term yeah so the the max we could have in that account account is 10 is $10 million and the longest you can hold it is 10 years we're not at 10 Years yet so what happens if we go over we can't go over they won't allow us to go over the 10 million you open your eyes yeah um and we don't have to necessarily use it we would have to go back to the voters because the voters approv that we have't we have to go back to the voters and ask them to to reestablish a capital account uh a capital reserve and to move the money from this cap close this fund into the
044new one and it was reestablished for the next 10 years all right what in the repair Reserve yes uh the highl number is that I'm sorry repair Reserve repair Reserve 2024 it's the highlighted number that's in that column yes I don't know that one I'm going to have to go look at that that's a good question okay and so have in terms of the federal funding yeah have we like we have an idea of what kind of we Quantified that yet run scenarios in terms of what it could look like or do we just not know what to run because we don't know what what's going to like do we know the men of what could be cut and be able to say worst cases it's this kind of thing or not I I just
045don't I'm just curious to know if we get out in front of it and understand the impact based on what we wake up to whenever it happens so our 2st Century Learning Center gr could go away and that would not necessarily impact staffings that the staff for that program is all paid for through that program and it's all around the school bed program um those programs the programs themselves go that's programing and we don't know if that program still exists at this point or that Grant TV TB okay yes T makes it difficult is when you're awarded these grants you think okay it's a three-year Grant we get three years so when to cancel that part to the expiration the grant really is tough to forecast your your question is a very good one Zach
046and doing we actually many of us are doing the very best we can in try to follow the bgs involved yeah and we're trying to read the tea Le so we have a we have a company that we have to pay for someone to come and do evaluations for the can I share this info so we we have to pay a company it's part of the grant requirements to do the evalu valuation of our rant work and that company we've always worked with two people they're great they come they do all the visits and do their work and one was just laid off by the company because the company is expecting that this grant work will go yeah so you know we're trying to read the tea leaves that are happening in other places but
047it's hard to keep up right yeah and so if there are um if there are any shortcomings in terms what we have is are we going to dip into the unassigned mower like that solution so unnown that's a great question so our goal is always to build a little buffer into the budget again it's that balance of what's responsible to the taxpayers in the moment when they're paying the taxes and what's responsible to the taxpayers when something big comes up and we have to do second third for vermiculite remediation tomorrow right like how do you how do you balance that out so we always do have a little buffer because unique thing is so at your house if you have a savings account you may be saving for a project but then um you know
048this week you're kind of short because I hit my goal weight today so I want to go out to dinner you know so so like you steal from your savings account but I know I'm getting paid on Friday because the the $744,000 bill just came to do right so I know I'm going to get paid on Friday so I steal my you know 50 bucks out of it we can't do that with our Reserve funds the money that's in the reserve funds cannot be touched in a crisis and most of them require that we actually go out to the voters for the right to spend that so that's why we always build a little bit of a buffer into the budget that's why I think this year we might have I thought might have until
049the cost keep going up I thought we might have about a million dollars the end of the year so that's why if those funds are small enough in the revenue side that if they didn't come to parition and we didn't get them it's not going to be the end of the world but but watching the costs escalate like they are true it's it's a balancing yeah more difficult as the years have gone is it accurate that some of our funding from the federal government comes directly and some gets SP to the state that does that's correct so that makes it a little tougher to tell exactly where everything goes that is correct once it gets filter through the state yeah it gets loed in with some other things and the state takes a good that
05021st century um is the current program year go through the summer or is it go through June June so and our title grants go through June do I think we'll probably continue to get some title grants yes what that will really look like though is up in the air I'm not really surprised that that's being looked at and uh title grants fund a significant portion of the New York State education department employee roster also so how much of those funds if the funds are reduce how much will still be stopped at the state level and how much will flow through to the local there just a lot of layers to that so that's part of back to Nancy like what are we doing with the people who were in the grants and just not super
051comfortable just loading those grants like we have for the last few years and pulling it out of the budget because these these are real people and nobody likes to hear at the end of March that you may not have a job in June but nobody wants to hear in August that you don't have a job in September so yeah well there also the reality of you know even if we might the funding might still be allocated that without Staffing at either the federal Depart of Education or the state and that it's the delays beginning you know it could be to do the work% of [Music] all if you get in a situation where you know you're allocated the money and you hire people and six months later they say never mind we cancel you don't
052get reimbursed so it's it's you know I applaud the work that Diane is doing on this and Nikki but a lot of this is just guessing because the things that control this funding that is usually stable and you can count on it or at least when they say you have two years you get two years worth right that is all that paradigm's gone so it's going to be delicate to thre the needle this well there's there's very like it's pretty likely there will be program Cuts hopefully not staing Cuts but we're going to lose a 20 you know 21 century that's a huge amount of program I know it's outside of school you know day time but that's it's the kids who are feel it we we are working hard on that n and actually
053I think it might be just the opposite it's early to talk about it we aren't we just aren't there yet I'm thinking that at the end of the day we probably will have Staffing Cuts but not necessarily we we do continue to lose students our our student enrollment numbers are down we've been able to keep some Staffing on through our grant and then we used quite a bit this year to continue that hoping to do some of this through um attrition you so I do think that doesn't mean there won't be any but um I I don't think there'll be significant 21st will we also there's a lot of [Music] there could we yes some of it I don't know I have to really look at that yes gets a little tricky we all we
054all know the value that I mean every meeting ER talks about half dozen things that it's supporting and how well it does for our students and families so and all the research shows that here in the rural districts wer than anywhere else those kind of things are a bigger deal for our kids because they don't have the exposure that somebody even when you look at platsburg or um more like conc that are really technically City but they have a lot more opportunity wel any other questions I don't know if this time to ask about it not necess about reserves but I see in the NSI balance that that number is going down correct so is that just a forecasting of if things kind of the way they are that's what we expect or it it's
055because the the prior year doesn't get factored in if there's any fund balance left with the prior year it just isn't yeah likely will be added each end of each year yes we hope I don't know I'll get that answer for you I have no idea thank you anything else for D any more of this tonight you know one of the things that occurs to me as we we look at these numbers we got this sheet a little bit last meeting and I've been doing some thinking about it and you know there's no question that you know we're going to be asking to uh tighten tighten up in some areas and so I'm gonna ask Gina if she would put together um the board expenditures now it's a minuscule amount compared to our budget but
056I think we had to look at how we spend our money and what we do and as a group um you know take a look at what we're spending because you see the bot of money you don't know and it Mak some decisions about you know where we can do our part even though it's not a big number we got to do what we can do so you could get that together for me take a look better I have one other question and maybe it's an Eric question um I was looking at the one house budgets when they came out this week There's increased funding at the state level for Community Schools Statewide Community Schools or at least maybe so far we get this much no I know I realized I realized that no I
057can tell you that no I know it was think it was like $100 million or something like that would that be money that we potentially would have access to if it goes through depends on how it's awarded if it's go through the foundation then we don't receive any but if it's going to be uh a competitive grant that be jump up a chance through New York State okay they have had Community School where they just bullet a you or they um give it back into your foundational a your percentage goes up but there that's a bit of a slight of pan I Haven paid a lot of attention to it last few years because we don't get it but when it first came out um we were sort of dictated as to what you could
058spend that money so it it wasn't it wasn't the gift it sounds like Joe it's probably important important to report because um should federal aid be reduced substantially state was kind that money they may then say Oh by the way we promise you this money you're not get from the state L because they're getting yeah so what the state for Gast is today may not be actually what they deliver and New York Cate contributes more to the federal government than we receive and so you know this could get really really interesting when push comes to J lot of moving Parts yeah all right thank you Diane thank you Nikki so uh next item [Music] is oh thank old business capital projects any updates on capital projects I really don't everything is moving along and then
059Item B is review of onboarding material vice president n has been working on which also is goal um so uh Tor thank you for for making suggestions the comments I am learning learning slowly um so you know well theor an email to me a couple days ago I like well all I see is just this outline not like the actual packet of stuff that we're g give somebody I don't know if we're actually gonna have a finder that hand new board members or whether there's something that I mean maybe part some of it will be in a but not every little piece because it changes all the time year um so that's so the Hope was just to kind of get this finalized so we don't forget anything significant um and or or maybe restructure
060a little bit which were some of uh the coloring was was the comments that that uh or different comments that Tori made on maybe maybe some of this should be something that Gina does or something that maybe the superintendent does or Gina meaning the board cour and I think that was one of your the blue you were like well maybe this is something do it is what my one of things because I read the the the pack that you said and one of the things that I sat down after my first year with s for 30 minutes and learn more in that 30 minutes than I did all the you know you take your mandate training and asking questions and I think my my general thing was for the section for the school business executive
061is get input Nikki what would you Nick Nikki what would you like us the new member to know what is the most important thing but also give the new members opportunity to sit down with Nikki to sit down with you just as some people are very comfortable I have no problem you and saying need to sit down and meet with you but sometimes when people come on you they might not feel as comfortable saying can I sit down and make you for half an hour can I for Happ but these people um I think by having a set thing where you spend a half an hour to go over the basics of how it is a school funded because it's it is conf it is incredibly confusing that is built into it I mean it
062says right there introduced a school dist executive so that the school business executive can kind of go over those and we should definitely be nice to know what else SCH business executive thinks might be in there I mean it's not limited to this these are just things that we definitely want to make sure they highlighted and it could be maybe what would be better there would be it would have its own heading like you know as a is that what you know does that fit I would I just think that I I'm concerned about two things one is and I know I harp on this so I'm going to on it again every member of the board should have read the policy again US Department of the State Department of Education NPA um all the
063pertinent organizations all say that every member of the board should have read the and we kind of mention it and it's online and you can go through and dig through it and it's a pain in the neck to read online and either we need to make that an easier situation so I think that that's actually um nisba um nisba training all these different documents say the number one document every school board member needs to at least be familiar with and have read once was the possible um so I think that that means and I would like to see I know I am a paper person I know a lot of people are totally online whether it's an online format or a format I do think that there should be something that we hand new members
064saying here is where you can find all this in one spot that you're going to meet like the uh overview the uh um in one spot here's the map of the district with our boundaries here is the um kind of the basics of the hierarchy and all that but have it in one spot instead of I still can't find everything I want in the Google Drive I've put stuff in the Google dve I know I put it there and then you go back to try and find it so instead up saying okay here's kind of a general pile of stuff I think it would be nice to hand people a packet that says here's your first six months here's the General Schedule not only of the budget but of all the things that happen in
065the fall are reporting dates that kind of start in the fall just in one spot because it gives you an overview yes the nisba training gives you an overview but it's really generalized as opposed to we're a rural District we have some different dates compared to what they talk about in this I just think that it should be something that I just think I know so you wantan to I'm trying to kind of get through all the way through to what your suggestion is you'd like to see most of everything here put on a piece of paper in a find that's what you're suggest it would have been helpful for me or at least have it in one spot online that you can get everything in one spot I mean certainly some things can I
066I think I don't know if it's makes sense to out the policy handle because it changes and it's a lot of paper but um l pounds of paper so I know I've read it I printed it out and I read I I'm not arguing that you don't that you have it but so some things would definitely would be helpful to put and some things aren't and some things you know as they come out of each year can be put in ex it's not that we have turnover a ton I mean the last three years I've been here we haven't had a ton of turnover so we're not asking I mean Gina a lot of This falls on you we're not asking Gina to print out different ones every year it's okay we have one new
067member or two new members this year let's put of those and have it highlighted these are the 10 things that we need to update every year here's the new who has what job who's administrator of block but then it's in one spot I just think it makes it easier because I'm really annoying I will call people and I will dig through stuff and I was on the phone with Cindy and all these people because I wanted to understand but it's a lot and if it was if some of this a lot of this stuff actually was in one spot you could refer you can refer to them it's here it's in this section of this so my thought process on this was you know as I'm looking at this there's specific things that can be
068printed handshakes you cannot print um obviously but um of the things that can be printed um they I will and I'll create a section I create a binder that was my envisioned spot anyway um and the point of contacts of who is the best known person for this information that's exactly because it would save a that's what I envisioned with this outline so if there is you know specific items that are under board president um board president would have a section in the binder that um the things that Mark knows can be referenced here but if there's further questions on things that are in the binder for the board president it would go tomorrow is that what you're kind of saying at least it's it's having the contact so instead of me having to email
069you or email Diane you can't really like read everybody's mind on what they want to know the original intent of this was to give a framework for someone that's new without overwhelming um I don't think you're gonna be be able to cover all aspects of because everybody comes in with a different knowledge base what you want to do is be able to say hey if you need some help these are the places to look here's the basics of what you should know here's some easy things you don't have to wait six months to learn while sitting and watching what acronym I also think we just we just need jump off so like we make the binder what we feel is in there we think of something and be like hey you know what that should
070really go in the B so it's a uh can you make an electric find elect right so that you know it's it's a framework it's a beginning it'll be a living document we'll find some things just didn't work out and what needs to happen is we want to get new board members up to speed as fast as they can get as they're interested doing so they don't spend a year just saying I don't know what's going on just procedures and processes that's my vision of this and then as we have to adjust if we will we just want to help new people to be more efficient quicker in their Ro right and we can't you know just to speak to your point about that reading every policy you can present the policies to any board
071member you can't force them to read it every board member is going to do what they want to do right they're elected they're not being paid and they're not being over seen make sure that I'm taking a test on what so like there's no that's not I'm sorry if that's what I was implying my what I'm trying to say is that one of the hardest parts in your first year and the rest of you tell me if I'm wrong one of the hardest parts in your first year being on the board is the question what is your purview what is our perview what isn't our purview what do we have control we have control over the policy man and we put the policy manual on and I think one of the things that we need
072to say to people to members coming on is that when you kind of question what your purview is go to the policy manual and look at that because that gives us they're the kind of overriding TS do we go into Diana and say this is how you going to do discipline no we have the policy and that is the reason that we encourage it I just think it should be more than uh and the policy manual is online good luck I don't disagree with that but we cannot let this particular task eat up a lot of our time right now um in discussion because we got this budget thing that's very intense I think the better plan is let's get a skeleton work up make it a living document andj if there are new members
073that come this next election we'll have at least have a starting point and we can use new members as they come on board it's say what do you need to know what should we have in here yeah but there's a consistent question that's being asked but I don't want this to be another six meetings of of you know trying to hammer out the fine points because we don't know what they're going to be I think this is a good framework um I think to's point of it would be nice to have a a lot of the most common things that are references to maybe be in one one spot but may not be possible I had the same difficulty finding stuff on the drive by the way thank you it's probably more my skill thank
074thank you for everybody inut on this this would have been super helpful as two things I would add to this and maybe they're on here and I just missed it but we came up with the board timeline like the dates that we do things is that in there somewhere yeah and then uh just yearly goals yeah current board goals is there so some of these boxes would have accompanying documentation but we can break it up may some of these really are better for superintend like I came out of there with the finances wise like oh I got it now like you know it takes a while to you know understand the operation so let's let's try to bring some closure to this um I think what we have here is a great start and see
075if we can't get that put together and then as we work through it we'll add and delete and evolve and try to be effective to help new people come on so they don't feel like they got to waste a year before they really understand the operation so we will figure out what can be in the booklet kind of format whether again thank you for everyone thank you okay next uh old business is the nomination for membership of uh Board of Cooperative Education Services I doing that do not I'm happy to is that in our policy manual is in the checklist okay Mark long so there are some terms of office that are off and we have the opportunity if we would like to nominate someone for uh the B the BOS board rosi serves as
076our representative from s lake so it would be my recommendation to you that it um would be gluttonous to have two representatives from s Lake and so we should pass on the opportunity to nominate anyone at this time how many years is threee turn no yes there's a few different yeah really changed people yes because there's board member from Shad that left yes and then so Rick is on for just correct great thing about Rick is he spent time on our board so he knows the operation of us so he's excellent I agree okay new business new business that BR us down to report we'll start off with the superintendent report so what are you all doing it March 26 at 500m you get the extra drink ticket yes yes don't tell garage so just
077just a reminder we're honoring our top 10% at our next meeting and the meeting starts at I stop sorry I'm old top 15% at our next meeting uh and we're meeting at 5 instead of 5:30 we also have a special development dat coming up next Friday and we're doing multi-tiered systems of support work that's ongoing work we work on that also in October there'll be some work at building levels then and then at State the district and you are all welcome also on April 4th we are having a naturalization ceremony here at site Lake we think that we're going to help for people become US citizens um so you have an invite in your folder and we hope you'll be able to join us that's that's pretty exciting they're both at the high school correct
078yes in the aitor what time 1 o00 same time yeah two weeks because April 4th is the naal that's the end of my report perfect admin Josh um just want to report that we have students that are making their schedules for next year and want to give shout out to Amy our y Ski Club wrapped up their 20th season this year our students had the chance to learn how to downhill skress their ski snowboarding skills this was led by Mrs Grant and M BR with assistance from ships Miss Zer and missal we have 30 students participate this year we attended five Friday night sessions under the lights at Titus mountain and participation in the club included Transportation equipment rental lift tickets lessons and meals and the club is proud to offer full scholarships for those
079in need thanks to generous grant funding from UA Sports fund thank you for that um Tuesday March 4th all of our eth graders attended a field trip to ABC bosis during the trip students went on a tour of the facility and learned about all the programs available uh that day the eth graders also had a presentation about the New Visions education program from our uh 12th grade students and caramon uh they provided our students with information and answered all of their questions this year of the Middle School counseling department Mrs Jackson mugh and Mrs Bell who was our sub right now um also Expos ours to the college experience at Sun platsburg and the spring we will hold our annual career exploration Fair where all of our students will be able to speak directly with
080new these lawyers perect thank you Amy Ryan uh just a few things last Friday we had our second of three uh Awards ceremonies uh we recognize those students who were showing um awesome academic progress up to this point of the year we have one more we focus on actual character the end of the year um last week was read Across America week we had some guest readers come into every one of our classrooms that have been Aunts Uncles grandparents parents um it's always nice to see them in the Halls they love being there um big shout out to community schools for the AUM Saturday Academy um this past Saturday it was a lot of fun I froze out on the hill but that's all right self chosen actually and a couple upcoming field trips are
081fourth graders two of our classes are finally headed to Heart Lake they might have the opposite problem forast stays the same there might not be enough snow Snowshoe and what have you but and our kindergarteners going to lpca on Thursday thank you Bruce yeah just uh piggyback what Josh said with our um our scheduling uh we introduced to our students our 11th grade students a new Visions programs being offered next year that I just want to highlight there's a new uh program Marine technology and we seem to have a pretty nice turnout from tan because are really excited on that as well as the other two program so we just went through that last week and second perissa um I'll just give you a little glimpse into all the work that the teachers are doing
082right now um K through five in respon I guidance on best instructional practices have been working on modifying their programs like ca for ELA um to incorporate to incorporate a relevant IND play based and bring some of that Joy back um 6 through 12 has been focusing on student centered learning um especially as it pertains to student engagement for for deeper understanding so we've been sharing tangible examples of what it looks like and sounds like in their own classrooms um providing a tool box of strategies to experiment with um our Ela and social studies departments have aesome been working hard to scaffold backwards from the most complex tasks on the regent exams to um to implement uh instruction that has students working on those skills all the way back to sixth grade and K through
08312 our teachers have worked uh very diligently and Confident by the end of this year we will have a K2 standard Erica well if we've wondered what Mrs fox has done on every Saturday the past four Saturdays I can give you a full report she's been at Whiteface mountain with over5 of our school family members then she was at Titus Mountain tubing with 45 of our closest members and then this past Saturday we were all most of us here in this room were at a Saturday Academy at Bloomingdale where 93 of our families over 300 S Lake family members came to Bloomingdale school and I can tell you it was it was a delight and I'm looking forward to the next one in October some our two calendars and um this coming Saturday she will
084not be joining us at the Fish and Game Club where we will be providing hunting licenses and instruction for uh close to 15 family members of the school district out there she wouldn't let me under I said no under under the uh Ralph from DEC is running that program for us out the fishing rod and what is it not the r fishing game club we gonna be out there on Saturday get I'm not going to get there but yes thank you er uh Suzanne annual review season is here we're about a week and a half in to our I because we're developing the students IEPs for next year um mostly been high school so far and a lot of the students have joined for their meetings which is always really great to have the students
085at the table with those who are talking about decisions and they can help us make decisions um on the March 25th and 26th is the c chairperson's conference so a lot of C chair um persons and administrators psychologists teachers throughout the state will come to L class for the conference um this year's focus is on mtss and as always the Ever Changing legal updates so a few of my closest friends here can't wait to join us thank you Su K I just want to thank Community Schools also the students just can't stop talking about Saturday Academy how there was a sloth walking around my school and snakes and that was the big joke that the snakes were hiding somewhere in the school for me so I want to thank them what a great opportunity uh
086last week we had read Across America week we had various theme days and New Visions came over and um led a lot of literacy activities for our students so that was really popular tomorrow night's our monthly family night if you're looking for something to do it's the Garfield movie um next week we're celebrating St Patrick's Day a lot of our families are coming in and they're leading all of the activities such as directed drawing big old crafts and stories next week I'm very excited we're hosting Star Lab at our school and I remember it as a child and being my favorite thing so we're going to learn about constellations and G Greek mythology uh Brian and I are hosting a BMX assembly next week with a performer that really hooks the kids by doing BMX
087bike kind of routines and tricks but really has a a a story of kindness perseverance andal kind of theme so I think the kids are really going to enjoy it U March 24th rotaries coming to donate a book to every student so that would be really special uh fourth grade went to Heart Lake fifth grade went to the bob sled um competition and we also had our award ceremony last week so busy times perfect you know we say this all the time but thank you for the work you do and we like to hear all the things the students are doing a lot of times just happened we don't know about them kids ourselves you tell us that's awesome um Sam stent all right I'll start off by saying our top 15% was recognized last
088week um holding a board made to recognize them as well what time o' um our winter sports are coming to an end uh four track athletes were sent down to New York City to participate in States the boys basketball played a regional game for the first time since 98 a send off and police escort was yesterday a un Conference was held last week as well in nor Eastern Clinton and and the spring Sports meeting was last night and they'll start on Monday get on the field in two months hopefully this year yeah this thank you uh Nancy nothing Joe yeah I have a bunch of random things um I was able to partake and read Across America and was able to read some Dr SE to meet W's past which was super fun thank you
089for that invitation um we wrapped up uh I was at dwey yesterday for a fundraiser for cross country ski team and it was packed and I just dwey did such a nice job supporting our kids and and I wish more kids knew that there were skis available for them to do that so just it's a awesome community over there on Monday um I was in Albany for meetings with legislators um and met with Billy Jones um and just updated on some of the things that we were dealing with in the school district and had a nice chat with said anytime anybody from the downal meeeting he's got nice new corner office right next to Benedetto's committee on Education Office super convenient um there were a couple of students from sck Lake and Kean who went
090down as part of a Statewide Consortium on and Environmental Education while nice St nothing for Tor um I to read if tro with Brian's CL and got favorite books just as much as I did was kind of exited um a quick reminder uh board members please fill out the resolution survey even more important that it out um so that our view points don't get lost policy committee even if we do so that we don't get behind with the Stu that um the to change um we talked about the on house budgets which for once we're actually kind of in our favor as opposed to against us and very similar uh so far I'll have a full report on the budgets next meeting um once we've had time to go through that and then um lastly
091in your folders there is a bookings article that Grassroots advocacy sent um just in time for Budget season and to bring this up I I think I think we're engaged you read this some of the numbers at the average school board um they looked at uh and I give you the right number they looked at a lot of schools in all different demographics uh 27 States and they found that the average time that board members spend discussing the budget in public SE is 40 minutes a year um we're definitely doing better um the small districts are actually even worse in average 20 minutes um and it's just a really nice article on looking they gave some questions on um some really specific questions with situation getting tighter not knowing where money's coming from um not
092knowing if money is going to be there they actually if you page nine there's some really good questions um kind of to help give us a framework um and to keep it on remembering what the priorities are is to keep the school open to keep the school going and then our student obviously our student outcomes need to be the Forefront of our discussions but there's some good questions on there that um I just really want to show everybody because I think it it gives us specific questions asked when it can get especially when there's so much that we can't control that's it mik no report okay thank you everyone um I don't you not think we need correct so can I get a motion to adjourn second good favor we are that came from no
093I saw social