001All right. Well, good evening everyone. Um I for those folks who are new to the board of education uh and coming to our meetings, uh I'm Dr. Michael Patton, the superintendent of schools. I know we have several of our parents here. We got high school students and some of our high school adviserss. Uh so in the month of March is MU music in our schools month across New York State. Uh so these are some of our favorite board meetings of the year where we have an opportunity to hear our students perform. Uh so at this meeting and then at our following meeting at the end of uh March um we're going to have the opportunity to hear from some of our student musicians. So tonight we are very excited uh to have several members of
002our fifth grade band um from Division Street Elementary School under the direction of Miss Ferry Healey. They're going to kind of kick things off for us uh for the start of music in our schools month. Uh so I know our students are going to do an awesome job. So I just want to thank the parents uh for supporting our music programs uh and having your kids uh be here to join uh participate and perform for us tonight. So, I'll turn it over to Miss Fairy Healey. yourself. support our district. You're very lucky. Well, what an awesome way to kick off March and Music, our school month. So, uh, thank you to all of our student musicians. Again, thank you to all of our parents for your support. Uh, to all of our band directors and
003teachers, uh, especially tonight, uh, Mrs. Ferry Healey for uh, getting our students at division organized uh, to perform for the board. So, again, in two weeks, uh, we look forward to hosting musicians from all across the district. We actually are going to be meeting in the high school auditorium. Uh and so again celebrating uh music K12 across Saratoga Springs. So uh great job students. Keep up the awesome work. Okay. All right. Could I please get a motion to approve the minutes from February 26th, 2026? I see Tony and Matt as a second. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing none, all in f sorry, all in favor. Okay, that's unanimous. Could I please get a motion to approve the revised minutes from February 12th, 2026? I see Ashley. And can I get a second? I see
004Connie. Is there any discussion? Okay, seeing none, all in favor? That is unanimous. And then could I please get a motion to accept tonight's consent agenda? Sorry. To accept tonight's agenda. Sorry, Lee. Uh, and a second by Tony. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? All right. That's unanimous. This brings us to our first public comment period. Do we have any members of the public who wish to address the board? Seeing none, um there will be a second public comment period at the end of our meeting. All right. Board committee reports. Are there any committees um are there any board committee reports? Lee, not a board committee, but um this morning I attended uh the dirt committee, the district emergency response uh uh committee. Um we had a lot of things that we went over. Um
005we discussed um some uh uh software changes um uh that they're considering um moving towards. So replacing um the uh safe school helpline um system with the safe something anonymous reporting system uh that's put out by the uh Sandy Hook um uh group and also replacing the navigate safety module and the raptor visit visitor man management system with uh um something new from Singlewire. Um, we also reviewed um some reunification procedures um went over some of the end procedures um to implement some some changes um and went through that and um that was all we discussed. So was well attended. Thanks. Thank you. Are there any questions for Lee? Okay, that brings us to our student member reports. Okay. Uh oh. Testing. Testing is good. Okay. Testing. Okay, that's better. Okay. Um, we received updates
006from four elementary schools in the high school for this week at Division Street. A congratulations goes to Max Lakia who won the Division Street Spelling Bee. Max will represent uh Division Street at the regional spelling be later in the school year. We all wish Max the best of luck and we're excited to cheer him on. Uh congratulations goes to the fifth grade Battle of the Books team for placing fourth in the semi-final competition on Tuesday. They are proud of their hard work and teamwork. Fourth grade students participated in the Don't Wait to Unmake a Bully program this week. Working with local filmmaker Michael Fstein, they produced a public service announcement focused on character development in anti-bullying. The fourth graders did an outstanding job with their chorus concert, Come Sail Away, last evening. A special thank
007you goes to the fifth grade band for their performance tonight. And at Dorothy Nolan Elementary School, a congratulations goes to the grade four and grade five Battle of the Book groups. Both teams came in second place across the region. Students are loving the rock wall, strider bike, and roller skating units in PE. Thanks to all the HSA and PE teachers for their fundraising collaboration efforts. And the students are looking forward to the HSA shamrock dance on Friday night. At Geyser Road Elementary School, they want to make a special announcement to the cast and crew of their annual drama performance, Mission Implausible. And a special thank you to their club adviserss and directors, Mr. Policino and Miss Russo. They had a special visit from the planetarium guy where students learned about the solar system, planets, and
008constellations. Students are busy planning and practicing for the annual airband concert on March 27th. And congratulations goes to the Battle of the Book participants and they are all very proud of their hard work. at Lake A Elementary. A congratulations goes to the fifth grade Battle of the Books team. While they did not place, they are incredibly proud of their work ethic. The Lake A Drama Club performed Mary Poppins Jr. last weekend. What a show it was. The students did an amazing job. Students are psyched for their Leopard Day tomorrow with Minute to Win It Challenges and a PBIS assembly. At the high school, they ask that you come join their drama club at this year's musical, Newsies. Performances are tonight through Saturday evening and a Saturday matinea. Several Saratoga Springs High School students participated in
009the Boseis Student Leadership Summit. During the summit, students engaged in leadership workshops, collaborated with peers from other schools and explored ways to make a positive impact in their school communities. The inclusion union club created a storm with kindness wall as a part of their spread the word campaign. Students and staff wrote messages of kindness, hope, and inclusion to inspire a positive school climate. The National Honor Society recently hosted a Red Cross blood drive, and a total of 86 donations were collected, including 40 firsttime donors. These donations can help save up to 258 lives in a time of a severe blood shortage. On behalf of Julie Cox, Sophia Allen, and myself, I would like to make a special thanks to all of our donors and volunteers who helped to make our final drive for the year
010such an amazing success. All right, so tonight we have a special presentation uh before we get into any further administrative reports. Um tonight we're going to be have the opportunity to hear from several of our high school students um that are participating in our first ever student participatory budgeting pro uh process. Uh so these are our student leaders who've been leading the charge uh throughout the course of the school year. I also want to thank uh the faculty adviserss Aaron Bell, Caitlyn Deronda, and Dave Brown who are also here with us tonight who've been providing outstanding uh support to our students. So, I know the board was very interested uh in getting an update from our students about uh the process itself and what to kind of expect as our next step. So, I'll turn
011it over to our high school student leaders. Does this work? Okay, here we go. Um, good evening. Good evening everyone. My name is Rosa Garcia and I'm going to start us off. So, our school received $25,000 um to do renews in this school. And what our uh faculty decided to do was allow student opinions to enter this. So, we originally sent out a survey to get student opinions at first and then some students um if they wanted to were invited to come and try to plan out and organize what was going to happen and what things we would focus on to use this money with. So, some of our timeline that we've been working on, I'm McKenney Caprio, by the way. I'm a senior at the high school. Um in November, we got our proposal
012submitted by the entire student body. We had over a hundred proposals and at our first meeting we looked through them all um and picked out what some of the most important ones were and what ones were more repetitive and what people wanted to see in our school. Um in January and December we evaluated the proposals further and we revised them to make sure that they would make the greatest impact possible um to our student body. And in January we finalized our ballot. Um that was a great day. We even had cookie cake. Got to mention that. Um, but yeah, we finalized it with the best ideas that we could come up with and we did all the research ourselves um and found the stuff that we needed to make that possible. Uh, last month we
013decided on our campaign designs and everything like that. We have a bunch of posters. If you will look over here. So these are some of our designs that we will explain further in later times. Uh this month we month we are working on campaigning. We're giving out stickers. We're letting the student body know what they can vote on and what is available for them. And on March 24th and 25th, we will have our votes in the TA for all social studies classes and there'll be actual voting machines where all of the students can come to vote on their favorite proposals. So, okay. Hi, I'm Riley Cannon. I'm also a senior. So, up here we have our ballot design. It is a little bit changed now. Don't look too close. some typos, but um basically our
014ballot will be a ranked ballot. So that means that students can rank their choices one through three because we want our um budget to take in as many projects as possible to make our schools great as it can be. Um also on the side, each project will be described for students so they fully understand what they're voting for, what we want to do with the money, things like that. The great thing about the ballots are they are being printed by the county and we're actually getting um real voting machines to come to the school. We're going to have um us and volunteers helping to uh run the polls and all that. It's going to be really cool. We're going to get to um experience voting for the first time. I recently turned 18. I haven't
015voted yet. So, it's going to be a really cool experience for everyone. And yeah, that's basically it for the ballot. So, these are our campaign posters as you can see in my personal favorite which says fire up the grill because we really want a grill at our school. Um, you can tell which committee I was in. But, but these are campaign posters and it's really good for our students to get involved and kind of see what it's like to run a campaign. And as Riley was mentioning in the slide before, most of us are of voting age and we're going to be turning 18 soon. So, it's kind of cool for us to see what being in a poll scenario would look like, how we vote, what a ballot even looks like, because it's our
016first experience with that. So, we're very excited about that experience. Yeah. So, one of our proposals um was a grill to the caf to add a grill to the cafeteria to add some healthier food options um for lunch and just to see kind of where that would bring the new school lunches. Another one of our proposals was to um add more privacy to the bathrooms by um adding dividers between the urinal and the boys bathrooms and in all bathrooms um adding strips to cover the gaps between stalls. And then another one was focusing on bathroom supplies because in a lot of bathrooms in our school, they either lack dispensers or some of them are in bad condition currently. Mainly focusing on female product dispensers right now. And this is our poster. And it's relatively cost
017friendly, so a lot of other projects can fit into this budget as well. Another proposal we had was the vote H2O. Our idea is to add outdoor water fountains for our athletes and beyond to use during practice, during games, during events, during anything outside. Um, I feel like it would help out our athletic director a lot and it would just be open to the community and beyond. So, we also have a botchi group. They're not here, but they um are they want to put a botchi court in for the botchi team. It would be really cool. Gym classes might be able to use it. It's just a great way to get more activity for the school. We're open to any questions. All right, any questions or comments? I will say that water drop is the
018cutest thing I've ever seen in my whole life. Um, and that would have my vote just just for that. Um, this is really incredible. This is so well thought out. I think that this is um truly I don't even know what the word is, but like what a way to demonstrate like real student engagement. You are leading um you know the school and having like decisions that were brought by the students and then chosen by the students. I think that's really incredible. Um I'm so impressed. I love the graphic design. Um I'm so excited. I do have a question about the actual um ideas because I know that you said that um some are like less expensive. I guess how how I mean did you have to provide proposals for the amount of money and
019then I guess is it just like the number of projects that gets done is based on how much money they cost? Yeah. So basically we had to do all the research of how much it's going to cost and how much we are going to spend on each project. So every committee did their own research on that and um we are able to do more than one project if it doesn't reach our budget. So we can do as many as we can based on the rank voting which is another reason why we're doing the rank voting is so that we can get as many projects as we can done within our limit of money. Thank you so much for the water drop sticker. I just put it on my computer. Thank you. All right. Any other
020questions or comments from the board? We don't get to vote. but it's for the students. Um, okay. So, Matt, Tony, and then Connie. Um, I think this is amazing. You guys have done an amazing job with it. I'd also point out that if you're turning 18, the vote for the school board and the budget is May 19th, which you'll be eligible to vote in as well. So, like got a couple of votes happening this spring. And I have a question. I I I apologize. I I may have asked this or or someone on the board may have asked this of our colleagues at some point but I if we have I forgot the answer. Um I guess it's predicated on the first part of the question is was this process for you um fulfilling and
021and do you recommend it for for folks coming behind you in in the high school and do you know are there plans to do this again uh in in subsequent years? Yeah. So, as a senior, me um Mia and Riley and I are really grateful for the opportunity that we had. And obviously, we're going to pass the baton to the underassman. We also want to thank our class advisor, our adviserss, Miss Bell, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Ronda, because they've done an amazing job with this. And when they came to us with this idea, we were like, "Oh, yeah. We'll jump on board." And we hope, our hope is that when we do the polls during the social studies classes, other kids will want to see this and they're going to want to get involved as
022well. Um, That's our aim. Thank you. Just want to say congratulations on a really big feat and your leadership um is much appreciated. I I'm sure you've learned a lot, right? Like leadership isn't always easy, is it? So um thank you for sticking with it and I'm really excited to see what the outcome is. Any other questions or comments? I guess we can Oh, I'm sorry, Lee. I'll just echo um this is really really so cool and I'm really impressed with um with with the job that you've done, if I can make one small suggestion is that um as as you're leaving, sort of think about maybe um writing down some of the learnings and some of the things that makes it easier to transition and to spread not just here, but maybe possibly to
023other schools as well. And I'm assuming that Sydney and Olivia will bring us the results at the next board meeting after the vote. And I'm so excited to hear. All right. Thank you so much for coming to present to us tonight. This is great job everyone. Thanks. Yep. All right, that brings us to our administrative report. All right. Again, uh thank you to all of our students who've been involved in this awesome first year uh process. And again, thank you to the faculty adviserss and also to Joe Greco and to Bobby Yusco for spearheading the efforts last year during our budget development process and bringing the idea uh to get our students involved uh in budgeting process here in Saratoga Springs. So, awesome team effort everybody. Um, I got just a few uh recognitions. Uh,
024so first off, I think this was mentioned at the last meeting, but I but I also want to uh recognize and honor one of our seniors. Uh, and I want to make sure I say his name correctly because I think you nailed it last time. It's Lok Guul. How do you say it? One of our seniors. You know how you know how to pronounce his name correctly? Loi. Loic. And what's the last name? Loic G. I think it's Lo GF I O L. I do not have a great French accent. Um, but Loi uh has been named a finalist in the 2026 National Merit Scholar Program, which is just an incredible accomplishment uh to have a student from Saratoga Springs. Uh we've we've in the past have had semi- finalists uh but to have a
025finalist uh named in the uh national merit uh uh scholar recognition program and that's based on his performance on the national merit uh PSAT exam. Uh so again super competitive process. Uh these are students from all across the United States uh who qualify. So just congratulations uh to Liik and to his family. Uh and again super proud of uh of that accomplishment uh and wonderful recognition. Uh as I mentioned earlier uh March is music in our schools month. Uh not only did you hear from our students tonight uh but the board and the community uh starting this evening actually uh tonight is opening night for Newsies is our high school musical uh drama club production that is happening right now in the high school auditorium. Uh so it opened tonight and then there are performances
026tomorrow night at 7:30 and then two performances on Saturday. Uh so we encourage everybody to come out uh to support the high school musical. Uh I will be going tomorrow night. Looking forward to it. Uh so again I know our students and our directors uh the so many volunteers uh that put in a tremendous amount of time and effort uh into our musical productions are u are super excited to be able to perform. uh for everybody. So, and as I mentioned earlier, at our next board meeting, uh we're actually going to start in the high school auditorium, uh if you remember last year, we filled this room with parents. Uh and after a short presentation, they all went to the auditorium for a music uh award ceremony. Uh so, we said, let's make it a
027lot easier on everybody. We'll start in the auditorium uh to recognize all of our students um our our teachers and and and community support of our music program. So, there'll be an opening uh in in the TA and then the board will make our way back down here so they can continue to do their award ceremony. And I believe that's March 26th, right? Is that our next meeting on the 26th? Um so again, that will be an opportunity to recognize our music department, uh K12 across the district. So that's what I have for tonight's recognition. Uh and we just have one formal presentation tonight. Uh so I'll turn it over to Bobby Esco uh who will be provide an update on our budget development process. There we go. Hello. Hello. There we go. All right.
028Um, forgive my appearance. I am under the weather, not feeling so good. So, that'll probably make this a little quicker tonight, too. So, I'm sure most of you will be pleased with that. And we'll get really uh into the weeds a little bit further next week at our final workshop. Um, so we'll just talk briefly tonight about the board decision points that we we discussed last Thursday at the workshop, progress over the last few days that we've made with reducing the gap and open items and important dates. So um this is our budget development summary calendar. We are right where that red line um is depicted basically right in the middle of March. Um statutory tax levy limit uh as you know this is 3.85 85% or $3.9 million. The executive um budget proposal um
029this is really what has been reflected so far. You're well aware of the fact that the governor for building aid had proposed 4.2 million and we're in the process of final cost reports or actual I should say projects that we will be filing final cost reports for. Um, so that will revise the building aid upward to $6 million. So year-over-year we're $1.9 million increase or 5%. Um, recently the um houses have released their one house uh budgets. So the assembly and the senate um I think it was the beginning of this week had released their proposals. Um so NISPA um puts out an analysis as well as all the school groups, but NISPA was first at the table this year. And these are the big um items for the the 26 27 budget. Uh foundation
030aid, as we know, this is our major uh categorical school aid um that we rely on. Um so really it's we're 1% do minimum increase. all of the uh well not all of the schools but over half of the schools now statewide are now in that same position do minimum. The assembly had basically proposed to fully fund the current formula which it is um with some tweaks to some factors in the formula but minimum 2% increase. Senate same thing tweaks to some factors and variables within the formula but they're they're essentially proposing exactly what the assembly did. Um don't anticipate time budget, but with these items in here and with the state being in a better fiscal condition than their outyear projections had shown, um I fully expect we'll get one more percent. Uh we
031have not built it in to our gap slide or the budget yet. Um just waiting for things to crystallize a little bit more. So that you know, just wanted to make you aware. UPK, um that is something that was a major initiative. um you know of the mayor of New York City. Um so Governor Hokll um I think is kind of answering that call and essentially what she had proposed as part of her executive proposal based on the assembly and one house proposals. Um it seems like that is a pretty done deal. Um the only concerning thing will be uh the mandate that comes along with it in 2829. So, you know, just putting together a structure of a program um where if we have a family who requests it, you know, the mandate will
032be we must provide it. So, just thinking proactively in terms of structure and how to get ahead of that so that we're not surprised at any point in time. So, not not really too um impactful for the immediate term for 2627. Um but it will be impactful in the fact that the funding is increased to $10,000, but the mandate we do have a little bit of um of time to plan for zero mission buses. Um as you can see, the executive proposed no changes. Um I think I mentioned a little bit of uh discussions based on what my involvement was. advocacy day down in Albany meeting with legislators and it was kind of just said, you know, I think we all understand where we're at. Um there's still support for it, but it'll be something
033that we just address at the 11th hour to make it either go away or something else. So, they keep um you know, you'll see the assembly, they ma they proposed $100 million to, you know, support infrastructure. Great. um Senate, you know, they did the same thing essentially. Um Niscus, I they put out another proposal um because that's what the school groups do. And Niscus, I they made a comment underneath each of the proposals based on, you know, their advocacy over the years. And it was actually one of the most lukewarm um responses that I've seen um just because right now given all of the facts that we've voiced to legislators um I'm not sure if they have ears, you know, because we have really been very clear, laid out all of the challenges and we
034just keep seeing band-aid proposal after band-aid proposal. um you know and I'm just hopeful that at some point in time if they are serious about this initiative they'll put together a serious proposal. So that's just my two cents about it. But right now we just continue to to move along in the timeline towards the mandate um implementation date. And then prior year claims this is another bigger one advocacy piece. Right now, as you can see, under the assembly one house proposal, um there is a queue of $326 million that the state owes to school district for valid state aid claims. For that queue to be paid down, the legislature basically has to in a new annual budget make an appropriation. They haven't made an appropriation since 2021. So getting the appropriation is the first step
035in hopefully getting school districts who are in this queue, which if they actually funded it and paid it down, it would take 21 years to get to the back of the line. So we actually have outstanding state aid claims that would be part of this 326 million that go till I think it was like 2012 to 2016 time frame. But for us, it's about $245,000. Like that is essentially % foundation aid increase. So when I think about things like that, it's frustrating. Skenctity city schools, I think they have a priority claim of over $13 million. So this is impactful. It's not it's not just a small nothing. Um so the Senate, they proposed to restore $18 million in funding. Um and again, it it notes that it was first eliminated in the 2122 state budget.
036So, I don't anticipate that um this will make its way into the budget, but it's just something that we continue to bring back to them because as the years go on, this queue just continues to grow in number. So, just um as you're all well aware, the uh history of our assigned fund balance and reserves. So, we take a look back to what we've done the last few years. And the plan right now um is to go with 6.5 million of assigned fund balance. And again, that's what's in our fund balance and reserve plan. If at the end of the day we decide we'll appropriate more fund balance and assign it to balance the budget, then we'll revise the fund balance and reserve plan to make sure that those two jive. Um, as you can
037see, we have 3.5 million coming from our capital reserve to help fund the May 25 legacy project and then that will round out that capital contribution. So, the board decision points that we talked about last time. Um, as we know, the tax levy is set. So, pretty much we're down to only those top two, which is manage our program and staffing and use fund balance and reserves. Before we get to the fund balance and reserves, we have some strategies that we're going to take a look at which is scrutinize existing budget allocations for targeted reductions. Um, and then analyze the staffing levels for potential areas of reduction. And then lastly will be appropriate fund balance to close the gap. So this I know you've seen before. This is um a graph that shows our budget
038verse actual. Um, and I'll just give a little quick explanation. So, the total budget is represented by the blue and the green. What the blue bar represents is nonfund balance revenue. So, basically all of our revenue in the budget that we don't take from fund balance. The green is the fund balance that we use to balance the budget. The black line is our actual revenue and the red line is our actual expenditure. So, we've talked about, you know, the the curve for the budget growth that you're starting to see and the fact that it's kind of getting into that exponential growth trend. Um, which is what I totally want to avoid. um you know when you're putting a budget together because as we know a budget number is one thing but if we're also trying
039to close the gap between how much we budget and how much we spend we need to be really cognizant of the budget growth but also how much revenue that we can actually count on that is not fund balance. So this is um actual results from 24 or from uh excuse me 2012 1213 through 2425 with projected results for 2526. So right now I am projecting a slight deficit mainly because we are bringing in $4 million from the general fund to the capital fund which is a planned deficit. So it's one of those situations. um where when we have the black line above the red line, we finished the year with a surplus. You can see in 201819 and 2021, we also injected money locally to the capital project for the great outdoors and the first
040legacy project, the December 20 legacy project. So again, those were planned deficits as well. So when we look at 2627 built in here, again, concern about the actual growth in the bar because that represents budget growth. Um, but with $3.5 million also going to the capital fund to help pay for the May 25 legacy project, we're planning again a slight deficit. Um hopefully it won't come out like that but that will be the plan is it it's not going to be alarming if in this year 25 26 and next year 26 27 we actually spend more than we receive in revenue and it is specifically because of the capital fund contribution. So budget verse actual um history here. This is representative of total budget. The green is our budget and then the blue is the
041actual. And you'll see admittedly the numbers are cut off just because they're in the hundreds of millions. But I think what we've been focused on more recently is the percent of budget spent which is that bottom bottom uh line right there. So last couple years 22 23 23 24 we've been in that 92 to 91% range. Talked about trying to get that back up. So 2425 ticked up a little bit more than 92%. Um then again 2526 and this is interesting because you see a percent increase to 93. So that's great. we're spending more of the budget, but I had just mentioned we're still planning on a deficit. So, and this is my point of why it is so important to pay attention to your revenues because revenues being greater than expenses is what helps
042to grow fund balance. But it doesn't matter if we spend 80% of the budget. if we bring in less revenue, no matter what, we're going to end up in a situation where we have an operating deficit and and we're at a a loss. So that from my perspective is a bit concerning when we're in the middle of issuing um debt to help pay for our capital projects because if we don't have um good credit ratings, which you know deficits and operational losses um if they're not planned can count against you when you're doing your credit rating calls with S&P. Um and if they downgrade us, we run the risk of having higher interest rates on the debt that we owe. And then what will happen then a greater portion of our budget which we know
043is basically finite in terms of resource um will then have to be devoted to interest expense rather than to other areas where it will directly impact the student. So that's just one of those things that I get concerned about when I look at that and all the moving pieces in putting together a budget. So last year um we had talked about you know targeted reductions in the budget and this is one of the areas we focused on last year. So um this is Bosey's budget. The green again is budget. The blue is the actual. So you can see from 2223 through 2425 pretty izable gap that we kind of just let continue to grow. Um I expressed some concern over it last year. We took a look. There was definitely room to take some out.
044So that's what we did. Um this year we're projecting to have only about $875,000 left uh between the budget to actual, which is a major improvement. you know, looking at the spend of our Bosey's budget, we would be up like 10% um year-over-year. A large part of that, again, we just lowered the budget that we're carrying year-over-year. We would actually be spending more this year. It's just we spent a greater portion of the budget that we we planned. So this is the gap analysis that we reviewed last week with some of the planned uh reductions and additions. Um so we we were at 5.7 last week with some of the shifts and then um we we talked over the last week about targeted reductions in the budget. So, I mentioned last week when I was
045going through each of the detail lines um that 65,000 needed to come out of athletics because that was part of a uniform replacement cycle. So, we were going to work to phase that in a little bit more. Um TRS TRS every year comes out with a range. We carried the high end of that range. Um TRS had put out communication TRS's teacher retirement system. Sorry about that. So they put out communication that um it would actually be the lower end of the range. So we modified our estimate to reflect the lower end of that range. That saved us about 295,000. Um I know most of you are aware of the fact that because of some uncertainty that happens annually with federal grants, um we carry a portion of federal grant um supported salaries in the
046general fund. so that if the federal grant were to go away, the position wouldn't be affected. We would have the appropriation to handle it and keep paying. Um, but what happens then is we also include um the salary amount in the benefit calculation. So, that was an area where I thought, hey, we're paying it once, let's not double count it. So, let's take out 137,000. And then on the position slide that um we went over and will see again tonight um everything on the right hand side um for the retirements and resignations we are assuming is replaced. So that really is a representation of the breakage from taking all of those people off and putting all brand new people on. So right now we are looking at a $4.65 65 million uh budget gap. So
047gap reduction strategies, we talked about the fact that we'll scrutinize existing budget allocations uh talk about it um next week and final discussion at the 26th. Again, we're continuing to analyze staffing levels uh for potential reductions. This is something that we've been meeting today. We'll be meeting tomorrow about beginning of next week. Um and then ultimately after we do that, we'll determine much in fund balance um we'll recommend to appropriate. So just summary we started at 5.3 last week we had added um eight positions removed three and then we've come back to um to look at some budget surplus reductions. So right now we're at 4.6 million. And then again, we'll continue to analyze. And this is particularly important because um when you look at the the budget, the pie chart of our budget makeup,
048it's pretty clear to see that a majority of this pie is your salaries and benefits. So, we have our non-instructional, instructional, and benefits. It makes up 73.6% of our budget. If I were to include debt service and inter fund transfer, we're now up over 83%. Um, then I can talk about tuition. Tuition is pretty much set in stone because that's the cost for for uh some of our outside placements and some students we might have placed in other school districts for the services um and the programs that those districts offer. So it's just there isn't too many places to look when we analyze the budget for potential areas of reduction. Potential areas of reduction exist wholly in the in in these um these pieces of the pie. So positions under review. Um this is something
049that we talked about uh last week and we'll continue to talk about. haven't really made any movement based on what you saw last time, but what I can tell you is the items under budget additions that are notated in green have been included on the GAP slide in terms of expected additions. Um, and really this is just to to benefit um the students in the program that they're in and hopefully be able to deliver that in a um in a more impactful way. Um and then on the right hand side for the retirements and resignations like I had mentioned that breakage amount on the previous slide includes all of these positions. So it assumes all the positions are replaced. Right now we know that the two sixth grade sections will shift to kindergarten. Um, and
050the the nonhighlighted positions on the right hand side, aside from the sixth grade, all need to be replaced. The ones that are in yellow right now are the ones that we're continuing to have discussions about. You know, I talk about analyze staffing levels for potential areas of reduction. That is kind of what we're looking at right now. Um, you know, and then there's some other ads that on the left hand side that aren't highlighted. Um, I know chemistry has been a big ask at the high school for the last few years. Um, we had decreased um a position couple years ago, couldn't fill it, ended up just we'll abolish the position. Um, we're in we're in the state now where our chemistry teachers have been, you know, doing six classes for years and years and
051years in a row. So, that's one of those things where are they are they burnt out? You know, can we use use them in a different way? So, that's something again part of the conversations we're continuing to have. Um, you know, and it's not like one of the things where it's it's proposed and we just ignore it completely. when these things come up here and are pushed forward to administration, we're we're really trying to find a way to accomplish everything that comes to us, um it's just a matter of priority at that point. Natalya, did you have a question? I can wait until the end, but I'm also just um it's a little jarring to see three special ed teachers highlighted all in one building. Um are you able to see more about that or
052we can wait until next time? Um, I can say the likelihood of any of them going is small. They they just happen to be retirements all from the same building in the same year. So those are three special ed retirements that are all happening from the high school in one year. So I don't I don't know if that's what's drawing that we're losing three special ed teachers all at one time. And then the the conversation that we're having is on the right hand side, what's our ability uh to be able to replace some of those positions. Thank you. Sure. All right. So again, um looking at the strategies, it's primarily going to be one and two. Right now we have to continue to look at our budget allocations. Bosey's budget has not come out yet.
053um that will be released on Monday. I believe the Bosey's board approved the budget this week. Um so wish we will open up the FSR. Basically that's the system where we can request all of our services for next year. So once that happens I'll have a better idea. Can we pull back on any Boseies areas? Um but again we continue to go through some of these areas of the budget and we'll talk more um not only at the workshop next week but in finance committee as well on Monday. And then um again we have to continue to analyze the staffing levels um to capture positions when and where we can. Um what we don't want to do is impact negatively uh the student experience or you know the staff who are here by having to
054pick up additional or leaving everybody shortchanged. Um it's just really important that we give it deliberate um thought and consideration. And then you know the last piece will be um to look at fund balance. So this is again similar slide that you saw before. It's part of what we do annually. Um we there is an appropriated fund balance every single year as far back as I can see. Um it's just a matter of what does the level look like? So right now again this is what it our fund balance and reserve plan calls for. This is this the scenario that the gap slide is built off of, assuming we only have 6.5 million of assigned fund balance. If we were to say, oh, we have to do everything right now as as it stands in
055the budget, and we had to lop on this additional amount of fund balance, then we'd have to throw on 4.6 million. and our 7-year average of appropriated fund balance when we don't include any transfer to capital ends up being about $7.2 million. So again, if we went with 11.1 um yes, less than last year, but last year we actually had 4 million of that 12 was for a capital project. This year's capital project portion is down below in the orange. So as much movement as we can possibly make in terms of the gap reduction strategies through the target areas of the budget and um staffing levels that those are no doubt the the first two choices and then you know the the fund balance appropriation would be the last one. So final step would be
056to bring back to the board uh the the recommendation after going through items one and two um how much fund balance should we appropriate to close that gap. So we do have some open items state aid we still um have yet to receive don't anticipate receiving anything but like I said earlier once things start to crystallize in terms of where we feel the state will land um you know the in Easter holidays are going to throw a wrench into things just because of the timing. So, they're not even going to be in session, I think, like the whole week of spring break. Um, the budget's due April 1st. So, I just it's it's not going to happen. I'm hoping that the state has a final budget by the time you're supposed to adopt the budget.
057Um but if not, I think we were in this situation a couple years ago where we had to just, you know, work together to find um an un unscheduled date to all meet again um to make a budget decision. Um but I'm hoping that even with knowing that the state will be late, we'll be able to make enough progress where we feel comfortable. We can say, "Hey, we're good. More than comfortable with you adopting a budget." and uh that will be what we put to the voters. So like I said Monday um the Bosei service requests opened and we are continuing to have the conversations about the staffing needs and programs. Uh we'll meet next Thursday again in two weeks at a board meeting and then these are just other important dates leading up to
058the May 19th budget vote. Any questions Ashley then Matt? Um, along the same line of Natalyia's question, just the I know that those are three retirements, but they were highlighted in the yellow. So, I don't I guess my question is I don't think our population of students with IEPs is decreasing by any drastic number. Are there any discussions about shifting teachers from other buildings if I guess that's my because to just take away three special education teachers, it's just under review. So just No, no, I know I I just get nervous. So yes, so working with Stacy Molton who oversees the entire program and then the principles and possibility needs at every grade level and um certification area supports. Again, all we highlight is the retirements or the open positions that currently exist and then
059those have already decisions have been made on and then the yellow the ones we still have to just a final finaliz. Nervous Nelly, I apologize. Yep. All right, Matt and then Tony. Uh, the revenue numbers you the revenue numbers you showed are assuming a 1% increase in state aid, correct? Yeah. Yeah. So, if we do end up with a 2% increase in state aid when the budget comes out in July or whatever, ju does that reduce the $4 million deficit? And if so, by how much? Yep. So 1% will be about $250,000. Yeah. Yep. That's it. Um, I also I I'm also perpetually confused by the difference between uh positions on the right that are white and positions on the right that are yellow and and and how they get that way. So I I
060share your uh sort of aa about like seeing those yellow ones and thinking why why are they in that category and not in the sort of more concrete uh uh bedrock white category. But um I wanted to ask you Bobby the the 7 and a half million or 7.4 million um average fund balance appropriation over the period the recent years that you said minus years when we've added to it for for capital reasons. Is there any correlation between that number that and and sustainability of that level of fund balance uh appropriation uh to to close budget gaps? Like do you know what I mean? or or do I like is that a is that a number that's sustainable or are I I I'm trying to get a sense for where how much is too much
061over a period of time to keep um to keep adding from from the fund balance to uh to close the gap because the last few years we've not only we've started with a certain number and we've actually added at the end to to you know to close that gap and that's a great point because I That is where um the sustainability question comes in. Um if we're increasing a budget at a rate that might not otherwise be able to be supported by actual real revenue, you know, not your fund balance. Um and this is why I like to look at our budget to actual. Um, if we continue down this path where we continue to increase the amount we're assigning, there's no doubt at some point in time we will have a loss, an operating
062loss. Um, and then the following budget year will be that much more difficult because when that happens, we'll tap into the amount that we've assigned. You know, we've talked about the fact that we assigned fund balance, but because of our actual performance, we're not actually using it. The more the budget to grow and the more we say, "Ah, we'll throw a fund balance to it, um, we're getting ourselves into a greater likelihood of actually needing the fund balance because the the gap between the growth of the budget and how much we can actually get in revenue um will just continue to to grow at that pace. Um, so that's one of the things where if we can curb it and we can curb we're appropriating. Um, that puts us more in line with where we've
063been historically and that especially with how I see where we're going at the state level. You know, we're we're captive taxes and we're pretty much counting on 1% for fund uh foundation aid year-over-year. Um so when we can get back to the traditional levels of how much we've assigned um slow the budget growth that will set us up to be able to sustain into the future. Um you know and with declining enrollment naturally we'll never be able to make changes where we're kind of retrofitting staff to equal the decline in enrollment. But when we have retirements and resignations and we don't have to cut positions and we could potentially realize a savings through just making a decision to say, "Hey, we're not going to post it." That is so much easier than deciding, hey, let's
064let the budget grow. We have a need. Um, we'll plug the gap with fund balance, but I know and what I communicate to you all is that we're not actually getting real money though back on what we've just spent. We're supporting it with local fund balance dollars. Um, and for me, that's that's the biggest challenge. Where do we get the new revenue to support the things that we know we need to do for our students and staff on an annual basis? And it's it's getting harder. harder every year. Thanks. Can I ask a follow? You can ask. All right. Um, so we haven't really been spending any of our fund balance in reality. Yep. So that when we don't spend the fund balance even though we've budgeted it, it's it stays in sort of un
065unassigned fund balance. Correct. Does it go somewhere else? Exactly. It stays an unassigned fund balance, but how much we put towards the following year budget, there's there will always be an assigned amount, always be an unassigned amount. So in reality, our unassigned fund balance has been growing year um to a point. So we took $7.5 million of unassigned fund balance and sent it to the capital project. So when we have situations like that, which is exactly, hey, you finished with a surplus, you know, you have capital projects that are going on, like we're a quarter of a billion dollars in capital improvement projects. Yeah. Let's let's put the local dollar, the fund balance we've accumulated to the capital project, and that will um, you know, make it so that we don't need to increase taxes
066to do a capital improvement project. So, the way we're getting our unassigned fund balance closer to the target is by using it to pay for capital campaign dollars instead of asking for a bond. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a strategy lots of school districts use. Um especially, you know, we talk about the tax cap and the local share. Um, we want to give the taxpayers in the community a really consistent um, local share that's not fluctuating year to year. Um, and by looking at a project the way that we do, making sure, hey, we've had a few good years. um we can take what we've made, shift it to the capital project. You know, that that's only going to be more beneficial in the future and it alleviates the need um to issue a bond
067to a greater amount which would mean that much more interest. You know what what I'd never like to do is have like I mentioned before a growing portion of the budget dedicated to debt which is just principle and interest. There's really aside from the beautiful improvements that the you know, there's no impact in front of them. So, it's just a little bit a little bit different. Um, yeah. Questions or comments from other board members, from our student members? All right. Thank you, Bobby. Now we turn to the consent agenda. For those in attendance or watching, a consent agenda is a commonly used vehicle provided for by our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure that allows a board to vote on a large number of items in a single motion. Typically, these are business items associated with
068the everyday running of the schools and their inclusion in the agenda is the result of a great deal of prior work and care by the professionals of the district. There are from time to time business items that by law cannot be included in a consent agenda and when this happens, we pull those out and vote on them separately. Consent agenda items are known to trustees and the public several days ahead of the business meeting on which they are considered so that board members have the chance to ask questions of discovery and do any advanced factf finding that is part of their due diligence process. Beth, do we have any modifications to tonight's consent agenda? We do not. So I move to uh approve tonight's consent agenda items G and I in their entirety. Can I
069get a second? Angie, any discussion? Okay, all in favor? All right, that's unanimous. I just have a few recognitions. Uh so, first off, um the board of education just approved the appointment of Mr. Michael Lopez uh to become our new Maple Avenue Middle School principal. Uh so, welcome uh Mike to Saratoga Springs. So, Mr. Lopez uh comes to us after serving as a social studies teacher. He started his education career down in Queens and also taught for the Albany city schools before u becoming assistant principal uh at Albany and then most recently uh currently serving as assistant principal in the Warly Junior Senior High School. Uh so we're super excited to welcome uh Mr. Lopez, who will begin uh at Maple Avenue on Monday, April 13th. So, right when we come back from our spring
070break uh at Maple A. And so, uh Mike, I know he's really excited uh to work closely with our students, all of our staff, and our families. So, wanted to give him his first official Saratoga swag. his administrative team got him some swag to kind of kick off uh his time uh here joining with us in Saratoga. I also have a retirement uh announcement. Um Kevin uh Rubma who's the head custodian uh at Carolina Street Elementary School. Uh Kevin will be retiring effective March 28th. Uh so he served the district since 2010. So just want to congratulate uh congratulate Kevin on his upcoming um retirement and thank him for all of his years of service uh serving as a head custodian for the school district. This brings us to our second public comment period. Are
071there any members of the public who wish to address the board? All right, seeing no one, that brings us to agenda planning. Do any board members have agenda planning items? Okay, then we're on to board member comments. Are there any comments from board members, including our student members? Matt, um I thought the the children um speeches talking about why the importance of music was really important and and hitting the hit the nose on hit the what thing on the nose the hammer. I don't know something on the nose. Any case, they were very they were very eloquent. And so, uh I would I would I'd ask that those comments be included somewhere in our minutes. Uh, and if they need to be under board comments, I I would put them under my board comments. They
072were great. Any other comments? Oh, sorry, Tony. Um I just want to recognize that uh on this night two weeks ago um our last board meeting uh the district lost a beloved 30 plus year veteran teacher uh Kathy Fogerty who spent decades in the middle school and elementary schools who was a staunch advocate for children and who was an always supportive colleague and friend passed away after a long illness. Uh Kathy was very important to so many in the district family and particularly to our colleague here at the table, her daughter Beth. Beth, I know I speak for everyone here at the table when I again express our sincere condolences at your loss. Thank you. Are there any other board member comments? All right. Our next meetings will be on March 19th at 6:30m. We
073will have a workshop at the administration building to continue our discussions of the budget. And then our next business meeting will be on March 26th. That's at 7 p.m. here at the high school. Although the meeting will be held here in this room. Um we will begin that meeting in the auditorium to honor our student musicians um and to I guess to listen to them play and then we will move back here to the teaching auditorium. This will be our final discussion of the budget before we as the board vote on it um to present it to the public. Um and that vote will be on 416. Could I please get a motion to adjurnn Ashley? And a second from Lee. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you so much.