001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Do you want coffee? >> Sure. Would you like a cappuccino or a latte? >> Here. >> Katie Anderson Hall? >> Here. >> Shelly Rubino Yaya? >> Here. >> Shakina Air Searcy? >> Here. >> Carol Felder? >> Here. >> Michael Meyer? >> Here. >> Jeff Riazi? >> Here. >> Timothy Wells? >> Here. >> Okay. Pledge of allegiance, please. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> [clears throat] >> Dr. Warback, our mission and vision statement. >> Sure. Mission: We provide equitable, engaging, inspiring, and holistic experiences that support success and empowerment for students, families, and the community in a diverse and changing world. The vision statement: We are
002a beacon of educational excellence where every individual is inspired and able to achieve their fullest potential. >> Okay, thank you. Um as we did last time, um the motion to recess into executive session discuss um district financial topics. Mr. Molloy, >> Second. >> by Mr. Wells. Any questions? All those in favor? >> Aye. >> Mhm. >> Okay. Motion to reconvene back to open session. >> So moved. >> I'll second. >> Motion seconded by Dr. Foss. Any questions? All those in favor? >> Aye. >> Okay. All right. So, this meeting is called for the purpose of school budget information and board action items. Okay. Public recognition. So, now would be the time if anybody would like to address the board. Okay. Dr. Rohrbach and Mr. Steiger, it's your turn. Gavel over to you. >> [clears throat]
003>> Okay. Here we go. So, by now much of what we're going to say is going to sound repetitive. If it does sound repetitive to you, that's great. That means we're doing our job. So, tonight we're going to spend some time talking about student needs and proposing a budget that is fiscally responsible to our community, but also keeps the student needs as our priority. So, let's do 30-second, maybe 60-second quick recap. Here are our demographics. We have 2,463 students, 613 students with disabilities, 69 ELLs, we have 1,027 students with a low socioeconomic bracket, and 445 staff. Half of that is certificated staff. As I've mentioned every single time, when you are doing a school district budget, there are budget drivers that are quite honestly out of our control. Uh even before we begin, we know
004that there are going to be contractual salaries. We know there's going to be benefits and health insurance, the transportation, and special education. And also knowing that it is our responsibility to give a free and public and excellent education to all who are in Solvay in the least restrictive environment. So, we also talked about in the past three or four times the budget realities that the number fluctuates of how many unfunded or partially funded mandates there are for school district school districts, and it sometimes it's over 200. And sometimes the funding that we receive doesn't even provide much help at all. As we're looking at our budget, every single question that we ask when we're doing this process is is this aligned to our blueprint for excellence? And is this going to propel us forward with
005New York Inspires so that we have a Solvay portrait of a graduate and students who are leaving here ready to take on the next era of their life with confidence and a bucket full of success criteria so that they can be successful no matter what it is they choose to do. We also talked about last week that declining enrollment does not translate into proportional budget reductions because the intensity and complexity of student needs and the resources required to meet them have increased. So, as a healthy reminder, you can see that our budget enrollment is going down. >> No time. >> Okay, thank you. You can see that our budget enrollment's going down and there is quite an array of services that we provide our students and also not all of them have IEPs, but you
006can see some of them are academic needs and services and some of them are for mental health and counseling and therapeutic settings. Also, I just want to remind everybody because I am very proud of this. We have grown so much in the past 5 years and have done such a better job at early diagnosis of specifically literacy issues and students with disabilities and 5 years ago, we had one reading specialist and now we have five. So, when you knew that when you know better, you need to do better and that's what we are in pursuit of. So, what are we investing in? We are proposing tonight something different. Every single year in Saugerties Central School District, when the budget presentation comes up, it is generally a plethora of cuts of staff and a plethora of
007student programs that impacts our students Sawyer experience. What we are going to propose tonight after a lot of thoughtful dialogue and consideration and crunching numbers is that we maintain all of the student programs and services and they are our first priority. We are going to prioritize Socrates, our blueprint for excellence as it relates to New York Inspires, and we want to promote our long-term stability. So, it as an administrative team and as a Board of Education, some of the dialogue that's been happening recently and even tonight is it's not just about this year. It's about where are we going to be in 5 years? And yes, this year is going to be extremely tight, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel where we can maximize a lot of attrition of
008upcoming retirements. So, this budget maintains all student opportunities. So, this means all academic programs and course offerings, special education services and sports, all athletics and modified sports. As we talked about last time, just 1 short week ago, we want our junior high students involved in athletics and the arts. That's where they need to be. Extracurricular activities and clubs, arts and music programs, field trips, social worker and psychologist in all buildings, which we know from data of SASSYs and threat assessments, they are needed. Transportation including late runs, which is really important because this is a working community and many of our parents work. So, to come and pick up their students after a sports event or an extracurricular event, it's difficult and challenging for families. >> Thank you, Dr. Orbach. So, I'm just going to go
009through some of our the numbers we went through revenues, expenditures. Starting off with the tax cap calculation. We've presented this three times now. So, it starts what it starts with is last year's tax levy. It's a complicated formula as you can see up there. It involves a couple of different things. Tax base growth, which is a number provided by New York State, which is the amount of growth that has happened in our community. It includes pilot payment in lieu of taxes, capital levy, the 2% cap. So, that is either we're able to increase that either the lower of 2% or inflation. This year inflation came in at 2.63% but we are capped at 2%. So, you can see there we capped that at 2% and then at the very end of that it comes out
010to $48,844.63, which is an increase about 1.5 million. So, our tax levy is going up by that amount. It'll be raised to 48 48,4 48,844,683. So, I do want to note that's an increase of the tax levy of 3.15%. Now, I know assessments do come out this time of the year but this doesn't relate to the assessment. We cannot the tax levy will be set at this amount. Assessments will not change this figure. This is the most we can raise by taxes with a simple majority plus one vote. Um so again, when assessments come out, it doesn't affect this number. It will stay at this 48,844. Any questions? >> So if I hear you correctly, Okay, so they're two separate things because right now in our community most have received their tax assessments and possible
011going up by 9%. Two separate things from the tax levy. How are they separate? >> They are separate because tax levy is set by that formula we saw that New York State gives as school districts to calculate the levy. So we are capped at that figure. We can't increase the levy any more than that. Um so assessments are used when we tax when we when the tax rates are calculated. So we have three towns in our district. We have town of Saugerties, we have town of Ulster, and we have town of Woodstock. Um 90% is about the town here, 6% is about Woodstock, and 4% for Kingston. Um so each one of them um has their own assessments and own values. So they go in So we So when the tax rates are calculated, the
012assessments for every town is added together to get a a calculation for total assessed values of homes in this school district. And then um it's calculated by which You get the calculation, we calculate each town their percentage of the total assessed values in this district to get the tax rate. So any increase in assessment doesn't correlate to this tax levy increase. It might be a modest increase in your taxes, but it doesn't corre- It doesn't mean your tax bill is increasing 9%. It's a complicated um calculation that yes, the assessment is going up, but the total taxes raised by the school district through the tax levy is not increasing because of um assessments increasing. >> So, I know this is really confusing, and especially people get very emotional too about the assessments going up because
013it's not something that we can necessarily control. And the assessments in this community going up year over year, sometimes double-digit assessment increases, and you know, logically looking at our own homes, which we're not looking to sell, we just it seems like an enormous exorbitant amount of money. Um but the one thing that I looked at over the time here is that you know, from to to last year, 2025, a a home that was assessed at say $380,000 or so in 2017 has now been increased to over $700,000, which is an 85% increase in assessment over 8 years. But on the flip side, the tax rate has actually gone down 39%. So, the assessment's going up, the tax rate's going down, so the actual dollar amount of taxes that a homeowner is going to pay is
014a modest increase. Um probably somewhere less than a thousand dollars over an 8-year period. That's $122 a year over 8 years that your taxes have actually increased. So, it's complicated, but when you boil it down it's a modest increase um at the end of the day, and a $122 increase in my tax over 8 years is a great return on my investment when I'm investing in my kids' education and the education of our community. >> Thank you for that. >> Uh the next slide is just the governor's proposal for state aid. Um so there is still the state budget was due April 1st. It still hasn't been passed. Um this So this slide hasn't changed at all as the governor hasn't adopted a budget yet. Um I just want to highlight quickly that we're seeing
015about a 1% increase overall foundation aid, which is our biggest aid that we receive from the state, um given us the 1% minimum increase next to just over 18 million. Um there has been talk within the state as they negotiate of possibly raising us the the foundation aid 2%, but nothing has been finalized. Um they just passed the fourth budget extender and we don't know when we'll actually have a budget, but we are using what was given to us in the governor's first proposal as we prepare our budget moving forward. So this next slide highlights all of our revenue that we um budgeted for next year. Um so the ones that are highlighted in red there, those are things that we've updated since the last board meeting. So the BOCES refund we increased 14,000 based
016on a 3-year trend of what we've been seeing come in for the BOCES refund. Day school tuition was increased to 200,000. And looking at the Medicaid um revenue, we increased that 15,000, which brings our total revenue up 2.93% over last year, what was budgeted for last year. >> Can you just uh remind me again what day school tuition is? >> Yeah, so that's for schools that have students attend here, whether they're foster care students or they're attending programs here, those types of things. >> From out of district, yes. So, other districts students. >> [clears throat] >> This was just a pie chart just showing for the current school year that we're in 25-26 of the revenues and how it's projected. So, as you can see, most of our budget is non-discretionary things that we don't
017have control over, the tax levy, and state aid make up most of our budget here. Then we're going to look at the preliminary budget, the expenditure side of that. And for next school year, we are proposing a budget at 83 million 758 dollars and 83 million 758,576 dollars. Um things that are driving the budget include we talked about property insurance. Um we've seen a large increase of based on claims in the market recently with property insurance, so that one is up 52%. Um other things driving the budget, so the Board of Education and Central Administration um section, so that includes the Board of Education, that includes our superintendent office, that includes the business office. So, with restoring positions in those offices, also want to note Board of Education isn't paid, so even though they're up
018there, they still need training, they still need materials and supplies, so they're grouped into that section there. Um BOCES services up 15% and transportation costs are as well up 13%. Overall, budget-to-budget increase of 4.86%. So, as we're looking at this in this current school year that we're in, we've had to add 13 and 1/2 FTE um teacher aides or assistants to meet the So, these are new positions we had to add to meet the needs of 504 IEP students. And we've also added assistant superintendent of human resources and instructional leaderships based on restored positions and audit recommendations. So, these are things that were added in this current school year budget that are also going to be in the 26-27 school year. >> So, just going back a second. So, the 13 and 1/2 FTEs. So,
019those were students that either didn't have an IEP at the beginning of the year or they came into our district during the year but now have an IEP that there was no way for us to budget last year. >> Right. >> And so, it's something we had to react to during the year. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> So, those are two great examples. It might be somebody coming into our district or it might have been a change in their uh, student IEP. >> IEP. Okay. >> Yeah. We also really attempt to keep those students in the least restrictive environment as we were talking about. So, sometimes we're attempting to see if they can handle an environment without that support and doing a functional behavioral assessment or maybe uh, some sort of updated We have a
020few students this year who got updated medical diagnoses that require support. So, um, you know, changes in the current student body that we have also indicate the need for the support and we make sure that that is fully documented as well and then bring that into the the CSE meeting or the 504 meeting. Just so you know. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, so looking at this slide, these are things that um, are additions to the new for the budget for 26-27. Um, 12 additional career technical education placements. I also wrote these. Um, and then the So, or out of district students or McKinney-Vento transportation. The capital outlay project we'll talk about a little bit later. That's the annual $100,000 project. Um we're also have classrooms we're adding for learning communities, so teachers and TAs
021for that, which will be from the IDEA grants. Um increasing counselor aid to a junior senior high secondary campus of 0.6 FTE there. >> I just want to jump in here. So, with this >> Take Mike's. Take Mike's Mike for right now. >> Thank you. Okay. So, this is another example of this is a need. Really, we need a full-time FTE counselor. We had one. Uh we had to balance the budget last year. This is a high need. Our mental health needs of our students are prolific and even according to World Health Organization, it's one in seven teenagers from 13 to 19 who suffer from anxiety and depression. Our support staff who we currently have are doing a great job, but they are beyond capacity. Um so, that is that scenario. We also have to
022add due to increased student needs, uh another special education position. And this goes back to the whole enrollment versus not being proportional to student needs. These are our current student needs. Do you want to jump in here? >> So, yeah. >> So, I want to add that um So, I I see you wrote learning communities up there twice, but it's really one as a learning communities classroom and one is our um academic behavior communication classroom. So, one will be at Cahill and one will be at Morse. We have students coming in from preschool that are already in special class settings that continue to meet those special class settings. So, the alternative would be which what we discussed last time, sending them out of district. So, in order to keep them here in our schools and
023to make sure that we we can't start a classroom over the ratio that is listed. Um so, if it's an 812, you cannot have more than eight students in that classroom. If a student joins our school district, we can apply for a variance in terms of age or in terms of class size, but we can only do that after the first day of the school year. We can't plan to overload classrooms that way. So, right now you'll see that the community might say, "Oh, well, you have nine and 10 kids in some of your classrooms this school year." Because we have to apply for variances, so we have to accommodate for those students for next year and the incoming um preschoolers that that need support. So, we restructured a little bit so we can make
024sure that we >> So, Miss Churchill, can you just give a general idea of the difference in cost, perhaps, of like sending a student out of district versus It's because I'm standing. >> So, I think um from my lens, we're looking at students that we have to pay tuition, which may be um you know, if we're just looking at both these tuitions, some of those tuitions from last year to this year went between $6,000 and $10,000 each student for their enrollment there. So, that's upwards of let's say some of those classes, depending on the ratio, $75,000 for the tuition, plus then you have to pay for uh a set by session rate for their occupational therapy, for their speech therapy, um, for whatever other additional therapies they need, which then can add up to just
025on sending them there in terms of tuition and services $100,000 for the student, plus then transportation we have to consider, which as we all know is a huge part of the budget and also makes things very complicated. If we're sending them to a place other than both of these, then transportation is even more expensive. Some of these specialized schools are in Albany, New York, Dutchess County, some of these places. So, we're really trying to consider if we can keep them here, or even if we can just keep them here. Like some of these munchkins are kindergarteners and first graders and why can't we have them, right? Like we could do our best to keep them here as long as we have them, then um, if they do need to go somewhere else in the long
026term, then so be it, but we do our best to keep them here. >> So, the answer I heard was if I'm able to keep one of those students here as opposed to sending them out, my savings is upwards of $100,000. >> Right. I would say at a minimum. >> Okay. >> At a minimum. >> Okay. >> And at the end of the day, these are our students. They are part of our community. We want them to feel a home base and connection here to us in Saugerties. So, the next thing to discuss is the reduction of our security down to one and to increase the SROs to two. So, the thinking behind this is that the safest school is a locked school. And currently, when a visitor comes to our school, they need to
027buzz in, and then they come through their first exterior locked door into a vestibule, which is brand new through our capital project. They are not allowed into the building, and the greeter, who is currently our armed security, will look at their driving license, put it through the beta system, make sure that they are clear before they go through the next locked door. Having locked doors is the safest school. What we are proposing is reducing the armed security right now from our four down to one. We would keep the one here at the secondary level. And we would have an SRO for the secondary, and we would have an SRO for the elementary that would travel to all three elementary. Um and that would give us quite a bit of savings. So, for example, an armed
028security is around $47 an hour. Next year with the prevailing wage, it will be more. And to have a door monitor look at the driving driver's license, put it through the beta system, it it would be somewhere between 17 and $18 an hour. >> So, can I ask a question on that? Um so, while I don't um I think sort of this has to do what's best for us. Um there there are some things where, you know, I I look at what other schools doing. Right? So, we're saying we're going to eliminate the armed security in our elementary schools. How many other schools like in Ulster County like have armed security in their elementary schools? >> None. It's a rarity. You know, we're in the business of teaching and learning and children, and we again
029it's the safest school to protect our students and staff is to keep all exterior doors locked. Um, make sure we have a greeter at the door, and make sure all classrooms are locked. >> Okay. >> And then just to clarify, when we contracted with the armed security, we did not have those locked vestibules. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> That is new as part of our capital project. >> Mhm. >> So, again, now when a visitor comes into any building, they have to go through two doors >> Yeah. >> before they even get into the main building. So, it is very secure. >> So, well, it's great to hear that and be, I mean, externals sitting around this table. What is What is our, besides the high school, cuz I would I would imagine, based on
030that, is our armed security would stay here at the front. >> Correct. >> What are the thoughts of our building leadership? >> So, thanks so much for asking. When So, this whole process doesn't happen in a silo with just Mike and I. We have had a lot of difficult conversations with our administrative staff. >> Okay. >> Um, because at the end of the day, no administrator wants to give up anything. This is their staff, these are their people, these are their students, and they want the safest and best environment. Where it merits, um, to be advantageous for the secondary uh school to have the armed security is there's a lot of video footage that needs to be assessed throughout the day, and if you have somebody who is very nimble with finding that video footage
031when there is a discipline issue, it saves our administrators time, and they can very quickly begin to work on restorative practices and discussions with the students and communicating home to the parents, and working with other support team members. It saves time when you have somebody right there who can pull it up. And there's a lot more students here in the secondary than opposed to elementary. And they're older, they're teenagers. The issues are more serious in nature. >> Okay. >> Thank you for that. So, what we're proposing is three door monitors as opposed to those three armed guards. >> And is that just a reallocation of existing resources, or we'd be hiring those three door monitors? >> Good question. So, what we're hoping for is to hire shifts, part-time monitors, and this would provide some room.
032We already have some part-time monitors, so if they wanted to pick up a part-time shift and build a full-time, we would definitely work with our current staff. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So, after going through all that, where that lands is at between anticipated expenditures and revenues, it leaves us with a difference of just under $4.5 million to to balance the budget. So, to do this, things we've done to manage that. So, if you remember last week when we met, it was about um $5.9 million. The week before that was $6.9. So, we've been looking line by line, every budget line we have we've been going through, reevaluating, and seeing the where we could find reductions, whether it's materials and supplies, overtime lines, updating health insurance projections, and reviewing postage services, and ensuring um transportation
033efficiencies, and all curriculum and programs. So, those are things that we had already done. And these are things that we're looking at proposals and eliminations in the 2026-2027 budget. >> Okay, so this is where we're all the difficult conversations as an admin team and central office have been happening and even up until 15 minutes because there's so many things to think about. So, where we can use attrition, meaning when somebody's retiring, not fill that position, we are doing that. So, there is a TA through attrition, we will eliminate that. Attrition through an elementary teacher in Cahill. So, meaning there's a grade level where there is low enrollment, where we can reduce the class. Attrition through of a high school science teacher. And attrition going from a full-time business teacher down to a point four. And
034then uh an ENL TA. Reduction of a UPK nurse because we do not need to do that per SCD. Uh that was a courtesy. And reduction of the four armed security to one in the senior junior high as we already discussed. >> You're only reducing three of them. >> three. >> But reduction of from >> No, no, you're saying reduction of four. So, you're just going from four to one. >> Four to one, sorry. >> Dr. Dr. Dr. Hassen and I were math challenged. >> Dr. Day, before you go on to the non-human capital side of things, it's reassuring to see this can happen through attrition, but my concern is obviously how the teachers and the teachers association feels about this. I know that we try to be communicative with the collective bargaining unit. Have
035they had an opinion on or any opportunity to apply on this at all? >> Sure. So, lots of dialogue has been happening uh with STA, multiple conversations. Uh they're very much aware. They have been living this if they are a veteran teacher, they have been living this dialogue dialogue of there's no money. They're you know, every year is a lot of cuts. So, they are very much aware that the best financial scenario is to really leverage attrition. And remember in the next 2 to 3 years there's going to be more retirements and that will really help our district uh to leverage that as well. Also, we have spoken with CSEA today. Um there's no secrets here. We have completely communicated with every collective bargaining unit. Um And the other thing too is this is what
036we're proposing tonight and our reality is there's still unknowns that we don't know. Going back to one of the first slides that uh Mr. Steiger showed, we still don't know the governor's proposed budget. We don't know how we think we know. And then there's other things too like uh the district's health insurance will which will impact us as well. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. So, the non-human capital side of things that uh we can eliminate is the updated health insurance project projections, uh supplies and materials which we've already said. Uh We've looked at things from all the department budgets, such as technology, and tried to be thoughtful of, "Okay, if this is in the wrong line, can we move it someplace else?" For technology, moving some of $88,000 into the Smart Schools Bond Act was
037a smarter and more thoughtful decision than leaving it in the regular technology line. And, you know, even small changes like currently we're piloting a social studies curriculum for elementary. Uh and simultaneously we have another social studies curriculum that cost us $10,000, but when we pulled our teachers, no one Two people are using it. So, we're not going to use that one. We're going to use the one we're piloting. You look like you want to ask something. >> Yeah. No, go ahead. I'll wait. >> Okay. And then, constantly we're meeting with our transportation manager, uh who does an amazing job analyzing routes, thinking about where can we consolidate routes, and potential transportation opt out. In our future, that is something we now know that we can ask families to opt out, opt in, whichever way we're
038going to go. That's why we did that survey. So, now we know, okay, so many and we have the next slide or what I I think the next slide shows our pie graph of how many families And then I have to jump ahead and then we can't come back. Don't worry about it. There it is. Um so, here you can see that 69.2 [clears throat] primary the primary families contact said no. Uh we rely on the bus and we will continue to do so. So, we have 69% of our families do rely on transportation. So that's good information for us to have. Um so we're going to continue to work with possibilities of that because if we can have a 30% savings in rounds, we're going to continue to pursue those avenues. >> Can I
039just ask a question about that because I know I've asked this as a newbie. My prior understanding before the last meeting was that the district has thought that we need to provide 100% transportation for every student and we've been doing so. >> Right. So if this holds true, >> Mhm. >> we could potentially reduce transportation requirements by let's say just conservatively 20% in the blue the blue square. >> Sure. >> And transportation is an enormous amount of our budget. >> $6 million. >> Right. So I mean I think that's obviously not evaluated dollar to dollar right now, but it's something for us to look at over the summer and then really hone in on. So that's fantastic. And I'm sure >> You look at it right to your question, Jill. You dropped it from 30
040to 20 being conservative. Even if you say that that 20 then represents a 10% savings, right? You can keep going. That's $600,000 out of out of a >> Right. So that was always what we thought as well. That we always thought we had to provide every pupil a seat on the bus. But in this budget dive with my amazing business manager, we found he found out no, that's not true and that's been a huge part of our process together is, you know, just tearing back all the layers and what are the possibilities. So we are going to pursue this. >> All right. Now we have to >> Can we go back to the the savings thing right there? So I appreciate you guys not putting things up there that we don't know fully yet on
041the elimination or reduction. But, isn't there a possibility, the fact that we're 2 years ago we were insured as a district by Utica. Um and then last year, for the last 9 months, we've been self-insured, right? We've done We're going and looking at other insurance carriers. Um so, isn't there a possib- And when we went from Utica to self-insurance, our insurance cost, I think I'm going to conservatively say it 4x went up. So, we could see some savings on that end. Once they do their final analysis and things like that. You know, I don't want a number, but there That's another area that's not up there that is a potential savings, right? >> It's a number we're hopeful for. So, we did go RFP, request for proposal for insurance brokers. Um so, we did have
042the opening for that, and we will have We do have a recommendation um for the board's um consideration for this evening. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Similarly, I I know that you didn't do, you know, speculative revenue or another item that's not listed there as a potential savings, but clearly the carrying cost of that Marion is enormous to the district between insurance coverage and just the operations and maintenance of an aging building. We've actively discussed at this board that we're going to be looking at a potential disposition plan for Mount Marion. Um so, not only theoretically would we see savings on operations and insurance at Mount Marion's, but potentially some sort of um sales price that you've not contemplated currently in the budget. You've neither contemplated any of the related potential savings, nor potential additional
043revenue coming in from a sale, have you? >> That is not included in this budget at all. >> Okay. >> Are we going to think about it? Because we need to be future forward and future thinking. Yes, that would be our duty, but that is not included in this budget at all. >> Just to highlight some of the things we talked about was the overall revenue growth was 2.2 million with an increase of 1.5 million in the tax levy. And then I'll move to what we have in our reserves currently. So this is our current reserve balance for the school district. Employee retirement system reserve, teacher reserves, those are some of our big ones. These are cover employer contributions for employee salaries to the retirement systems. There's also the capital reserve that we've talked about
044that is only for capital project work, workers compensation at 250,000. Unemployment reserve and then the tax certiorari is about 250,000. Again, this reserve is for when people contest their assessments and they're due they're due a court-ordered refund, we use this reserve to pay for that. So as we stand right now, we have about 12 million total in our reserves. Which we would make the recommendation to use some of those reserves as a one-time use to balance the budget. What this would do is it would allow us to preserve all these programs we talked about for our students earlier so that they still have all the same opportunities. So our recommendation would be for the employee employee retirement reserve using 1.1 million. There's a total of 3 million in that reserve which is about 3 years
045of ERS expense. Um recommend in 2 million from the TRS reserve, the teacher retirement reserve, and in our unassigned fund balance to use the remaining amount, 1.3 million. Um we'd be using these reserves strategically again to um maintain our student programs. >> Can you go back to one slide? First, so I have I have um I'm going to round. How do you want me to talk to >> The other slide. >> So, I'm going to round. So, I have 12 million in reserves. Um 5 million of that I can't touch. Right? 4.7 I can't use for anything other than capital, and my tax reserve I can't use. So, what you're asking us to do is I have 12 minus 5, I have 7 to use 4.5 of my 7 available. Okay. >> So, this figure
046here is all of our reserves. It doesn't include our unassigned fund balance. So, these are our reserves. It doesn't have the fund balance, which um the recommendation for that was 1.3 million. >> So, in reality, I have 14.5 million. I have 12 million plus 2.4. >> Yes. >> Okay. Of which I can Okay. So, to give you a better picture. >> And >> Yeah. >> And under state ad law, we're completely allowed to touch those reserves that we're looking to earmark potentially. >> Yes, so this is a normal process for New York State school districts. Um many school districts use reserves to balance their budget to protect student programs. Um we've done this in the past. So, in the most current school year that ended June 30th, 2025, um we didn't we had appropriated to
047use reserves, but we didn't actually have to use those reserves. >> And and how much was that? Was it like a million dollars? >> I have an answer but I'm not going to say it off the top of my head what we appropriated that year. I checked earlier. I know we didn't use it but off the top of my head I can get back to you on that. >> I I thought I had seen it was like two and a half but I do have a question about this middle line. Um So the balance today is 2. 3-ish. We're estimating 2.4 in expenses in 2017. And then we still want to take 2 million out. Is the 2.3 million expect 2.376 expected to be paid as we go and not taken from the fund balance?
048Is that why we show it like that or I'm just getting a little bit confused about why it's higher than the balance. And then we still have a couple million potentially earmarked from it. >> So the 2.3 million, so that comes from so all of our salaries going to break down. So that is all of our teachers out, teach anybody in a instructional salary, teachers, teacher assistants, principals. We have to contribute to to TRS as an employer on the employer's behalf. So that rate next year is 8.24%. So when I take all those salaries and multiply it by the 8.24% we get the two that 2.4 almost 2.4 million there. That's where that calculation comes from. My recommendation would be to use 2.2 million towards that if it's needed. Um >> Oh, I see. Okay.
049So that's in the 80 million dollar budget. >> Yes, so that >> 2.4 of that is for that. You're recommending we take 2 million from the reserve towards the 2.4. >> Correct. >> Gotcha. Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate that. >> Yes, so those those are those expenses those expenses are in the budget. >> I appreciate that. Yeah. >> I see what you're saying. Yes, those are in the budget. So with that middle column >> Here's what we're proposing to cover. Gotcha. >> So we the between the the reserves and the unassigned fund balance, I have 14.4. You're asking us to use 4.4. Um so it still leaves me with 10 million between those two things. >> And that again, just to stress that preserves all student programs, which was something as Dr. Orbach
050and I and the whole administrative team went through that was very important for us was to preserve those programs and opportunities for these first students. >> And again, this is to balance the budget, not necessarily to spend, right? As Michelle has said, this is not encumbered money. This is just to balance the budget and then we did the same thing last year and we have not spent those reserves. >> Correct. >> Right. Okay. >> Um so again, key takeaways, I have Now, I've said this a couple times over the past 2 minutes, this budget preserves all student programs and opportunities. That is our message. That's what's valuable to us as we compare to this. We want our students to have the Sawyer experience and this is offering that to them. Um from a business office
051standpoint, this budget was difficult because expenditures, just like you see at home, is expenditures are rising more than revenue. And in the school district here, it's driven by contractual and mandated costs that are non-discretionary. They're out of our control. As we've seen, state aid growth is very limited and it's not keeping pace with our student needs. Um we talked about staying at the tax cap. That's going to be critical for our long-term stability. As we built this budget, we talked about 5 years down the road, I think, as much as we talked about next year. Because >> So I just want to slow down there for a second. We are not going over the cap. We are not asking our taxpayers to do that, but we're certainly not going to go under because we're now
052The reason why we're are tight is there were years where the district chose to do that and there were years where the district chose not to have a capital project. So now we're trying to recoup from those years. So what we're recommending is go right up to the cap but not over. >> Right. >> So just so we're clear. Um you said it nicer than I would. Right? So those couple of years, many years ago, I think it's almost 10 I would talk to almost 10 years ago now. >> More than that. >> Where we went under the cap for a few years. When you compound those numbers today, that 10 that 14.4 million that I have on reserves would be more like 22 million. >> Right. >> If I hadn't gone under the cap
053back then. >> Right. And if we remember the presentation from Dr. Tims last year, the presentation from Dr. Tims last year, he said somewhere around 8 million is where we lost that. >> 8.6, right? >> 8.6. >> It'd be 734,000 in this next budget we're preparing proposing and it'd be 8.6 million since the tax cap's been introduced. So um again, we wanted to maintain student programs but also keeping in mind being responsible to taxpayers. Looking forward at future stability. So we had talked about the transportation opt-out survey already. Um just ways that we could potentially um make transportation more efficient. >> Can I Can I just mention something about that? So I I think um last week when we talked about this, I had asked a question about um the transportation survey and I and
054I know that one of the things that we need to be um cognizant of is students that move out, students that move in, students that their transportation needs change perhaps. So, it's not like we're saying that this is going to be something that we're going to just do. I think we're going to take our time. We're going to do some research, not necessarily hire like a group of people to do that, but you know, do some research, talk to some neighboring districts that may already do this to find out what their um uh glitches may have been or something like that so that we can really take a look at this. And this is not reflective in our budget this year, any kind of savings. This is something that we can potentially do with doing
055the research and and finding out. Is that right? >> Right, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. And also families and their lives change. So, let's say they opt out and they want to come back in, we will certainly offer that option for them. Uh things happen in families' lives. So, again, this is definitely we can't just be stuck in today. We're really trying to be strategic about the future. So, leveraging all those things about transportation and we do need to take our time because a year ago we thought differently and now we know better. So, we can do the research and do better. >> And I also just want to add on that cuz there was some feedback on the survey. We are not cutting transportating Your student will still have transportation when we
056start in September. >> Thank you. >> So, don't think that you the bus isn't going to show up. This was just for us to gather data to see bus usage. It's not to cut your student's transportation. If your child rides the bus, the bus will be there. >> Thank you. >> Um So, we talked about a lot of these things already during this presentation of things that we're looking at for planning for stability in the future. We just talked about staying at the tax cap being critical moving forward. Um obviously, leveraging retirement attrition will be big for us in the future with many of them coming up over the next few years. Um ongoing reviewing of staffing, class sizes, and program development. Um as we build our team here, we have Mr. Wilder who has
057joined us as assistant superintendent of HR, so he'll help us out reviewing these things and finding efficiencies. Um maximizing revenues as we saw increase in Medicaid and state state aid opportunities, advancing capital projects in the future. We talked about the continued focus on transportation and just a long-term financial stability commitment for our students. >> So, additionally, as it's up there, we are going in the future, it would be really wise, as it's been recommended to us, and we're going to come back to it to look at our elementary schools. As we have uh you know, could somewhere be between 50 STA members retiring in 3 years, there are some opportunities there, and we're certainly going to look at, you know, are we structured in the most efficient and economic way for our elementary programs? And
058then, certainly here at the junior high and high school as well. >> [clears throat] >> Okay, so in this budget we're proposing, it has our annual $100,000 capital outlay project. This is a project um New York State allows us to do up to $100,000. So, we can do a capital project when we submit it to the state, they will pay us our building aid in the following school year. So, building aid is typically paid out over 15 years, but on a capital outlay project under 100,000, New York State will pay it back to us the building aid, which is about 66% for our district. They will pay us in the year following that it's expense and reported to the state on our end of the year financial report. And then looking forward to future capital
059projects, our next potential vote could be December 2027 for a capital project, which would include we've had a lot of talks at our facility meetings about the Riccardi enhancement, putting in a road at Riccardi to bring to ease some of the congestion there and make it safer for dismissal and arrival. Um looking at continued ADA compliance throughout our buildings, bathrooms and locker rooms, potential roof replacements, and digital signage interior and exterior of our buildings. Um so those are things early on that we're starting to consider um that we'll need for capital projects as we look to improve our buildings for our students. >> Question. Um when you say the capital outlay projects, rooftop units on like how many units, how many roofs, what buildings, like what is that looking like? >> So those will be
060So we'll be able to do them One thing about that is we'll be able to do them in-house with our buildings and grounds staff. Um so we'll have to just a crane will have to be done them before or we'll have to rent a crane to lift them onto the rooftop, but we'll be able to have savings by having our own in-house staff to do them. I don't have exactly how many they could do variable on cost and inflation and tariffs. Um so we don't have an exact figure of how many they could do, but our staff could do it. We wouldn't have to go out to bid for it. It's something that they could do in-house relatively quick compared to some of the other ones that we have to go out to bid for.
061We have to hope somebody a company will bid on a project for $100,000. Typically, we try to do our projects over the summer cuz it's least disruptive to students. And that's when a lot of these companies are busy and they're not as interested in what would be considered for them a small work, but building improvements that we're trying to make to our buildings here. >> Is it all built like every like what building are we looking to do this on or is it all buildings? >> Are you talking about the roofs or rooftop >> The rooftop units. >> So, you're not going to get all the rooftop units replaced on all the buildings for $100,000. >> Right. No, so I'm talking about which ones. >> Yeah, so Rich Rich has a plan. So, um not
062to go too far into the facilities report right now, but um 3 years ago there was a what I will refer to as a building condition assessment evaluation performed and it's like an 80-page document that goes through all the building systems, all the mechanical equipment, um finishes, roofs, everything in every single building and it prioritizes them in terms of how long they have for a useful life. So, it's way too much for us to go into here, but it would probably be a good presentation for a future board meeting to really look at what are the high priority items and like where we really have issues cuz there's a lot to it, but for $100,000 you'll get a couple of larger rooftop units and then maybe a couple of smaller ones cuz they're they're expensive.
063Um so, we can we can develop that conversation further at future board meetings, but there's there's a lot to it. It's good that we have that condition assessment before and I did ask Mr. Prince to dust that off and we looked at it and we updated it a couple months ago. So, we can do some more discussion on that at future meetings. >> And just as we wrap up, so looking forward to key dates for budget development, um our budget May 5th will be our budget hearing. May 19th at the junior high is when the budget vote will be. And then May 26th is when budget results are accepted. >> Okay, so in closing, I think it's pretty clear what our ask is and why we're asking for appropriating the 4.5 million dollars. As part
064of our blueprint, we want to provide the best learning experience for our students without taking anything away from them. My goal is by next year that we can start adding things. We need to start adding intramurals. We need to start adding more programming. I'm not even talking about taking away programming. So, that's the goal. So, with this ask, which by the way, we are not alone. Our neighboring districts, we are all in the same boat. This is a very tricky enterprise of balancing a budget in a school district today. So, this is our ask and we hope that you consider and if you have any questions, Mike and I will be happy to answer. Any discussion? >> If we ask them as well, well. >> I make a motion. >> No, that's not our budget.
065>> Um I wanted to thank you guys. Um Dr. Barback and Mr. Saeger for all the effort that you put into this and I know it's a hard ask to ask us to, you know, appropriate, you know, a large percentage of our savings. Um but I think it's been very thoughtful um in the way you've looked at it and the fact that we are maintaining the programming for our students um as best we can. Um I do want to thank you for all the effort that went into it. >> Okay, moving on. >> The next one, then. >> Okay, I got items F1 through five. Um there's a couple of things in here um that need a little more explanation I just think in general. Um so Dr. Warback, um can you explain the first
066one there? So that there this is not them asking us for 7.4 million. But so what what is that? What is that budget? >> Sure, so we have a video. >> You got a video? >> We have a two-minute video. So Ulster BOCES are they are our partners. They provide services that the district cannot provide. Everything from New York State 308 scoring, testing to uh programs for students with very high needs to temporary therapeutic settings. Uh additionally, they support all of us collegially with professional development and monthly meetings. So it is each component district needs to vote on the Ulster BOCES budget, and here is their two-minute video. >> Hello, everybody. My name Donald Shaker, District Superintendent and CEO here at Ulster BOCES. >> I'm Anna Stokes, Assistant Superintendent for Administration and Chief Operations Officer.
067>> Thank you so much. We are here to share a little bit about the Ulster BOCES budget. But before we do that, deep gratitude and thank you to our Ulster County School Board. >> Initial service request period and met with districts to work on projections for next year's service requests. The estimated budget and revenue for 2026-27 is currently $107,795,206. There will be additional changes through the final service request period, which ends on April 29th. Any adjustments will be made for our budget adoption on May 13th. >> Thank you so much again for everything that you do in partnership with us here at Ulster BOCES. A reminder that on April 21st, our countywide budget for the administrative portion will take place. We are grateful for your partnership, your work. Thank you for making Ulster County BOCES
068and everything we do here in the county amazing. >> Thank you. >> Okay. All right, thank you. So, if I read that correctly, if I listened to that video correctly, here's the number. You don't have any say. >> Yes, that's the number. >> That's just the number. >> That's based on our services we provide. >> Okay, so that's that's the number. >> It's a great way to do it, though. >> Um and then we're going to vote on on board members for the annual election. Christian Barringer is going to be our representative for our candidates up there. Um you want to spend a second just on the cuz this is the big one with Marshall and Sterling? >> Sure. >> I mean, 30 seconds on kind of what process how we got there. >> Sure,
069so I'll start. Um so this past year, as we mentioned earlier, the district has been self-insured. We do not want that. We sent out an RFP and part of once the RFP comes in, it needs to be scored through rubric. Uh some of the criteria is years of experience, experience working with school districts, uh references, the ability to answer the questions in the RFP. Um is there anything else you want to say, Mr. Steiger, about this process? >> Uh yes, so it's best practice to go out to bid couple of years um for our vendors just to make sure that um we're being fair, competitive. Um so, this bid was for 3 years with the um option to extend two additional years at our mutual agreement. Um so, this a company that we are recommending,
070they are familiar with school districts and have recommendations from many school districts in our area. And that So, we're hoping that will help with our insurance cost that we presented earlier in our presentation. >> And they're local. >> Okay. Um Yeah, go right ahead. Yeah, you can just do it now. >> I just have a question on point of order um because in section G, it says that we're going into executive session to discuss the selection of the district insurance carrier, but there's an action item in item F to vote on the carrier. >> Um >> So, we're voting in F, but the executive session >> more for them to go through their rubric with us. >> Okay. So, do we want to improvise the exact session to take that out of >> Yeah, we
071can take that we can I can take that out and just do the I'll just do the vote. >> I mean, you just discuss the So, we'll just do the veto. So, can we just make I propose I would wait until >> We don't vote yet though, not until we get to G. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah, when we get to G, I'll change it. Yep. No, it's good good catch though. Very good one. >> Thank you. >> Um Okay. Can I have a motion for items F 1 through 5? >> So moved. >> By Miss Kelder. Second by Miss Bellarosa. Okay. So, any other questions? Um yeah, go right ahead. >> Okay. So, on the um we're we're asking us to approve Marshall and Sterling. You said you went out to RFP. How
072many responses to your RFP did you receive? >> Four. Four. Yep. >> And then just I had a question on the Jane D. Ultra Care fourth agreement. It's from July 1st, 2026 to June 30, 2027. Is this agreement being retroactive? Cuz we're now into April of this year, so is this a retroactive agreement or is it for next year? >> Next year. >> For April of 2026. >> Oh, July 1st, 2026 to >> Well, that makes sense. >> [laughter] >> The year The year goes fast and I'm just kind of looking at >> All right. I was thinking 2025. Thank you. Long day. >> Yeah. Any other questions on any of these items? All right. All those in favor? >> Aye. >> Okay. Um Okay. Motion um to recess into executive session for to discuss
073the selection of our district legal counsel for the '26-'27 school year. By Mr. Williams. >> So >> by Mr. Williams. Any questions? All those in favor? When we do reconvene, normally we don't vote on anything when we do reconvene, we will vote vote on the actual budget resolution. Okay? All those in favor? >> Aye. >> Okay. >> Mhm. >> By Mr. Meyer. >> Second. >> By Mr. Wells. Any questions? All those in favor? >> Aye. >> All right. Budget resolution. So, I'm going to need a motion. Resolved that the Board of Education of the Saugerties Central School District hereby adopts the 2026-2027 budget in the amount of $83,758,576 and authorizes the submission of the property tax report card. >> So moved. >> By Dr. Haas. >> Second by Ms. Vermilya. Any questions? >> I have
074a comment. So, I you know, we're we're putting a lot of faith in the administration and I'm extremely confident this is going to work exactly as planned. I would like this board to mindfully take on a look towards finances at some point in every meeting, whether it be an open session or an executive session. And I'd like us to think about a mechanism to report out on whatever aspect of finances that we are focusing on in our public agenda. I know that's not something that we've routinely done. We have the obviously audit committee, but this I think is something in a more of like a financial management fiscal responsibility perspective. Um because as everyone has indicated, this is just a start to what's going to continue to be an uphill battle. So, it can't be
075an afterthought, and I know that it's not, but I am asking that of my colleagues of the board and of the district as part of my affirmative vote on this budget. >> Mhm. I >> Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Wells. Yeah, absolutely. >> Yeah, I just wanted to kind of piggyback off of that, and I had asked in in the year prior that um you guys broke five years multiple times when we were talking about the budget earlier, um that that we have like a five-year plan that we could like start from the day that the new budget gets approved or it doesn't, you know, wherever it goes, but where we're starting to lay out like what our plan is to to get ourselves back in a better fiscal uh place, better better fiscal footing. Um
076that's something I'd asked for with previous administration, and unfortunately it didn't come to fruition. But that was something that a lot of our our our um stakeholders out out there come up to me and and said, "Hey, like I want to see where we're going. Like how how how Like I understand you need this or or you're asking for to go above the tax cap last year." They're like, "How are we going to get How's this going to get us to where we need to be and make this where like we're not going to worry about this anymore?" So, I do ask for that just to kind of piggyback off of what Michelle was saying. >> Mhm. Thank you, Trustee Freeman. Trustee Wells? >> Yeah, I just um I I think that, you know, cuz
077there is an opportunity in almost every um every meeting, you know, we have the items that we go through around the treasurer report and the appropriations report and all of those things. And I think that that would maybe provide also an opportunity that Michelle is talking about about like how are these things related to the budget that we passed, right? So that we can sort of just sort of draw that through line and make those things make sense. I mean, I know we're using usually a consent agenda around that, but it may be worthwhile for us to sort of pause and say, "Hey, remember when we talked about this? This is what that is." Or this is this new expense that's coming in and this is what's going to affect our budget in 7 months
078from now. So >> It's a good point. And I I also think um I think the one area too that we we kind of got away from a little bit in our agenda um because of the how we restructure our agenda, um but I think to Michelle's point um we could also bring back board discussion items. And have it be, you know, here the board discussion item for this month is this financial topic. And and uh and go in depth on it. And I think it's a great idea all around, so. Any other questions, comments? Okay. Um you know, from my perspective this um I appreciate the work of Dr. Warback and Mr. Steiger. Um I I've seen it up close over the last 2 weeks from where the initial gap started um to where
079we ended tonight. Um I think my comfort level in this budget compared to the last couple of years is I know the things that are in this budget. I know they took extra effort to make sure things were accounted for um that we're not going to have to come back in September and October and add a bunch of stuff. Um so I appreciate that effort. Um Okay. Motion to accept. Mr. Amalia? >> I move to >> We already did. Any comments? >> All in favor. Well, actually, you know what? Ms. Carty, would you do a roll call vote on this, please? >> I think it's a big enough light. >> Okay, the call is in regards to the budget resolution. Christine Villa Rosa. >> Yes. >> Katie Emerson Hall. >> Yes. >> Michelle Romuald. >>
080Yes. >> Evelyn Geary. >> Yes. >> Carol Kelder. >> Yes. >> Michael Meyer. >> Yes. >> Jeff Priazi. >> Yes. >> Mickey Weill. >> Yes. >> Motion has carried. >> Yes. >> Fantastic. Okay. >> Now, everybody go vote for it. >> Yes, May 19th. Um motion to adjourn. >> So moved. >> By Mr. Weill. >> Second of it. >> Mike. >> Fine. >> So noted. >> And our next meeting is on May 5th. >> All those in favor? >> Aye. >> We are adjourned. >> Yes, May 5th. >> It's not our