001Welcome back to February. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Heat. Heat. Listen to me. Thank you very much. Just a little review. We have a few emails regarding billing construction public schools. We received a request and pass it on to superintendent. >> Thank you so much. Welcome everyone. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you for those watching online. We have basically three parts to our meeting tonight. We're going to just celebrate a couple of great achievements going on around the district. We're going to recognize about 14 middle school students for their tremendous achievements. We're really excited about that. And we're going to have our budget presentation number two, which is going to go over our revenues and expenditure plan for the 2026 27. First and foremost, I just want to
002take a moment to celebrate our valadictorian, McKenzie, and our salan who is here tonight with us, Anthony. Congratulations. Kicking off with some of our star athletes, our varsity wrestling team is the League Six Champions. Congratulations to our impressive wrestlers. Also want to congratulate our dance team if we get that slide to move. Um, our dance team won first place in varsity palm and large varsity hip hop at the Long Island Championship. Congratulations to our hard work. Congratulate our varsity cheer. For the first time ever, our varsity cheerleader team competed in the co-ed divisions for both traditional and game day. They had an amazing performance in the traditional division, making it all the way to the semi-finals and placing, this is kind of amazing, 13th in the entire nation for cheerleading. It's unbelievable. Congratulations. I want
003to congratulate our Suffach County fencing championship team. Uh Kieran Coin won second place in the men's saber. eighth grader Katie Carberry won second place in the women's epi. Colin Smith won fourth place in men's foil. Kevin Mulligan won sixth place in men's foil. And we are so proud of our fencing team for their great accomplishments. Great job, fencers. We had a first in in our track and field. The 4x 800 meter relay team of Elizabeth Buttr, Sophia Bethardi, Mariana Duffy, and Christina Duffy broke the indoor school record. set back in 2006 with a new time of 9 minutes 38 seconds 23. Congratulations to our record setting. I want to congratulate our high school student Scotty Piler. We've had a total of eight athletes recognized by News Day this year which is an incredible accomplishment. I
004want to give a shout out to Scotty Scotty Lyn who proudly represents Sable as a wrestler on the Lady Red team based out of East High School. We couldn't be more proud of her achievements being listed in the top wrestler game in Mass Suffet County. Thank you. Uh talent show. Just last night, our middle school and high school students showed their talent and courage up on stage for annual talent show. I just want to congratulate all the people who had the courage to get on stage as well as our winners. Thank you for participating. It was a great night and we thank the middle school for hosting for the secondary schools. Congratulations. Last month, if you had a chance to see the Almost Main show by disabled players, we were impressed. Our winter drama, Almost
005Main, we had talented performances. They lit up the stage with an exciting show and it was impressive. And I just got to compliment our drama team at the high school. They do amazing work. Congratulations to the entire group, cast, crew, and teachers involved. Really great performances. students took part in a special schoolwide quilt project to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Each student created a quilt square featuring one of Dr. King's quotes and reflected on its meaning and how it connects to the school's path traits of persistence, accountability, teamwork, and honesty. The quilt, if you notice, is outside of the main lobby hanging in our hallway, and it uh it's just a great opportunity for our kids to celebrate a great person, a great movement, and all the things Thank
006you to our middle school students. They practiced with independence and unique. Last month, fourth graders partnered with kindergarters to teach important self-care skills like tying shoes and zipping coats, creating steam design skill stations to help them practice and grow in confidence throughout the month. I always love when our younger students and older students get together students and teachers for a great activity over at Sunrise Drive. Cherry Avenue students meanwhile celebrated Groundhog Day, teaming up across grade levels once again for a fun learning experience. Third graders read with kindergarteners, made predictions together, and later reflect on the outcome, showing that even when predictions aren't correct, learning together makes it meaningful and memorable. We love to see our students at Cherry back to basics confidence growing together as students. Thank you, teachers, students at Cherry Avenue. Congratulate
007all the students who participated in the Cherry Avenue uh spelling be. They hosted the annual spelling be with a big turnout of impressive fourth and fifth grade spellers enhancing our spelling and also celebrating healthy competition within our school. Congratulations to those students. Our high school students partnered with the Suffach County Sports Hall of Fame to host its first sports analytics and business conference, bringing together nearly 100 students for a day of hands-on learning and career exploration. Through panels and keynote sessions, students connected with industry professionals and explored careers in sports analytics, data, artificial intelligence, and the business of athletics. I was really impressed um with the questions our students asked, the seriousness with which they participated and the great um panels that we had of professionals in the field. It was really a great day
008and I want to thank our teaching and staff over at the high school for putting that together for our students since last month. Um in our virtual enterprise students the high school competed in the Long Island University in the regional business plan competition and trade show. They presented their business plans, showca showcased professional trade show booths and competed in sales pitch and design events. The firm drive and dime earned a gold level award in the sales pitch competition and they are now preparing for the youth business summit in April. Congratulations to our virtual enterprise students. We have a small taste of it tonight with the national anthem, but I want to congratulate our middle school orchestra assembles for putting on fantastic series of performances last month. sixth grade women ensemble, seventh and eighth grade jazz
009band and winter orchestra blew us away with great music from the middle school. Congratulations. And finally, we also had singers from all grade levels come together in a all district chorus concert to show off their skills and their voices blended together in perfect harmony. Congratulations to our student musicians and music teachers on a fantastic series of performances. Not only does it sound great, but it's wonderful watching our younger students work with their old students to create great can see what's ahead for them as they go through the grade levels singing in the district. So our music is alive, our sports is alive and our academics is thriving here in St. Congratulations to everyone. And without further ado, I want to introduce our middle school principal who has special awards to give out to some of
010our students. Dr. Pastor Thank you very much, Dr. Ferris. Good evening, everybody. Thank you to uh the board for this opportunity to recognize some pretty awesome uh middle schoolers that represented all of us in a number of different regional STEM competitions. Uh this past January, Savior Middle School fielded two teams to the future city competition in New York City. This is one of the most engaging and difficult international STEM challenges that are available to middle schoolers. It asked them to wear hats of both city officials and as engineers. They had to write essays. They have to build largecale models of their city. They develop project plans. They have to defend their ideas. before a panel of judges who are real world civil and environmental engineers and that are actually tackling the problems that they are
011taking on. The competition is always an incredible experience. This year I learned uh when I I met with the teams uh one of the things that they found most fascinating as they visited a New York City school, you have to hold this competition in a large area. So it's typically the cafeteria. And I learned that this year the cafeteria was on the sixth floor and that was quite amusing to our two teams. This year's theme was farmtotable and our students had to design a futuristic city that produces food locally. It minimizes waste and sustains its own population. So before we call up the students, I'm going to ask first if uh Mr. Mr. Goodman and Miss Lascowzo can join me up here because Thank you. I want to just take a moment to acknowledge uh
012these two dedicated educators that make this opportunity possible alongside uh the parents that support their children. Mr. Goodman, Miss Lascazo, they don't just supervise a club, they mentor these young engineers. It takes a lot. One of the things in talking to the students when I was was speaking to them yesterday, um they the hours that they put into this going on their lunch period, staying after school, uh with their teachers to to create these cities, uh it's pretty remarkable because they're doing all of that while they're playing sports, while they're, you know, doing well in all of their classes, all of the things that everyone else is doing. Um and then they're doing this on top of it. And uh they're doing that with the guidance of these two professionals here. uh they foster a
013culture of inquiry and teamwork and they empower these students to try bold ideas and big things. Uh and that's what shows. So I'm going to call up first uh our seventh grade team. So I'm going to ask if uh Grant Coward, Colobby Gavin, Leo Chung, Lucas Chung, Avery Gilbert, and Zoe Ferspan can please join us up here on stage. Come on down. So our seventh grade team took the challenge to heart. Their city was named New York. What makes this group special I when in talking to them is their teamwork. So this group actually started as two separate groups. uh and when some of the students from the sec the second group were unable to participate and continue uh they decided to come together and form uh a super group to and merge their talents
014together on a single project. They designed a city using living concrete which is something I learned a little bit about yesterday. Thank you all. I I found myself down a rabbit hole trying to learn a little bit more about that. I learned that uh it's a concrete with bacteria in it that can heal itself when it cracks. It's pretty remarkable. Um, it's a fascinating concept that they researched very, very deeply. They designed green houses uh on building roofs. They utilized food waste for compost. They zoned residential areas near essential services. And they prioritized a an active lifestyle with nature preserves and even a sports arena. Please join me in congratulating our seventh grade team. We cannot wait to see what they do next year at 8th grade. So, next up, our eighth grade team. I'm
015going to ask if Isabella Leari, Divian Nabi, and Rosalie Paresi can join me up here. So this year is a milestone because this team is the first in Sable history to do this two times. They were there last year as seventh graders and returned. Our eighth grade team is an all female powerhouse in engineering and STEM. >> Yeah. And I'm going to say that one more time that our team is an all female powerhouse. These young ladies have proved that there is absolutely no ceiling what they can achieve. Having completed last year, they walked in, they told me with confidence they felt less nervous and ready for the judges. They used their experience uh to split up their workload very efficiently as they were creating and refining their presentation. They designed a self-sustaining city featuring
016vertical farming towers to preserve space for livestock and high-tech transportation system to distribute food and minimize waste. And their experience paid off. They were awarded a special prize for the for the best farm-totable system, which was the core theme of the competition. And furthermore, out of all the schools present, they took home third place overall in the competition. We are incredibly proud of these engineers. to see. You could call And our last group, our quiz bowl team. Can I please have Carter Alcades, Emma Lochner, Zachariah Joseph, and Chris Larkin please join us up here. These remarkable students represented Seville at a regional regional quiz bowl competition at the Brook Haven National Lab. They competed hard against very very strong and from what they told me and explained to me what they felt was very experienced
017and established teams across Long Island. They went head-to-head on topics like chemistry, earth science, astronomy, math, physics, biology. Although they didn't end with the outcome they were hoping for, they fought hard. They competed hard and they really had from what I hear a pretty amazing experience together uh working together as a team which is one of the most important parts and most important to me. They represented our school and our district with distinction. So I thank you for that. We are so proud of you, your hard work. Congratulations to you all. At this time, I'd like to introduce our Lincoln Avenue principal, Mr. Armana. Thank you, Dr. Ferris. Thank you, Board of Education. Um, thank you for giving me the honor to recognize, um, Athena Corso. Um, where is she? Come on up, Athena. I'm
018so proud to be standing here today talking about Athena. Athena won first place at the Brook Haven Science Fair last year with her project titled Don't Wake a Sleeping Baby. For her project, Athena explored how white noise affects infant sleep. She carefully measured her baby brother's naps under different conditions, without white noise, and with various types of white noise, including rain sounds, ocean waves, and static. Through her observations and data collection, she found that her brother slept the longest when listening to wave sounds, and the shortest when there was no white noise at all. Beyond conducting her experiment, Athena also researched the science behind sleep in early childhood. She learned that babies who get more sleep tend to develop stronger cognitive skills and experience fewer behavioral problems as they grow. Athena's project is a wonderful
019example of curiosity, scientific thinking, and real world application. We are very proud of her initiative, creativity, and hard work. And might I add, probably one of the youngest to win first place as when she won, she was only in kindergarten. So congratulations. >> Is there anything you want to say to the to the audience about this project? >> What she doesn't she's plotted. She's working on her PhD now in Google applied psychology and I'm excited to see what she does with that next. Okay, if we can switch it over to the other presentation just one more time, I want to congratulate all of our students who are recognized tonight and throughout the district. If you'd like to stay for our budget presentation, it's going to be a reubinated event. Uh, please do so. If you'd
020like to get home so you can work on your homework and or other chores throughout the house that you're helping your families with, uh, please do so at this time. >> Nice to meet you. Get ready for the second portion of our meeting. Rob, I want you to know that everyone leaving is not a statement of how >> many people watching. >> There's many people watching from home. We welcome you all. All right, we're going to get started with our sec second portion of the meeting, which is the budget presentation. Uh this is our second budget presentation. Uh we did a presentation last week uh just to kind of open up the conversation. This presentation is going to go over our expenditures and our revenue side of the budget as well as some other aspects
021in great detail. Uh we will have a third budget presentation in March. The board will get to comment and the committee will get to comment on many aspects of the budget and that they'd like to talk about and then we're hoping the bud the board will adopt a budget in April to be voted on in May. Um so again just want to focus on the priorities for this year and we stated this at the last meeting but I think it's important to note that we're going after four specific areas and we are achieving those areas in the budget. The first is closing the gap. Uh this budget closes the gap between district revenues and expenditures to ensure long-term fiscal health. Mr. Bartell is going to talk about that in one of his later slides, but
022I think we can really show some great progress here that we should be very proud of as a district. Uh we are maintaining all of our programs. This budget maintains all district programs, staffing levels for students. It also includes some capital improvements which we went over last week and we will go over again both in the capital line of the budget and also in a second vote proposition we'd like to put up to use our capital reserve that was set up four years ago. This budget also reduces our uh reliance on reserves since about 2017. reliance on reserves to uh offset the expenses the gap between the expenses and the uh revenues has been used to about the tune of around $5 million. We're significantly reducing that in his budget by about a million plus
023dollars and Mr. Martell will go over that as well and we're looking always for new revenues to increase our revenues to help close that gap and we found some ways to do that as well. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce our assistant superintendent for business and personnel, Mr. Roberts. So, uh, tonight, uh, first I want to apologize in advance. This will probably be fairly boring. We have lots and lots of numbers, not a lot of pictures. Um, so I'll try to see uh how well I can get through this. Um what I want to do is uh talk about tonight the uh revenue budget uh our use of reserves and the detailed expense that so for our detailed revenue budget first we have state aid uh state aid increase I have in budget
024uh from budget to budget is uh a little over $1.2 2 million. Um most of that uh has to do with expense driven aids. There's a little increase in foundation aid, but most of it is expense driven aids. Um it's not much of an increase over what we're actually getting for the current year. Uh but a budgetto budget increase is why it looks like it's so much money. Our actual increase um in aid I'll show in another slide. uh interest income I have basically the same uh we have a couple of sources of interest income for our main general reserve uh general fund and then we have interest on our reserves so between a combination of the two I'm expecting those uh revenues this year to exceed $1 million uh and I believe even with
025reduced interest rates the interest income should still be about a million dollars from next year uh for rental of our buildings we rent out two of our buildings to And the third one that we account for is our library. Uh the rental income is from the two Boseies buildings, but we also account for the rental library really as uh payment from the library to us uh to repay the debt service. So in their expense budget, we'll have a debt service for the library be accounting for the revenue from the library to us for that is also this rental building. So that's really why that change looks like it's going down a little bit. Their debt service is going down. Library debt service is going down. So the payment to us is going down. The rental
026to Boseies will be going up by a few percent for both buildings. Uh Boseies refunds. Every year uh all school districts used to Boseies uh pay uh for a number of different programs. At the end of the year uh Boseies kind of settles their accounts, figures how much extra monies they have. if it exceeds a certain amount, they have to return that to all the different school districts. Uh the last several years we have been getting a little 400,000. This year we've received over 500,000 aid. So believe increasing that number to 400,000 for next year would be an appropriate uh change. Uh our use of facilities, as Dr. Ferris mentioned, we've been looking for additional sources of income. Uh we have a new group that's going to be coming in providing uh programs over the
027summer for our students uh which generate some additional revenue and we're also looking at some dance companies to utilize um or tarot rooms for some dance contests. Uh we expect that to increase our income by another $90,000 or so as far as the use of our facilities. All of our other revenues that we have are pretty much flat. uh those other revenues. Uh we have our non-resident students who come to attend our uh special ed programs, different student fees, our continuing ed program, our driver ed program, and some Medicaid reimbursements. That really makes up the rest of the revenue. Um and that's uh that's pretty much plat for next year. So, the total revenue that we're getting outside the district uh um outside of our reserves and our tax levy uh is expected to go
028up about 4 and a.5%. Uh this slide just shows our foundation our our state aid numbers. Our foundation aid up by about 1% which came out in the governor's budget. Uh I do show uh on our aid projections Boseies and building aid as being uh down for next year. Uh reasons for that have to do with uh for Boseies it's a reduced um aid ratio. I mentioned this at the last meeting. Our aid ratios in both Boseies and transportation have declined uh which is one of the reasons we're having a little less income on uh aid for those categories. uh building aid I believe is under projected based on some of our recent projects that we've completed. We've submitted u our final project reports to the state. So those numbers should be increased uh a
029little bit for next year. It's all based on what our actual expenses are for the current year. Uh high tax aid has been a flat category for a number of years. Uh and all the other little pieces of a like textbook aid a um are just down a little bit. Those are really enrollment driven numbers. So enrollment declines a little bit. We get a little bit less uh in those aids. That's why it's down a little bit there. Overall looks like we're going to be flat uh in state aid for next year. However, I think a couple of those numbers are underproed. We expect to spend more and building in expecting to get more on there. Uh we also have some additional revenues that we're getting in through the state. We have um uh student
030with disabilities uh that bringing in some additional money so we have to pay for their expenses. We're getting rewards from the state on that. Also uh our force valley trip this year uh we ran that through both so we can get aid on that so we get about 50% of that trip cost back for next year to help support that that trip again next year. And then there are some other small aids that we're getting. So my projection for overall for state aid uh is up about four 4.4% um about 20,786,000. The really good part of the governor's budget that came out has to do with universal prek. Uh that increased our aid from $5,400 per student to $10,000 per student. So for our program here in Savo, we go from uh 745,000 to 1.4
031million, which virtually fully funds that prek program. So starting it was funding a good portion of it, but as salaries and other costs go up, uh that $5,400 per student did not change. Um so this additional money uh is a great help to us. The other thing that this money does is we have to account for the prek program in uh what we call federal funds. So it's not accounted for in our general fund. So what it does is it actually removes an expense from our general fund which should help us uh close the gap between the revenues and our expenditures. Then we have our use of reserves. So, as I've mentioned before, I think we've been using a little too much reserves here in Sville for the last several years. I have a chart
032on that. Um, but just a comparison of uh this current year to next year. Uh we're looking to um reduce the amount of reserves that we're paying to uh support the budget for the following year. Uh I actually think the fund balance allocation the general fund balance application about 2.9 million is is a pretty good number. Uh that's a fair number to include in the budget. Uh most of these other reserves really should be used only in specific instances. Uh but in this at this point we really need them to uh keep from cutting any of our programs and our staff. So we're going to try to slowly bring these numbers down. Uh I have a reserve for employees retirement system. Uh we used 1.5 million out of that reserve for this current year. We're
033going to use about $1 million for next year. Uh we have a reserve for the teachers retirement system. We use 600,000 out of that reserve for this year. Uh we're not going to use anything out of that for next year. Reserve for workers compensation. Uh we went from 375,000 this year. Reduced that to 200,000 for next year. Our reserve for unemployment was 50,000 for this year. I don't want to use any of that from from that reserve for next year either. So all those reserves uh they're great to have. Uh we use them in more or less we should use them for emergencies not as a general ongoing funding of the budget. Um the next two categories reserve for bonded debt. uh that one is uh what we allocate for our debt service expenses. So
034when we go out and borrow monies for a bond, many times what happens is uh the lenders will issue a premium. So we go out for a $15 million bond. They'll give us an extra million uh to borrow from them. That helps reduce the overall net interest cost. But what we do with that additional million dollars is we put it in in reserve and allocate it over life with that particular bond. So that's why you kind of see the same number year to year unless we get a different amount um of a premium which we did this past year when we issued our um uh our energy performance contract bond. So that's why that application of reserve bond debt is going from 44,000 to 83,000. Uh so that 83,000 now should continue over the next
035several years. Uh the reserve for library debt was uh 25,000 for uh this current year. It's going to be 12,900 for next year. Uh the library debt is going to be dropping off in one more year. So they're kind of this amount is is kind of the end of the premium that they've had. So it's dropped off to 129. Uh we have one more year of that expense and then that uh expense will come off the books. So overall um been able to reduce the application reserves for next year by about 1.8 million or just under 25% of reserves. So this is a slide on use of our reserves, not our total total amount of reserves. This is how much we've used in each of the past 10 years or so to apply to the
036budget. So you can see back in 1718 the number that was applied was around $3 million. I mentioned before I think that's an appropriate amount. um to use. That's the amount you want to kind of make up each year between uh monies that you don't spend out of your budget and additional monies that you might receive in excess of the revenues that you anticipate. Uh in 1819 that uh the net reserve went up a little bit and then in 1920 CO happened. So what happened in CO was a lot of expenses stopped in the spring of uh 2020. Uh so many districts ended up with lots of extra funding at the end of that year. Uh also as we went through CO there were many other federal funds that added into the general funds which
037help districts kind of move along and navigate through the co time. So with that extra money in 2021, there was a big increase in the application of fund balance and then the district was able to continue that or the district did continue that for a few years as they had the extra co money. That co money has since dried up and now you see uh the use of that fund balance has to come down and you see the reason why in the next next slide. So this is our actual fund balance um each year for the last 10 years and you can see in that co year in 1920 at the end of that year was a big jump in how much money had in fund balance there was even with that increase from the
038previous slide uh so for 2021 they increased the amount that they applied in fund balance even with that they were still able to add additional monies to fair fund balance uh in 2021 again because of that additional COVID funding. But then as they maintain that high level of funding from the reserves that co money dried up and now you have that fall off uh how much money you have in your available total fund balance because you're using all this money from reserves but you're not generating any money between your expenses and your revenues to kind of replenish any of that money. Um the good news is a little piece of this slide. Our projections or my projections for the end of this year for Savville. Um and I've kind of updated this a few times.
039When I talked about it in December, our gap was about uh two about $2 million. When I talked about it even last week, we were about a million and a half dollars apart between our expenses and our revenues. Um I'm Happy to say at this point I believe uh our revenues and expenses will be within a million dollars of each other. I'm looking at about $800,000 difference right now. Um and that ratio uh would be 99.22%. The reason I use that that ratio, it's very important ratio because part of our fiscal stress score is based on that ratio. So we've had the last two years where that ratio has been under 99%. And we get lots of points every year and it it accumulates. So we need a year where we don't have that that
040discrepancy or that that difference 99% and we don't really want to have it ever again. So, um that's great news because it takes a lot of stress off on our um borrowing for future years um for for something like a tax anticipation note. So we don't worry about that because you get points when you increase your borrowings and we were running very close to be designated as fiscal stress by having a gap year where you would then where you're over 99% you have the ability to borrow more funds and not have to worry so much about cash flow during the year. We are still watching it. Um, we're hoping the cold weather stops and it stops snowing on weekends because our our utility costs are kind of going through the roof and that has to
041kind of slow down a little bit. That could put a damper on some of these numbers and the snowing when we have to bring in people to clear the snow. Um, snow during the week we have the people here and we wouldn't have to pay overtime. So, um, there are a couple of things that we're still watching. So, right now we're good. We're hoping we don't have any other large expenses. >> I just have a question uh before we go uh into the next slides. How close are we? Are we on or about our 4% threshold for uh reserves? >> The 4% max. >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. We'll be at the 4% max. >> Okay. the results. We will actually so we'll be at able to pretty much fully fund the reserves that we've
042been using this year. >> Okay. >> So, we'll be at that 4% number. Uh the reserves we're using, so we're using 1.5 million out of reserves for this year. will probably be able to replace a million dollars out of those reserves. >> What that $800,000 difference means, that's our expenses and our revenues. >> So that's the difference. That's how you that's how you place. So if we're minus $800,000, that's all we're losing out of those reserves. So instead of the 5.5 million that was budgeted at the beginning of the year, we only need to take 800,000 out of those reserves. >> Okay. And not long ago, New York um they have a special education reserve fund as well. We don't we don't we don't contribute to that right now. We don't have a small district.
043>> A special education reserve. >> Yeah. So like for unexpected like special ed like for example you used the last meeting like the example of if you have um let's say you had a special education student that you needed to maybe move to a different place that cost money. That would be an unexpected cost. you then be able to take from that fund? >> Well, you wouldn't do well, there's two different things. So, we have contingencies which we built into the budget for special ed students. So, that's not a reserve. That's part of the extra money that we hope we don't have to spend in the budget. So, when I talk about creating that $3 million every year, that's part of that. So hopefully we don't have those students uh that come in, but if
044we do, we have we have a couple of contingent teachers built into this budget. >> Yeah. So that's that's really what it is. >> Okay. Uh but those other reserves that we have, the Rio reserves or the the 4% reserves that you're talking about, that would be if we had to overspend our budget, which we're never hoping to do, but that's that's what that is number this is the two lines I keep talking about are revenues and expense numbers. Um and over the years, they've been fairly close. They should be fairly close every single year. Um in 23 24 you had that big distance between um you had co money in 2021 2122 22 23 then the co money pretty much dried up so there was a gap between that revenue and expenses 4.89 89
045million at the end of 23 24. Last year it was 3 million. So we dropped from our reserves 7 9 million over two years. Um this year we've been able to cut it to as I said at this point 800,000 years over but still fluctuate a little bit. I like to be conservative. I'm hoping that number is still conservative but I don't think I can come out and say that if I didn't think it would be there. I'm hoping it's going to get better. Um, but we need to flip those lines. So, at some point, we need to start putting money back into reserves. So, for a total revenue budget, um, we have our state aid, uh, which is up 4%. For appropriations, uh, from fund balance, which is down 23%. And then we have
046our tax levy. And our tax levy, I went through that calculation uh last week, is up 2.79% which is under uh the tax levy limit. So we just need a simple majority to pass the budget. Uh those numbers really drive. So this total number 107,721878 the sum of all these revenues and reserves really is what drives our budget number. So, uh, that's the number we're using. That's the number we had to get down to with our budget expenditures. Um, just a chart about our text, all the history. I'm not sure if you can see the colors, but the green line which is has that big spike going up uh is the inflation factor uh over the last 15 years or so. Uh the blue line is what the quote the quote 2% tax cap uh
047line is. So the tax cap the way it works is the allowable increase uh the maximum increase is 2%. If the CPI is less than 2% then our tax cap growth is under that is whatever that is whatever the CPI is less than 2%. If it's over 2% then the max then it caps out at 2%. The orange line shows what the district's actual tax levy change was. Uh, and each year that number changes based on the calculation of the tax levy limit which doesn't necessarily follow the tax cap line because there are some exclusions that are calculated in. So you see in some years that line is above this the allowable growth line, sometimes it's below that. Uh but in most cases it's well below the CPI. So our increases in our tax levy
048never really keep up with the overall CPI. That's kind of the uh the point of this chart. So those are our revenues. Now I want to try to get into the expense budget. Um if we have a a budget available um it is we have the budget here or is it outside? >> Okay, there's a budget on the table outside in case anybody didn't get it. Um this budget uh that we put out is uh listed in a format that school districts are required to report to the state. Um and uh it's broken down into um proposed and current budgets, valid and percentage changes and the prior year's actuals. Uh the reason I break it down that way is when I show current year actuals, it's very difficult to understand or know where you are
049in the process. So, for example, um our teacher retirements teacher retirement system contribution payment, we just make one payment at the end of the year. Uh so you could look at that number all the way through the budget process. It's going to look like we have no expense, but we have one expense right at the end of the year. There are other numbers uh like our Boseies administrative expenses that we pretty much pay in the first few months of the year. uh so they're fully expended. Um so you really need to see a full year's worth of actual expenditures to do a comparison. So that's why the current year to the next year is a budget to budget and then we use the prior year actuals um to get a good comparison of what the
050expense is for those categories. Um, if you've looked at these budget lines in the past, you may notice that uh I've rewarded a number of the descriptions. Many of the budget codes uh really could not be understood when you go through them. For a general person, unless you know rule of coding, uh you really don't know what particular wines stand for. So I tried to add as much description as I could to all the different budget lines. Um and I just give a quoting example here on this slide. So the first uh piece of the budget code is A. A stands for the general fund. We have different funds. Uh we have a federal fund, we have a school lunch fund, we have a capital fund. Those are different funds. What the public votes on
051is the general fund. Uh that's that's the A fund. The second number is based on a functional area. So this is how the state kind of organizes uh the reporting. It's by functional area. 2110 happens to stand for instruction, but the different fourdigit codes could stand for business office, the personnel office, insurance, facilities, um special education, a lot of different pieces. And you can see that as we go through the budget. Uh we have our object categories. Our object category is kind of the type of expense that it is. So 5010 would be an object. It would be a supply category. Um you have sal salary categories, equipment categories, benefit categories, uh supply categories and so forth. The next two-digit number is allocation. 05 would be to Lincoln Avenue school. Could be any one of
052the schools in the district. It could be a general line. It could be the administration building. Uh it could be uh designated for a specific sport. So different location pieces. And then the last piece is the program. Program uh is kind of as it as it stands. It's would be for math, science, social studies. Uh it could be a general number which would be just kind of four zeros. Um or it could have some other designation. Uh when we do the budget every year like to zerobased budget it which means we kind of start from scratch. So every budget code I look at I look at how much do we plan on spending in this year? How much did we spend last year? How much do we plan on spending this year? I don't just
053take a number and increase it by a certain percentage. So for every salary code, I go through the entire budget. I look at everybody that's in that salary code, find out what those increases are for those individuals, and that becomes the new budget for the following year. So that's why you may see in many budget lines um large increases or decreases. So it's sometimes it's hard to follow, but if you have a retirement and uh say for example a library librarian retires, you're going to see a big reduction in that staff for a librarian because they're in one particular building and the new person coming in to replace them maybe have almost half the cost. So you'll see a big reduction. That mean doesn't mean we're cutting something from the library. It just means we
054have um a lower um lower pay staff member in that position. Could also happen if there are transfers between buildings. You may have another senior person who moves from one one building to another. Maybe from the middle school to the high school or vice versa and all of a sudden it looks like a big increase in a particular budget code may not necessarily be true could just be because of a transfer of somebody. So sometimes it's difficult to read those lines. um as we go through the budget. So I'm going to try to show this budget in three different ways. So I'm going to show the budget by our object categories. I'm going to summarize it that way. I'm going to summarize it by uh our components. So one of the things we have to
055do is provide a budget in three components. Administrative, capital, program. So I'm going to summarize those three categories for you. And then we're going to go into more detail um kind of based on the document budget document that we have handed out uh a summary by program. So starting with our objects our overall salaries are up about 2 and a half%. Um much of this includes breakage from retirees and breakage is that salary difference between those teachers salaries that are retiring and the new teachers that we expect to replace them with. um our benefit increases uh only increasing 1.2%. So this is a little misleading because some of our uh benefits have gone up a tremendous amount. Our health insurance has gone up um 9% for 2026. Uh that's a big increase. Fortunately, it was
056offset this year by a reduction in the teacher retirement system contributions. uh the the projected number that they're coming in with is actually lower than what they had planned. They kind of usually give us a range. Uh this year they came in just below the range. So that um we were able to cut a few hundred,000 out of that benefit category. So overall all of our benefits about 1.29%. um that overall category uh $77,766,000 that's all staffing benefits um and that's um almost 75% of the entire budget and that's up 2.11%. So that drives everything and that's one of the ways we're able to keep our overall budget number um to a reasonable number. uh our equipment lines uh only a small increase um in our overall equipment lines. It's mostly due to a new
057vehicle um that we're getting. We didn't buy a new vehicle with the current budget. Um I think it's $50,000 or something for that vehicle. That's really the reason there's an increase. Probably should have at least one vehicle a year in there to replace the inventory in the district. Our contract services are down almost half a million dollars. Uh the main reason for that is uh strategically we move the number of our capital repair lines out of our facilities and maintenance uh area to the transfer of capital line. Uh you'll see that later on. But that's really the main reason for the um drop in the contracted services. Uh we also had a building condition survey that was done this year for um which was very expensive that dropped also. Uh transportation uh had some you
058know great news in transportation this year. There was some uh work done before I got here in the budget for this year to cut transportation. We continue to work on that during the year. We're able to generate some additional consolidations and savings and we're getting back a number of share credits uh for our our district vehicles, our contracted vehicles that work in other school districts. Um pick up other students on their way to schools. We get some share credits when when that happens. So, we're actually uh going to be well under our budget number for this current year generating to closing that gap, but we'll be able to uh cut some of that transportation uh line. That's really the big reason for the reduction um in transportation codes. Our textbook line is up uh about
059$20,000, 11% that's really for our new elementary literacy pilot program. Uh we'll be doing um K to 5 preK to 5. Next object category is Boseies. Uh Boseies uh is up a small amount and that's really just due to uh their own uh minor increases in uh their tuitions, their service fees. uh our overall supply lines, our administrators have been great working with, you know, budgets without having to increase them, putting additional pressure on budgets. So, we thank them for not uh requesting the moon. Um debt service, uh the increase there is really from the energy performance contracts uh that we issued this past year. Um that's up about 600,000. Uh so that going forward we will as we go through this year talk about um additional projects that need to be done uh throughout
060the district. Um there is continuing declining debt service. There will be a number of bonds that kind of come off the books in the next few years. Uh so I think it'd be a good idea to kind of talk about a bond issue at this time and kind of playing into that as that debt service starts to drop off. We've got this one last increase for the energy performance contract, but I don't foresee any other increases in your debt service uh going forward. We have to look to replace the debt service before. Uh our transfer to capital is up by half a million dollars. Again, most of that is due to a shift from the capital repair lines into the transfer to capital line. Uh and our transfer to special aid is uh what we
061use to support our special ed programs over the summer. Uh students that go to summer special ed programs, the state pays for 80%, we pay have to pay for 20%. So that's kind of those costs are again matches up with our total revenues. So we have a balanced budget at a 1.94% increase. And that's our budgets by category. our expense budget by component uh three-part budget. Again, different way that the the state requires us to present it. Uh our administration increase is actually down uh about $100,000 uh from the current budget. Uh reason for that is is really twofold. One, there are OC student services that we were covered in one of the administration lines that really belonged in instructional line. Um so we moved that into our computer technology line. There is a uh
062also portion of my salary as the business official um in administration which moved to transportation which is kind of a program component. The reason we moved the portion of the salary was so we could take advantage of aid on that. Um so you get aid on my salary if uh whatever portion you can contribute to transportation. So we took a third of third of the salary uh my business official in this position. Um so you can take advantage of the aid on that um by putting it into transportation cost. uh our capital increase the most part is due to that increasing debt service that I had mentioned before about the energy performance contract. Uh the off the other part of the capital that changed was the movement of the other half million dollars from the
063um capital lines from facilities and maintenance and so the transfer to capital line but but all of those lines fall within the capital portion. So there was really no change on that. changes that that debt service and program is up by about 2%. And that's strictly contractual salaries, insurance, um, health insurance costs. That's kind of what was driving those program costs. Again, total is the 1.94%. Just a different way of looking at it. Uh when we look at the proportion of the budget that each of those components um made up, uh the administration portion went from 9.71% to 9.43% of the budget. So it was a little lower piece. Uh capital went up a little bit uh from 17.68 to 17.89 and our program portion um came down just slightly 72.68 to 72.6. 62. >>
064Should should that be negative 6% and 9% change in and actual dollar change >> on the program? >> Should it be what? >> Negative or from 25 26 to 26 27? >> Yes, it should be negative. >> Okay. >> Apologis. >> Okay. Now by functional error. So there's a lot more functional area. So this is going to give me a little bit more time. Um but this in this way if you can follow the document they have just follow through uh they can see you know in a little bit more detail within each of those programs what those different budget categories change within there. So first one is 1010 board of education. Uh that budget dropped by about $5,000. not a big drop. Reason for the drop was we removed a postage line. So there
065were a number of lines. The district for the current year um consolidated all the postage into one budget code. However, some of the different budget lines didn't reflect that. So they still had some funding in them. So what I did was removed any postage lines from anything that wasn't that one single line that we're using going forward. Uh the district work line. Uh small change there. It's just based on the stipen that the clerk gets. Small increase. District meetings. Uh this increase is really due to the shift of the voting machines from Suffach County uh to school districts. I think we've worked with them um or fought with them enough where we've got them for this year not to really incur any additional costs, but we're still concerned about what's going to happen for next
066year. So, this additional cost is based on us taking over those machines and then the software and um management costs for those machines going forward. uh superintendent office um includes the superintendent office um costs including the salary secretary salary uh overall is down a little bit because we had a changeover in uh the secretary for the superintendent. So there was a little change in salary difference there. So that's down a little bit. Um for the business office uh overall it's down $93,000. Again, most of that has to do with moving the business official salary to transportation. Uh we also moved uh an employee assistance program that was started here in the district. It was being covered under business office line. Really belongs to personnel. So I just shifted that over to one of the personal
067codes. Uh auditing, these are auditors that come in every year. Uh internal auditor, external auditor, uh claims auditors. Uh we have lots of auditors. They all go up a little bit each year. So there's a small increase uh for them. Uh treasurer is really the stipend we have for the district treasurer and that just reflects a small increase in their stipend. Fiscal agent fees are fees that are paid to financial service advisors when we go out for bonds or tax anticipation notes. uh they uh we have been paying for them out of a different code within the 1310 budget lines. We have not used that line for a few years. So I've just removed that from the budget. 1420 is our legal services. Uh we have a small increase there. Uh reason small increase there
068is kind of based it on prior year actuals. So we had some increased uh cost from the prior year. So I wanted to make sure there's enough money in that budget. So I show a small increase there. Uh personnel uh that's I had moved a portion again another portion of my salary kind of split it into thirds. Uh one part is in business office and it used to all be in the business office now one part is in the business office one part's in personnel one parts in transportation. So that's why you see some increases in those other two codes. Uh also the employee assistance program as I mentioned is now in the personnel budget hub. Uh records management uh for our filing and keeping track of all of our records. Uh we've got our
069actuals. We're actually have not been spending this amount. So I show a small reduction in that budget for next year. Sorry. Um, that's records management, public information, um, small increase for our public relations firm, uh, Z communications, um, our operation plant. Uh, small increase there. Uh, we really want to look at those numbers uh, next year. Uh, one of the increases there has to do with utility costs. So that reflects some increase there. There was also a reduction or we shifted some salaries into the school lunch program. That's why that that number is pretty much flat. There's no real big increase in operational plant. But we really want to look at our utility lines for next year. We implemented this energy performance contract. We're expecting to see savings uh from net solar on our electric.
070Our electric budget lines for next year are exactly the same. I am a bit concerned that um how much money we can actually save from that. So, I'd like to see that first. We should start seeing those savings uh over the next several months as all of our solar comes online. But with the increases in the electric rates um and some increase in usage, I'm concerned that we don't want to reduce those lines prematurely, rather get a better deal on those costs. We do expect some significant savings in in utilities going forward. Um there were increases in some of our natural gas. We're having difficulty as I mentioned earlier with the cold weather. It's requiring our buildings to or boilers to keep going much longer. So um this will increase budget uh as part of
071operation plan. Uh maintenance of plant is where we do our repairs. Uh all of our maintenance staff building the grounds. Uh those numbers are actually coming down by just under half million dollars. Again, that's based on shifting um almost half a million dollars in repair monies to the transfer to capital. And that's reducing that numbers down. 1631 is really just maintenance of our plant. Um at the old junior high. Uh just a separate code for that. That's down a little bit. Um because the actual costs have been down. So we'll get that in a little bit. Central printing costs. So for all of our copers and uh paper supplies and everything that we have uh here in central printing, that's that's what's in these budget codes. So that's that's the reason for those increases. the
072paper costs. um data processing um we have some reductions uh based on our actual costs in here not a lot but uh most of this is uh really for parent square I think that's that's what comes out of this code general insurance so we increased the general insurance fund quite a bit uh for the current year we did not see all of that increase in insurance revenue that kind of was expected so our increase projection next year is has much smaller. Um again, we're looking at different ways that we can try to change that and help reduce those insurance costs. Uh and we'll continue to address those. Uh school dues is uh our dues that we pay for the school boards administration for uh national, state, and local associations. Um that number is not expected
073to increase for next year. been a little bit under that number for our expenses. 1981 is our Bosey's administration costs. Um that's uh those aren't our uh program costs for Boseies. That's what it costs for us to that's what we pay to Boseies based on our enrollments uh for all of their administration. So they have two pieces. They have an administration component and they have a capital component. Um so those numbers are up slightly. Uh the Bosey's capital portion is up very small amount. Um the you know the good part of that is we're getting some of that money back. So money that we're paying to Boseies in that capital they're paying back to us in rent for our buildings. So overall for what the state considers administration, the 1,00 series budget codes um is
074down about 2.94%. Important to note that this administrative total is not the same as the administrative total from the threepart component budget. So the state breaks it up different ways but um but it's not the same between the components and the functionaries. So just how it goes. I just want to make that clear. It's in case somebody tries to match those numbers up. Okay. And we get into curriculum. Our 2000 budget codes really are all of our instructional budget codes. So 2010 is curriculum development. Um there's a little increase there. Um that's based on some uh overtime that we put back for summer work. Um fees for superintendent conference days and I think longevity is kicking in for a couple of employees. uh school supervision uh is down a little bit. Uh this is this
075is where we move the Bosei student services out of this code. Um uh this program code to uh technology code where it really was uh uh belonged better. Uh 2040 would be our summer adult ed uh program supervision. Uh we don't have that summer anymore. That's really just the adult debt supervisors. Um, again down a little bit. The reason it's down is we removed the postage line. Staff development. Uh, this is a large increase. We're restoring funding here for staff development activities. Uh, we had we eliminated from the budget this year. So, we're going to put it back for next year. Um, school instruction. This is uh again big number 2% increase uh really all the staff salaries um number of different pieces uh that are in here uh um contractual staff. I removed all
076the UPK program uh people from here. We adjusted for retirements. Um couple other points worth noting is we restore curriculum writing K to 12. So there's monies uh in the some of these codes for curriculum writing uh also for teacher assistant subs that were removed from the budget. So we booked those back and restored those. We restored some after school budgets. Uh we're continuing to provide after school support but those budget votes had been um had been cut. So we got those back. Uh we have money in for uh teen leadership in the middle school. Uh also money for additional textbooks. Uh 2250 special education. So as it says all of our special education codes um our staffing our tuition to private schools and tois um we have our related services in here. Um, one
077of the things we handed back was some additional aid time for uh for our special ed programs in our elementary schools. Um, just to kind of uh help ease some of the support for uh for those programs. Occupational education uh is our students that go to Bosey's uh technical programs uh occupational education programs. uh we're built based on a three-year average of the number of students that we send to those programs. Uh so the fact that the number is coming down means uh we have had fewer students attending those programs in the last 3 years on average. Um means they're staying more in high school. uh special schools again, driver, adult ed programs. Uh it's a little bit reduced based on uh some of our actual costs from prior years. Uh library services uh overall
078we're down $280,000. This was kind of the example I gave um before. We're down uh one uh one librarian retired. So a lot of savings there. Also, I moved um the director of technology salary was in this budget code. I'm moving that to the computer instruction um budget code 630. Uh really belongs more in that code than in the library. So that's the overhaul reason for the big reduction. Uh instructional media. Uh this actually is a code we have for Boseis propio which does translation services for the district. So just a small change there. 2630 is our computer instruction. Again big increase as I mentioned technology director here. We also moved another staff member who works in the technology department who was being coded under a regular um building instruction line. Uh moved them to
079this code as well. So that's the reason for the big increase. Uh our attendance codes down a little bit based on the change in staff. Uh same thing with guidance. Uh we had a retirement there and some clerical changes. So that's the reduction in the guidance program. We're not reducing any of our guidance programs. It just happens to be the staffing numbers that are in there that that show a reduction. Uh health services um we restored there were a number of pieces that were omitted from the current year's budget which we restored here. One is uh some of work for the nurses. Another is substitute nurses. So nurses now we immediate substitutes and also our athletic trainer. Athletic trainer used to be uh an employee. When that person left they we now are using a
080contract service for that but in that process the budgeting for it disappeared. So you have to put it back someplace. Um it's back in here health services uh psychologists uh and social workers pretty much everything staying the same. The reason those codes are down a little bit due to um retirements uh co-curricular um big increase in these codes. Again um this is another code this one in athletics. There are a number of things that have been uh omitted from the budget for this current year which um don't oversight, but we're continuing to do these programs for co-curricular. We have the curriculum council. Uh we have our mentor program and we have all of our chapons uh for all the trips that we do. Um in athletics and and those are pieces that got restored. So
081that's why that's increased. in athletics. Um, some of the high school coaches were omitted. Uh, all of our athletic supervisions were omitted. Um, so those have been put back in there. Some of the other increases uh for athletics is putting three additional teams at the middle school, which are second teams to help provide additional opportunities so we don't have to cut as many students, which about 60 students or so. Uh we also have money in for new uh uniforms. There's some additional monies in there. We need to replace uh uniforms. I think they were kind of holding off on this year to keep those monies down. We need to replace those uniforms um for some of our teams. Uh intramurals. Uh again, something was just left out of the current year budget. It's a small
082expense, but we need to have that budget in there for it. And overall, our instruction total is up 2 and a half%. Moving to transportation. Um, again, some of these when I present in different formats, you're going to see the same thing over and over again. Reason for the increase here in in district transportation. That's where the business official salary portion is going. That's that increase so we can get the aid on that. Our contract transportation um as I mentioned earlier uh down over $300,000 due to consolidating routes and share credits. Uh public transportation is just a small increase um some of the students that may take public transportation. Uh Bosey's transportation uh is up a little bit based on our actuals that we've seen over the last couple of years. Overall, our transportation total
083projection is going to be down $225,000. >> Um there's some students I think that take the train uh that go to certain schools. Um maybe in Queens or the city small ones there. That's a big one for the train. Um, also recreation, uh, the 7,000 uh, codes. Uh, those are costs that we have to keep our buildings open for, uh, other programs that come in and use our facilities uh, during the year. Uh, again, based on actuals, we're reducing that line by a little bit. Uh, should still leave us plenty to cover those expenses. and our benefit lines. So, I've talked about some of these before. The u the employees retirement system, uh I only have a small increase. I'm projecting a fairly flat change in our our expected expense in that budget line. Uh
084the teachers retirement system, I'm down for $400,000. So that the new rate that we got uh for next year um was a huge help in putting this budget together. Um and it's it's great to see it come down a little bit. It's been very high and it's now one of the lowest rates it's been in a number of years. Our social security costs uh I think that budget number is a little high. I have been bringing that down a little bit again based on our actual expenses and where our projected salaries are going to be for next year. Workers compensation I do show an increase uh we have seen increased actuals in the last several years. So really to increase that budget line and again just to kind of go back to the reserves for
085a second. So, I reduced the application of reserves for workers compensation from 375,000 to 200,000. Um, at using 375,000 a year, we're running out of that expense. So, that can't continue to fund the budgeted compensation actual cost. So, uh, even though the those costs are going up, I'm reducing the amount to apply from the reserve because they really should be covered under general fund operating expenses. So, if you have one year where you have excessive costs, you may want to dip into that, but um, try to kind of get those in line. Just one of the things doing it work the budget. Uh, life insurance. Uh we have one bargaining unit, small one that has life insurance, just a small amount, no change expected there. Unemployment, uh our numbers have been down uh on unemployment
086expenses for the last several years. So I'm projecting a reduction in that line. Uh also our disability costs again based on actuals just slight reduction here. Health insurance was our big increase. Um as I mentioned earlier, we had 20% increase in January for 2026. Uh we don't know what our increase is going to be for 2027. Uh I'm kind of trying to play the average and a chart. Um the uh last meeting about our health insurance costs. U the average over the last 10 years has been about 7% increase. Uh has been 9% over the last five years, but I'm budgeting about a 7% increase. So, while this shows a 5% increase, um that's budget to budget. So, our actuals, we're not really able to spend our full 163 um that we have in the
087budget for the current year. So, um that's why it only looks like a 5% increase, but I've kind of played for seven toward the end. Uh, library warrants. >> Yeah, I think I'm uh library bonds. I think I mentioned that earlier. That's dropping off a little bit um for next year. Uh goes along with that reduced income that we're getting from the library. We should have one more year of this line and then it should drop. uh school bonds um pretty much flat uh for next year. Uh bond anticipation notes, we did not have any. Our tax anticipation notes uh I expect the same uh we may be borrowing a little bit more but with some lower interest rates. Uh we should be good with the same amount uh of a budget. Uh lease payments,
088we don't have any. Energy performance contract, we kind of have two. one has been on the books and there we have this other one that we're hitting um for this for next year. So that's the new debt service there. Transfer to special aid was no change and our transfer to capital increase of half million dollars again mostly due to that transfer from uh the other facilities and maintenance lines. So our overall benefits increase is 4.4%. So with the increase in the debt service for the performance contract and the increase in the health insurance having your benefits and capital only go 4.4 is is a pretty good number and just wanted to kind of go over again presented these last week but some of the facilities enhancements that we have. So this first one is uh
089monies that we plan on taking out of the capital reserve. So this is uh these monies are already in the reserve. It's not going to cost taxpayers another nickel for these programs. They're already there already budgeted for. We just need to designate them and we need to have them voted upon to spend that money. Um we broke them up broke these projects up. We tried to look at them into different categories. So, we want to hit the arts uh by upgrading the uh auditorium sound and lighting of the high school. Uh we'll move the weight room out of the basement and into the fitness center um for state-of-the-art weight room uh to hit athletics uh for instructional. This is where we're going to upgrade the math classrooms with whiteboards, both the middle school and the
090high school. and also uh looking at upgrading security in all of our buildings. So with security camera additions uh maybe blue lights um in some additions to the blue light system that we have at some of our buildings um some uh building access controls. Those are the things that we're looking in there. And we feel that those four categories not only hit the different areas in our district, but every single one of those is going to hit every single student in our school district. So, um whether you're a kindergarten student or a senior, at some point you're going to uh benefit from these uh these projects. the other uh projects we have for our transfer to capital line. Um we wanted to uh upgrade the three elementary blacktop play areas. So we do all that
091in one shot. Um so each building gets a new black top play area. Uh and we can save some money in the process by doing them all three together. Um we want to redo the middle school girls locker room the floor. We had done the boys uh lockers previously. Um I think it's time to do the girls locker room as well. Uh in concert with that previously mentioned moving the weight room up to the fitness center. We want to move the fitness center to the current wrestling room. Um and we want to convert the weight room in the basement to a bike dance studio areas would all be new kind of state-ofthe-art new equipment and everything. Um, and I think we're really excited uh for those those programs. I know Ryan is um uh okay.
092Um yeah, with this category it's kind of mis there are enhancements but also they're long over long overdue maintenance projects as well. right? Like the black top at the elementary schools is I think 18 years old and things like that. I just want that to be clear. >> Yeah. A lot of the projects in here are not just nice like safety issues like we want we want to make sure the playground is safe for students no tripping hazards and we want it to be um significant improvements but also necessary improvements. Also, as you remember, uh we did a survey five years ago, four years ago about what we want, what our teachers believed we needed, what our staff, our parents, what our community, even our high school students like gave us input. These are all
093things that came from the community that said that these are important to us. And I think it's important to note that this budget does a phenomenal job getting us back on track. and they are enhancements, but you know, I think we've been doing enhancements also in the last few years, but they've been a lot of people haven't really seen them. So, there've been a lot of bathroom upgrades and everything. Doesn't mean we're done with those. We still have many others to do, but we wanted to try to spread some of this money out and hit a number of different areas this year. uh so that you know it wouldn't just be kind of isolated in one building or one section of building. So this kind of hits all of our buildings um and you know
094so all of our students will see some impact with these. Um so also the going to replace the drop in partitioning the gym that's impacting our volleyball program. Um just want to move that out of there. Uh shade system for the library skylight high school. You ever been in there? category component or functional area all the way up to the 1.94% increase uh projected tax levy 2.791% increase under our tax levy limit. So just a simple majority to pass it and there will be a proposition number two uh for the use of our capital reserve. Again that would be for uh approximately 1.1 million. We'll find when we get closer um based on our interest uh will be uh accumulated in there uh and then that will be uh fully funded. That money is already
095in the reserve. We just need to vote on it to use that money. Just to close it up, uh just the presentations going forward. Uh next month, March 12th, we'll have one more presentation um on the budget. On April 21st, uh we have the OC's budget vote and the board of ed will be adopting uh the 26 27 proposed budget. So, if there are any last minute adjustments or changes, they'll have to be made by April 21st. During April and May, we'll have PTA budget presentations, get the word out about the vote, about what's in this budget. May 12th will be our budget hearing. It's a formal hearing required by the state. We can't change the budget at that time. Uh and then May 19th will be the annual election and the board vote. Next
096slide. Uh so on March 12th, the next presentation. Uh we're going to talk a little about some other things, hopefully a little bit more exciting than numbers, student enrollments, district staffing. Um we'll talk again about the three-part budget in detail and our contingency budget should the budget fail. Um and then further discussion on some different areas of this budget just clarify thanking a bunch of people. Um this was not just a a singular effort. This was a collaboration among many people. First of all, our principles and our administrative team were over there collaborating with Mr. Bartell. So, thank you to the administrative team, our director Billings, Danny's been fantastic in collaborating on this. Our director of technology, our STA leadership, all gave feedback and support and kind of creating a budget that we feel focuses
097on the number one thing which we're supposed to focus on, which is our kids, our students, and being responsible to our taxpayers. So, we're very proud of this budget. very happy to present this email and thank Mr. Bartell for going over it in such thorough detail so that everyone can follow along and understand each part of it. There is not one thing that we're not able to discuss and be transparent about in this budget and that we're really proud. So, thank you. >> I just want to give a compliment to Robert. I want to thank him for making the budget more. >> Yes, Robert, thank you so much. I know if the Senate ever needs like filibuster, you know, like you're in there and you can definitely I appreciate all the the thoroughess of that
098and I I've learned a tremendous amount. Um and and I just want to say thank you for putting together a budget that I think the community can accept and and is going to look forward to and can support. Thank you. The only question that I had was on student enrollment, but since I see that we're going to you're going to bring that up next. >> March. >> Yeah. Uh because of the sports classifications just came out and like football is down in class 4 and I know that lacrosse is dangerously close to being a class D school. So our our enrollment is dropping. I think we're at like 529 9 through 12 or something like I think at somewhere in the >> Yeah, we're 591 I think we're at somewhere. We're a little slightly under
099going to be under 800 for the high school like 780 something because we're losing I think two something >> that's this year >> next year. It's not a lot of us but it's enough to get us potentially into that next year. >> Um and I was just gonna ask Robert this is available on the website for the community to look at tomorrow, right? >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Okay. Um, in the spirit of the Olympics, it was a 10 in informative, not so much an entertainment, but thank you. Um, okay. Um, moving on to a board discussion. Um, use of facilities report. Anybody at that or have anything to add? No questions. Um, any um anything on the claims owner report? No. Okay. Uh, charter schools. Um, I'm going to do this. We did discuss
100this at our last meeting. Not the last meeting, the one before that. Um, and what I'm going to do is find it. I'm going to ask for a motion um for the resolution that I'll read for a minute. then we'll open up for discussion. I have qu answers to Desmond's questions from last time and then we can vote on whether we want to approve it or not. Okay. So, I'm looking for a motion for the following resolution. It reads, "Whereas charter schools and district schools are funded with public funds through taxation, whereas the expenditures of school districts are overseen by elected boards which are accountable to the public. Whereas the budgets of fiscal independent district schools are approved by the citizens and communities that they serve. Whereas charter schools divert public funds from the budgets
101of district schools. Whereas the diversion of public funds adversely impacts the budgets of district schools. Whereas charter school expenditures are not overseen by an elected school board that is accountable to the public. Whereas charter school spending plans are not approved by the citizens of the communities in which they serve. Whereas charter schools are permitted to open without the approval of voters in the communities in which they serve. Therefore be therefore be it resolved that NISBA which is us advocates for legislation requiring all charter applicants to be approved by the local voters of impacted communities prior to submission to the relevant state chartering entity. Do I have a motion? Second Kathy. Okay. Discussion. Um Desmond. the last time we were here. You asked um you know because a charter school doesn't necessarily pull from just one
102community. It may pull from many. Um so who is this really geared at? And the um answer that I received was when a charter school moves in, it does pull the majority of students from the community that it's placed in. So that's why they're asking for those votes to take place. Okay. Um any other discussion? Nope. Okay. So, we're going to vote whether we are going to approve this or not. So, um all in favor. Okay. The resolution carries. Thank you. All right. Um not first though. Um okay. Um the um where Okay. Last thing on the board discussion is we're going to vote a little bit later on the second review of the district calendar. Does anybody have any comments or thoughts? No. All right, we're following the Suffach County Bosey's calendar, which makes
103the most sense. Okay, first public comment session. Um, those of you who are new to our meetings, um, our budget, uh, our first public comment is for business related to the agenda only. So, do we have anyone who would like to make any comments based on what we saw on tonight's agenda? Great. Moving on. Okay. Um, we are now going to go through our uh our business. Thankfully, there's not too much. Uh, let's see. I'm going to take actions uh 501 to 706. Can I have a motion? >> Kathy 601, >> sorry. 601 to 706. Motion Kathy. Second. Desmond. Um, discuss. Um, all in favor? Nope. Sorry. discussion first. All in favor? Sorry, rushing. Tired. Um, okay. The next one I'm going to take is 801 and 802 motion. Second, Chris. Any discussion? All in
104favor? Motion carries. >> With that motion, I just wanted to welcome back to the elementary schools, Emily Arts. We're so excited to have you. I don't know if she's here tonight, but we want to thank her for joining, rejoining our team. And I want to congratulate Mary Valentino who will be joining us not as a legal replacement but now as a probationary teacher. Okay. Going to take 803 as a standalone. Uh can I have a motion? Kelly second Desmond. Um a discussion. Okay. All in favor, one abstension. Okay. Five in favor, one abstension. Any against? No. Okay. Um Okay. Motion carries. Um taking 8 uh.05 through 903. 80. Oh, sorry. It was 804 to 90. Uh motion Chris. Second, Kelly. discussion. All in favor? >> Okay. >> With that motion, I'd like to welcome Aaron
105Fish as an office assistant in the guidance office. We're so excited to have her. Welcome, Aaron Fish. And also our new physics teacher at the high school, William Ster. We want to congratulate and welcome William to Thank you. Uh we've now also approved our school calendar. So everyone's free to make their travel plans as well. Um upcoming dates dates February 16th is President's Day. February 16th through the 20th is the mid winter recess. February 27th is the Sunday talent show at 6:00 at the middle school. March 3rd is the Harlem Wizards game at 6:30 p.m. at the high school. March 4th is the 7th annual teacher staff volleyball game fundraiser 7 p.m. in the high school and March 5th is the next board of education workshop meeting. We will have our third budget discussion. Okay,
106opening up our last uh public comment section and do we have anyone who would like to speak this limited to three minutes? Thank you. >> You made mention of piece of legislation state. I think there's a lot of misinformation as a member of the community have follow discussion more than three minutes each um as a union member I want to go back to that was already addressed thank you for passing the resolution that we invest in our community and making it clear on the record thank you very much schools um in your work I'm not um but the K12 legislation to me is is the same principle applied in the private sector and how our public institutions interact with private right now um there's an established track record of essentially criminal contractors that are employing
107workers stealing from state and stealing from our districts uh the reality is that hasn't taken place here it's able yet and and hopefully never does but in prevention work. There's a litany of cases that district attorney Ray Tierney as well as district attorney prosecuted in both counties and so there was legislation drafted in bipartisan fashion to address the needs of our region and we know our region is unique in this state our region um has needs that are different than other places and so this is a challenge that our region faces that others don't and there's also project labor agreements that's in place in other places like New York City administered by the school construction authority and so it's not unbounded on her and so there are ample benefits. Um the National Support Association has
108circulated an opposition where I know what it says. One of the things it gets right is it says that if me showing up in the community they'll highlight they're bad information. I agree with that. Um I think business officials and superintendent often here give me think more and I just want to highlight things that you may already know but I don't want them to um all public work is prevailing wage work the New York state constitution requires that prevailing wages on public work and the way prevailing wage is set in New York state is based explicitly and directly off agreements negotiated by the union trad So it is impossible to be more expensive on the labor when using human labor market. It's mathematically impossible. The only way it's possible is if they contractor steal and
109cheat or and this is capitalism if illegal right and that doesn't affect the smoke test. They don't know affect. And so I want to highlight for the district project labor agreements are the only legal way to deliver cost savings to the taxpayer on the public first project. You have to have your state certified to pay anybody less than project labor agreement will not change the hiring practices or process of the district. It does exempt district from law. also will deliver cost savings anywhere projected from 3 to 10% because you will no longer have to go out for purposes for a GC mechanical electrical contract you can hire one contractor I think you will receive construction that you're paying um and then final point I guess I would make again anybody local conversation um project labor
110guarantees people will Local union members by definition are local. And so when a project agreement applies against construction or any construction, we're guaranteeing that when we're investing your tax dollars, we're reinvesting in people that call space home. And so for all of those reasons and more, I'm firmly in support of this legislation that I know has come before you and would be interested additional conversation. >> Thank you. to share your name. >> Ryan, >> thank you. But thank you, Ryan. Um, if you um I know that you sent us an email, so if we have any questions, we'll reach out to you. Um, we always need time to kind of think about it and figure out what it is we want to ask. So, we'll bring it up again um in one of our next
111meetings. >> Thank you, >> okay. Is there anybody else who would like to speak on agenda or non-aggenda items? Okay. Um, I need a motion to go into executive session to begin the process of evaluating the superintendent. Motion, Kelly. Second, Desmond. Any discussion? All in favor? Good night. Thank you, everyone.