001Okay, we're back online. All right, so ladies and gentlemen, before we move forward, I just want to make sure we celebrate one more thing and then we'll get back to the budget. Well, now that we're back online, a special shout out to seventh grader Zachariah Joseph who came in first place out of 140 students in the competition at the math masters. So congratulations to um before you continue I just want to talk quickly about the schedule of dates because you know that our board meetings are usually scheduled on Thursdays and we actually changed the April 10th date which is on a Thursday to April 9th and I know every time we do something that causes great amounts of discussion and it wasn't because we want less people to come. It's actually Reckler who is the
002developer for the Island Hills um proposal which is called Island now is having a community forum on the 10th and had put it online and had sold tickets and had done the whole thing and we know some of us and many of you would like to be at that meeting. We did not think that the night we were going to propose our budget we should be in competition with something as important as that to our committee. So we moved it to the 9th to make sure that more people can come. So please know that we did that with great thought which is also that's what was it? The junior bankquidqu. Oh it's also junior banquet. Yes. Sorry. All right. Can everyone hear me on the mic now? Okay. Take it out of here so we
003can do this. Um all right. So, as we were working on this budget, um, prior to us kind of being in this situation where, we were talking about our five-year plan and the things we wanted to put in the budget, and we were really looking forward to a lot of different things like teacher coaches at the elementary schools, increasing our world language program in grade two and also making it every day in seventh grade. Um, team leaders at the middle school to enhance uh just the the team team meeting time and enhancements of classroom spaces. The board also asked uh prior to this uh if I could show them a scenario of the budget with armed perimeter guards in it, which I did at the last meeting. I want to emphasize that all of those
004things are now out of our budget. It's not going to be in our budget at all. I also want to apologize to any of the teachers or staff who thought that I implied or if I did imply that armed guards were more important than educators. That was not my intention to say that. At the time, we thought we could have both. So, I just um wanted to clarify that for everybody. I I I think that one of the biggest mispeaks, if that's even a word, from the last meeting was the teacher survey numbers when in fact they were never actually surveyed. I think that's pretty that's a misrepresentation because they weren't asked, right? So I had had a conversation with some teachers who had supposed about 50% were in favor and I shouldn't have said
005that. There was no survey and there was no official talk, but I had heard that said and I repeated it and I saw they should have. So I apologize for that as well. Um, in terms of how do we balance this budget, we have to do a couple of things. Uh, none of which we like. Uh, none of which we want, but things that we feel we must propose in order to get to a balanced budget. Um, the first of which we had already intended to do, but I just want to clarify because there was also some statements uh that, you know, it wasn't quite what I said and I want to make sure we clarify. We are reducing one assistant superintendent for human resources. That position was vacated in August, but will be reflected
006in our budget for next year. We did add a civil service human resources officer though to help with that load. And we did and we will be reducing one human resources clerical position. So there are two people out, one person in for a significant savings of about $200,000. They're also um in our plan reducing the elementary assistant principal at Lincoln Avenue Elementary School. I want to kind of specify that this is a a wonderful man who we love and knows does great things for kids. Uh but when we created that position, we were in a time of transition and the plan was always to be a transition period from one principal to another. It was also our hope and we used grant money to pay for that. It was our hope that if things were
007good, we could can increase that, but it's not in the budget at this time. So, I just wanted to point that out. The total savings for our administrative cuts that we're proposing is $45,000. We also have reductions. Sorry, can you just speak up a little bit louder? Yeah, sorry. I'm going to try to do that. I apologize. Okay. Um, we also have reductions due to decrease in enrollment. Talking about these decreasing enrollment uh in any event, but we had other plans that we wanted to enhance things, but in this budget, we cannot enhance. Um we are going to be down a6 art to steam teacher uh due to enrollment. There is going to be no change in the art steam program. All the programs at the high school will run, all the programs the middle
008school will run and all the programs at the elementary schools will run. We will be down a music teacher. Um again uh that is an enrollmentbased decision which also helps with the financial state status of the district. Uh there will still be a fourth and fifth grade band. There will still be middle school programs and high school programs. exactly as they are. Uh the elementary band lesson group sizes will go to about five uh per group plus or minus depending on if there's flutes or tubas. They might be smaller or larger but we feel this is a exact experience that we had planned for our students and we'll continue to plan. We are down a speech teacher at uh at our elementary level either point4 or 6 that is based on cse IEP uh requirements.
009uh we we provide speech services for mandated cases and uh it just is not needed based on our projections at this time. Uh we also are down four elementary classroom teachers uh three of which will be at the second grade level next year and one of which will be at the first grade level. current grade levels are 14, 15, and 16 with an average. And we felt that to be fiscally responsible, we should really be closer to the average of the rest of the district, those class sizes next year will be about 23. Um, there will be a 24, there will be a 22, but basically a 23. And as I said, those regular classrooms will will not exceed 25 in any scenarios. Um, we also were looking at our permanent substitute teaching staff. We
010had four permanent subs in each building. Uh, we we do benefit from those. We have consistency in terms of who's supporting our kids. We also use PD support when we do PD programming and or professional development during the day. We can have teachers covered. Uh, but we realize that we can reduce some of that and get by with one less per building. The total cost savings there is $640,000. And again, um, while we love every single person involved in this situation, um, there's no impact to the programming of our district with regards to interventions. These are the ones that really hurt because they do reduce programs and these are ones we are loaded to do. Uh, one proposal is the world language and elementary teachers and that would be our K12 program. It was our
011plan to expand the program to second grade, our three, four, five laces program and we also were hoping to expand the program in seventh grade every day. Um, but in this current situation we're not able to do that. Um, we also were looking at our math AIS across the district. Uh, two years ago we had one teacher in each building. We worked really hard to get that to two. We believe in the two in each building because we want to provide a balanced level of RTI support for our students across the three elementary schools. uh working with the principles we were able to design a structure that we think will um not be reduction backwards to one but get it to about 1.4 per building. So the impact of these cuts do affect our programs
012and we want to be clear about that. We would no longer offer world language in the K1 program or the LASIS 35 program at the elementary level and all three elementary schools would have 1.4 four teachers dedicated to math A support. And the way we're achieving that is we were looking to have with our steam teachers also due to enrollment, we could have a six steam teacher in each building and then those steam teachers in each building would no longer travel. So we would have more time to be in the building and they would pick up the AIS portion of that was lost. So it is a loss. It's not something we want to do, but we feel that with that 1.4 um it's not as big a loss as if we had just one.
013But again, two years ago, we had one. We went up to two and now we'd be at 1.4. If we do these things, um, that would be a $300,000 savings to the district and we would be able to be at a balanced budget. Um, and that's the proposal on the table. Want to hear comments from the board and then of course we'll allow comments from the public. We know that all of these things are important and we want all these things and we want to be able to do these things, but we are not able to and something has to give if we're going to get a budget that's balanced at 105. Okay. Of course, please excuse my voice. I'm losing it. First, I do not agree I will not agree with getting rid of
014the world language program. We are an educational institution and we're supposed to look at the broad picture for all of our students. All of our students, whether they be students that have difficulty or students that are advanced. The other one is our STEM or STEAM program, whatever they call it, depends on the day. I I also agree that has to move forward. That is the future. That is the way we do things. You have to look at everything we print out. It has to be in bilingual. Why do we put it in bilingual if it could be saying something terrible? I can't read it. I don't know what it is. We have to teach our students so they can be successful moving forward. Language is very, very important. And I will not give up on
015it. Thank you. [Applause] Um, I just like to reiterate that this is a proposed budget. We are work, we are working, we have pages and pages of ideas that we are still trying to put through. This is not a done deal yet. Um, I'm sure I speak for everybody on the board that this has been an extremely difficult process, even worse than last year. you um have been worrying about this and talking about this and receiving your emails and trying to come up with ideas. Um I agree all all the programs are important. Um I happen to have two children in the district who benefited greatly from the world language program. They their Spanish classes. Um I also think the math AIS is so important. Um that are struggling that are struggling with math. Obviously,
016we need to help them. Um, so I did just want to say that this is a proposed budget and we're still working. Um, one other thing, this scar is part of this budget. First of all, I want to say to the governor something I can't say online. um because what she has done to Sable is appalling. Secondly, uh she puts mandates in, but she doesn't pay for them. She doesn't look at the educational possibility of students. Secondly, I want to say the scary part of this is if the budget goes down, we lose so much more. We're caught between a rock and a hard place. This is awful. Absolutely awful. Contact your legislators. Please do something. I just want to I just want to point out that um we did get foundation aid increase of
0172%. It was $400,000. The governor did put that forward. Also, I've spoken to Senator Week and uh Mr. Gondalfo. They are both very supportive and they've been doing sorry, I've spoken to Senator Week and uh Jared Gondalfo and they are very supportive and and there's nothing that anyone in the government I mean the system is the system but the governor did put forth a budget with a 2% increase for savings. So I just want to be clear about that. Um, there are other factors, a variety of factors that are putting us in the spot that we're in, which we described last week and we'll describe again in the budget presentation on April 9th and of course answer questions as we get tonight. But I I don't think we can pin it on any one uh
018government or group or anything like that. Uh declining enrollments that that also is playing a factor as well, right? Yes. Because that's directly what the state aid is based on. And with the declining enrollments, we keep getting less state aid. Well, we foundation aid has been protected and they they did give us our foundation aid, but our expense driven aids are a little bit lower as a result. I said foundation aid has been protected through save harmless. So, we did get our save harmless foundation aid, but it's the expense driven aid that we have. Whereas, correct me if I'm wrong, but other districts got four or five% increases, right? We're we're getting very minimal increases compared to other districts. That is correct. Okay. Any other comments? Yeah. Yeah. Just I had a couple questions. Um
019so one back to the the the bus contract because that that's really bothered me. Um the monopoly that the bus companies hold in the districts. Uh only getting one um bid when you send it out. And in all my research that I've done, it's basically come back to that they've created a mafia where they have now like split up uh sections and you stay away from mine, I'll stay away from yours and then and then this is where we're stuck with. So I I understand that's how it works and and it's legal. My my question is could we have done uh could we have contacted a company like transportation advisory services and and perhaps done like an efficiency study where they come in and they they test the efficiency of the routes. They test the
020timing of the routes, the number of buses needed and where they could, you know, maybe adjust some times and things like that where we could have then had to use maybe less buses and I is that something that we could still possibly do? I know you said if it was after the April 19th before we had to send it to the state that savings then would be down the road, but is that something that we could do even after the budget with a current contract? I mean, I know you could do it with a current contract. Yeah. Um so even I know I'm trying to turn on um Suffach Transportation uh had actually offered to run uh software that is used by our transportation clerical in uh our office. Um but actually we say where
021our students are and uh it is SUFFK that then routes their large buses and the if there are vans that are needed. um they can absolutely do uh routing for us to see the efficiencies or the times we're you know we are kind of um I don't want to say stuck but we have certain start times for our um we have three elementary schools they have different start times the high school the middle school so um there it's a very calculated uh No that was saying I because they they did one at my school and it and it resulted uh massive savings because they they adjust their start times. Now I know as a teacher I I my start time works for me when I get you know like when I drop grading open school
022but if if it you know I'm not the only person that lives in the district. So if if it resulted in savings it I'm I'm just saying is it something that we could look in for it would be an outside agency right and TAS is the only one that I know of. Um yeah, we we could it would be an independent um survey. Sure. And also to add on that, we worked with transportation to try to look at routes, look at any buses that were lower subscribed and try to condense them. We also did a survey to parents. We had about 50 responses and that six of the volunteers didn't qualify for busing anyway. So we had about 44. And when they were spread out all over town, it didn't result in a a condensed.
023Desmond, just can you clarify what you just said? Um I think did you just say that they did that assessment in your district and they did and then what it you changed your start times of the schools. They just rotated it. What they did was they made one school that was a late school that school due to um efficiency rating. They they decided that it would be better if this school's time aligned with the middle schools and so that that resulted in uh savings. Were there any other changes that were proposed? Uh I'm I think bus numbers factory numbers and buses and they change the routes and things like that. Thank you. But you know that's kind of I um that's almost a standard practice like that's one of the first things because what you
024would prefer to do would be to have one bus running multiple schools. That's just more efficient which cost savings. Yeah. I think on more general terms uh we don't like the position we're in. Um, our programs have taken generations to develop. I mean, we look at our world language. My daughter's benefited from it. I've had a daughter minoring in Spanish because of the fine language program. We had another daughter also benefited from that as these are programs that have been carefully curated and created and run. Um, so this is extremely painful um to everybody here and toss included. I think we have definitely worked hard to look everywhere for what we we so we had ambitions to kind of make a more robust curriculum. Um those things had unfortunately had to be cut. Um we
025don't like it. Um you know I think we've created such a fine school district and that again generations so we're not loving the situation we're in. Um and there were certain factors that were late developments that weren't we could not anticipate. Uh and we actually took some like very assertive actions uh with other municipalities that we could get everything we could get out of every dollar because like the position we're in. Um so I'm very appreciative that people are here because because we care is why we're such an exceptional district. Uh but this is painful. Uh and we're sorry that we're going through this together. And this is the slide that I think if we could do anything about we would want to. This is the slide if we could do anything about if anything
026changes that we would want to address. I have a couple. Go ahead. Just a moment. Wait one minute. Go ahead. Um, so I just have a couple more questions. Uh Mark, can you just help explain the three teachers being lost to attrition and and what that means like in lay terms? Sure. So, originally we thought it would be four, but it's three and then one excess. I think you were talking about I'll just go back to the slide. Uh the elementary classroom teachers. So, um there were two teachers and again I want to preface this but all teachers matter, right? all teachers whether they're leave replacements, whether they're probationary, it doesn't matter. But uh there are leave replacement positions where the person who was on leave was not coming back. So the okay so that
027would if the teacher is not coming back that would be through attrition. If it's a person was supposed to come back and they were cut that would be an excit. So we believe three of those would be through attrition. So when you say so when you say through attrition through that do you mean that those uh sections are collapsing? All four of the sections are collapsing. Okay. But the the staff members associated with it, one is being accessed, three are through attrition, meaning there's there's not a probationary person. Yeah. There's not a probationary person attached to it. It would be a leave replacement who was under the impression that they had a one-year deal anyway. I'm not saying there's they're less than they don't matter. I'm just giving you as an example what that definition
028is. Okay. And I just have one more time. Um, I just have a question about our reserves. Rhonda, um, are our reserves fully funded? Uh, no. Our, um, I'm gonna speak loud. Okay. We're sharing my No, no, that's okay. Um, so our TRS and our ERS reserves. Um, our ERS is about where it should be. You like to trend about three and a half years of an annual cost of the employees retirement system contribution. our teachers retirement system is very very low. We have appropriated from that um every year uh and we have about a year left and then we have no TRS reserve. So if I may jump in. So um I've learned a lot people. I'm looking into external financial statements fiscal stress scores and I'd like to jump off that. So for
029our team CRS reserve in 23 uh we had 9.2 million and for 24 we have 7.7 million. I'm just going to let you know about these decreases because a lot of people emailed me and I thank you and your phone calls and people in the financial world uh Rhonda and other district office business people have come to me and given me lessons. So, our unemployment insurance, we're also down $600,000 and our employee benefited liability is down 1.3 million. So, from it's a problem. We went from 31 million to 20 million. And then our fiscal stress score is um our gross expenditures are 101 million and our revenue is 97 million. That's a problem. Yeah. So many people have asked me about this and I promised you I would look into it. These are the numbers.
030These are the numbers. Y I just want to So are we spending too much? I just want to say with regard to the unemployment reserve that was money that had come through COVID. So last year we had intentionally moved 600,000 out of that. There's actually a resolution on for this evening to remove a remaining 700. That was an overfunded reserve and it is for unemployment. We're self-insured for unemployment. So our unemployment expenses are roughly 50,000 a year. We don't need what is currently in that reserve. So we're bringing that into our fund balance so that we can use that for appropriation. That's good to know because I was really concerned with how many people did we put out on unemployment. Yeah, that was that was my question. My question was how many people are not
031working for that number so Yeah. I mean, we don't we have um that was a result of of the co of Yeah. I mean, I have to say that um this is not the only school that's going through this right now. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to say this is not the only school that's going through this situation. We've had We're not worried about Okay. Sorry. Excuse me. Can I speak? Okay. No, and I just want to say that um probably last year we probably should have been more conservative and reduced costs last year, but we were hopeful that the aid situation would get a little bit better. So, and and that's why we're taking action now because it wouldn't be prudent to use more reserves to maintain uh the the organization
032that we have. what we're trying to do is to to have a sustainable organization, a district going forward and that's why we have to make these hard decisions. Well, and and can I just say like obviously I agree with you the one way to to initiate sustainability is to curb spending. That's number one. Number two, my question where I was meeting with the reserves um was if the pilot if the if the deficit created by the pilot loss were to be offset by reserves, what would our budget look like? What would what would what would the losses be like? Or would it help balance out? Because it's being it's being portrayed as like this I I know we don't like the word anomaly. I know I used it last weekend, but it's being portrayed as
033like this almost perfect storm of negative events that are affecting us that typically wouldn't occur. And if you are if you are labeling um your reserve fund as like your rainy day fund, I I mean I would say it's boring, right? Right. So if you could if we could right if if you know what that what the pilot number would be like and you put the pilot let's just say you put the pilot number back in there and the budget looks healthier and better and we can offset some of these losses that were created in the budget then that should at least be an option. I know I know dipping into reserves, but if you're telling me that this is the perfect storm that has negative effects, then perhaps it's something that I just want
034to say on the pilot subject. I think I if I understand correctly, um this is a reduction that the town of ISIL is giving us going forward and also and we're not going to be able to change that. Okay, sorry. The pilot situation is a situation that town did. They gave a tax break to the Bristol. We have no involvement in that what they just told us that this reduction was. Absolutely. So if we use money in our reserves to fill that gap, we're only harming ourselves next year. But it's an it's an unanticipated loss. So now moving forward, we know that that loss is there. This is an unanticipated, right? Like where you going to get that money from? But you have that's what we have to do. That's what you have to figure
035out. But I'm saying like this is unanticipated. We couldn't we couldn't predict this. Correct. We had no idea that this was as far as our reserves intent because we use reserves to to maintain other things. It wouldn't be prudent to keep depleting a reserve because what will happen in a couple of years is then you'll be in a real problem. I think what [Music] All right, let's um just Yeah, I just I just I I just want to say that this problem is not just an anomaly for this year. It's a hold over of our castings last year when we lost or we didn't get made whole farm less last year and we all went into panic mode and realized that there may be a lot of cuts. We put forward a retirement center for
036the for our employees, the teachers, and they took it. We lost 18 jobs. And then we got the holdless money back. And I think that a lot of people thought, "Oh, we were okay. We got all of our money back." We still had to cut nine positions last year because harmless money wasn't enough to cover our increases. So last year we cut nine positions and went into the budget and tried to trim some of the places that we could that weren't affect programs. So last year we didn't affect programs. This year we're back in a position where again between our revenues and our expenditures, we don't have enough. And there's only so much that you can do that you continue to go back and look. And some people are you know you we got all
037your emails. I appreciate all of your emails and and I appreciate your appreciation for us and um and I agree every program that every one of you advocated to be saved. Trust me, I want to save. We all want to save. But when you read the emails, everyone's advocating for something different. And there's still bottom line really tough decisions that have to be made. And whether they're these decisions or some other decisions, there is a lot of like we want X, but other people want Y. And some people say keep both and some will keep none, right? But they're they're all over the place. So, we're trying to make the best decisions we can going forward with the least pain possible. And we play a dance because our students are important to us, our parents
038are important to us, our taxpayers are important to us, our teachers are important to us. So, we're trying to find a place that we can save as many jobs as possible because our our staff is very often our community and at the same token make cut some places where our students aren't going to be heard. And then you get to a point where you've done that dance and then there's still more that need to be cut. So, we're going to walk out of this budget season and a lot of people are going to be unhappy because we're going to make decisions that we have to make. It's not that we want to make them. And what do we do? We want to increase exp, you know, our revenue, right? And Desmond and Kathy make good
039points of where can we get more money and then we also have to cut expenses. So some people will clap when we say cut expenses and others will clap when they say get more revenue. But it the reality is we don't have either of those things right now. We have high expenses and low revenue. So we're going to have to make the decisions. So we do appreciate your your opinions and they mean a lot. They make us think and they make us really go back and look at what it is or where we're going to have to make cuts, but the truth is they're going to have to be made somewhere. And we don't want the community at odds with us or with each other over what those things should be. We're going to try
040to cut the places that give us the best money value without having the with having the least effect on our students. I mean, those are the decisions that we're making. And all of you, many of you have varying opinions on how the best way to do that is. And that's a tough position. So yes, we want to hear from you, but your anger at us is is is a little bit u we don't want that. We want to hear your opinions so that we can take every one of your opinions into consideration. And the statement is accurate. The statement is accurate. We need to reduce our spending as much as we can and do the best we can to not hurt our programs. And we also need to figure out how we can look at
041the revenue side and ensure that that is where it needs to be in the future. Anyone else from the board? I mean I also just want to point out even with the tax cap last year the tax cap was nearly 4%. And this year the tax cap is close to 2%. So that is a reduction in revenue that we didn't get this year and that's contributing right and even with that 2% our revenue is still in the negative this year as opposed to the last is the h how how directly impacted is the tax cap number you get Rhonda based on the previous year you just start with the prior tax levy that is your base um of course adjusted for prrated taxes um and then you apply the um you know the two different
042rates as I had shared in the screen you know you first have uh your tax base growth factor which is 1.00 that changes every year it depends that comes um you know from the state then you also have your allowable levy growth factor it's at 2%. Yeah. So it's you know the the either CPI or 2% whichever is lower. Okay. Um and then you apply uh this is in essence the calculation you have um a capital you have your prior year's pilots which you can see was 7866 that was estimated. However, what we learned in addition to the Bristol getting a reduction in their assessment from 2 million5 to 2,75 that was 425 reduction. Um we also were subjected to a credit from 1516 all the way through to 2425 that was taken and granted
043to them in the 2425 year. So here we're waiting for our pilot payments and they're coming in at half of what we anticipated. So as an example for this year when we expected a revenue from the bristle of $788,000, we ended up getting shorted $460,000 of what our projected revenue was supposed to be. And that also throws off our projected revenue for this year because it's out of whack. And you have to kind of adjust for that moving forward. Well, now we know that there's a red assessment. Um but then you you know add you you take out you add back the prior year's pilot you take out the current year's pilot and there's only one pilot it's the brisket correct um and then there is a capital um exclusion amount that encompasses our debt
044service and then also the million dollar transfer that we do for capital projects less the building aid piece. So, uh, that's that's how the calculation comes and each year stands on its own. You know, your debt service, principal, and interest payments change each year. Um, what the million dollars has been a pretty consistent number that the district has used to fund their capital projects. Um, it was specifically in the last few years, it's been bathroom projects. We did all the elementary schools and now we're into the secondary schools. Um and uh last year there was an adjustment for ERS contribution because it was a greater increase than 2%. No adjustment this year for that. So you really have to go through the calculation and each year kind of stands on its own with the um
045outside factors that come into play. Okay. Um obviously because we don't have to adopt the budget until the 25th, we we will uh we're asking uh the administration to look further uh to see where they can um find some savings without impacting the program. And uh if we get more money from the state uh on April 1st, that's when this state they hopefully, you know, supposed to have maybe a couple days later depending on when they The point is we can always schedule a meeting before the deadline on the 25th of April to adopt a revised budget is my point. Yes, correct. We don't have this on I just wanted to say is bothering me because we were offline before and we just spoke about a few things and then people at home didn't hear.
046So one thing I want to reiterate basically for the people at home is that at the last budget meeting we the board wanted to clarify that we asked Dr. Ferris to get an estimate for the armed guards and that was presented but that was not presented as a definite in the budget and I I just want people to know that while we wanted to hear about it that wasn't something that we hadn't asked to be put in the budget definitively. I've received a lot of emails from people basically saying that our job is to educate and not to have armed guards. I know that's not the feeling of everybody in here or everybody at home, but I just wanted to let people know that we're very mindful of what this budget means and where we
047can spend money and what's most important for our children. Thank you. And and also I believe that and also I think Dr. Ferris, when you recommended putting it in the budget, it wasn't even what the original plan was of two at the high school, two at the middle school, and one at each elementary. And I don't think people even know knew that was changed. Right. I didn't. Well, it was in the presentation. Okay. Okay. [Music] Questions for the board? Anything more than that? You're done with the presentation? Okay. Second. Okay. So, I move on to board of education discussion. Um, we already discussed our uh budget priorities. um upcoming training opportunities. We have the NASA SU School Board Cyber Security Insurance Compliance webinar on April 22nd between 6:00 and 7:30 p.m. That's in the evening.
048Um we have the NISMBA leading together, welcoming and supporting student leadership um on your board webinar on April 23rd. Uh that's between uh 12 and 1:30 p.m. That's in the afternoon. Okay. Uh but it will be recorded for uh anyone that wants to watch it. Okay. Any other discussion? I I'd like to share something. So a few people reached out to me. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay, great. So a few people reached out to me um very concerned about the regionalization. So I had said that although we are part of it, we do not have to participate in anything and I wanted to confirm that and u I did refer to uh new york stateed.gov and I'd like to read it to you. Note that each school district is not required
049to have any activity for their school listed in the plan only to contribute to the conversations. So I hope that makes you feel better. But I would also add as we've always done in this district whenever it seems uh to make sense and it's beneficial for the district we have gone into contracts with other districts to save money like in busing or in sports. We're even voting on stuff tonight. You know this is a a way of saving costs in the district. Okay. Any other discussion? Yes. Um, so I was looking at the sheet about um our uh student observers and student teachers and I love that. I think that's great. So we have English, social studies, visual arts, health, and elementary. And I think we as a district need to be proactive and recruit
050student teachers in physics, tech, and world language because otherwise we're going to be desperate looking for them. Okay, I think that's Good idea. Yeah, I think it's really a wonderful idea to use student teachers as a as a kind of farm team to get them into the district. Yeah, we can bring them into our district and teach them and then hopefully hold on to them. Yes. Okay. Any other comments? You good? She said she Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. So now at this time I want to uh open up to public comment. Right now uh this this public comment session is for items that are going to be voted on and then after we vote on the items then we have a public comment that's open for other topics. So can I have a show of
051hands? Anybody wants to speak at this time? You're asking to hold a budget comment till after we vote on this. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be on the second. Okay. Good. So then I'll we'll vote on the public comment here. Okay. Um I need a motion for items 701 recommended action minutes to u items finance 822. Can I have a motion? Motion. That's Christine. Second. Kelly second. discussion. All those in favor against motion passes. And then I did a motion for new business personnel 901 through new business other 903 motion. Motion second. Second. Okay, that's Kelly and James discussion. No, that's not the That's up to the Sorry. Um and uh there's no discussion. All those in favor? Against? I'm in favor. Motion passes. Okay. Then we have upcoming dates. On March 31st, we have superintendence conference
052day. Uh, schools are closed for students. On April 2nd, we have World Autism. On April 9th, we have a middle school concert at 7:00 p.m. And on April 9th, we have the board of education workshop at 7:30. Okay. Now, I will open the comment period of other comments. Let me just read the statement. The board of education appreciates feedback from the community and we recognize free speech as one of our fundamental freedoms. These freedoms not without restrictions. We follow regulations by law and board policy as we encourage our community members to offer public comment. According to state school board policy 12:30, we request the following. Participations in public session must demonstrate civility as they address the board and communities. 30 minutes have been set aside for comments by the public. The board reserves right to
053limit or extend public participation if it deems necessary. Comments and questions from the public are limited to three minutes of rehearsal and should be related to school matters. Speakers are requested to identify themselves or the group they represent and direct their comments to the board. The board will not permit discussion involving individual students, district personnel or community members. The full policy is available on the district website and we appreciate your support to have a meeting. Thank you. I have a show in hands who would like to speak. Okay, so um let's start over here. Hi there. My name is Chris Robinson and concerning parents and uh one of the main concerns is I'm love numbers and I'm sorry but all those numbers they're not adding up to me. So I would just like more details
054like I know you mentioned um interest payments you know like what increase city interest payments to the district. How much is being spent on buildings and grounds? How much is being spent on educators expenses? How much like I really want to look at this to see why we're still in the hole and why we are in position. So I mean, you know, I always look at things like five years down the road and I think I heard somebody mention a fiveyear plan. you know, how did that fiveyear plan do what's not adding up to me is, you know, I I see a $333,000 loss in there, but why are we cutting like a million and a half dollars worth of staff? That's what's not adding up to me. So, is it because interest payments are
055limiting um because interests are higher now postco or we just go on a spending spree during COVID with federal money and everything like that and now we're kind of paying the piper. like that's what I'm confused about. I'm feeling like I'm not getting that from the numbers. Thank you. We're going to take comments and then we'll uh comment where we can afterwards. And also if you could just leave your um contact information for us. We we'd love to invite you in. We can show you. Sorry. Sorry for kind of cutting the line. Thank you for the question. I'm sorry. I didn't know you didn't tell anybody. Anyway, congratulations. Where's the mic? Oh, they can't hear me. Oh, okay. Hi. Hello everybody. Um, I have some questions about the presentation and just general statements. The first
056general one I would make, I want you to answer me. I think you all the answer to the community. We have a million dollar general capital reserve fund. That money can be transferred or some of it by a resolution and put in the general fund to pay for some of these classes you were looking to get rid of to meet your budget. This presentation that you put up, the numbers don't add up because they are wrong. You have the 2.2 2 cap on one page and the 2.31 on another with the same amount of budget. So, is the new budget 105 million you're looking at? That's what I'm asking. You don't have to tell me now. I'll look at the video later. There are no expenses anywhere. We haven't seen any expense side of our
057budget. This is the end of March. I know the old budget calendar I've been telling them for years. This is really a shame. There's no information. There's no debt service. There's no enrollment fudgies, nothing. So, nobody really has an idea here. And my two minutes are up. There wasn't a proper bus study done. To ask people to opt out is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion because what are they going to do on a snow day? Is Gan going to change it in the early afternoon for 20 parents if everybody's cars in the shop? There's no budget hearing date on this presentation. the human resources department. All this was already done. You're making it appear like you're going to do it in a new budget, but it was done. Pete's no longer here. You hired someone,
058I won't mention their name, to take his place. She's not going to be doing the work anymore. So, that was already finished. There's no reason to cut 300,000 for language. Is that what it is, Marine? I think that's what you said, right? There's a million over a million in that account. Okay. It could be moved over. It shouldn't be referring to the capital reserve. I'm sorry. Are you referring to the capital reserve? Yes, I am. This was your original presentation. You were not getting pear capital. You weren't going to cut programs anything for the kids, right? So, we need to stick to that to vote and it's possible. You have the money. You guys spent over what they what the community approved last year. That was $3 million. You approved increasing the budget we voted
059on. So now we have to make up those funds before we add new. That's where our problem is. I'm sure Bon is aware of that. We shouldn't be doing that. Every year you do that and you increase spending as you are, we get deeper and deeper in a hole. And one day you're going to tell us we have to close Cherry Avenue. And the community is not going to like that. Okay. We spent 1.3 million on average over 7 years before you were here. Since you become you've been here, nothing personal. This is a numbers thing. 3.3 million a year. And it I'm sorry that did not go to children. Maybe we had to get rid of them years ago. They were unsanitary. I'm just saying. Thank you. Um, anybody else? How's everybody doing? I
060think Teal just called everybody out on what we're lacking. Why are we so poor? Like, we paid so much in taxes and we're so far behind on everything. Where is the misuse of all of our money going? That's all I have to say. I mean, all I'm hearing is since you came in, we've been at a deficit for year after year or however long. Why are we so far behind? Why are we not tapping into the reserves? Why is the administration taking pay increases right now? It shouldn't happen. Hi Christine. Um if the legis legislature restores funding to stable, what are your priorities? What are you going to bring back restoration? Um, I bring back the world and then [Music] I'll bring back whatever brings back the most bodies. Yes, I bring back at least
061language program. And they want you to speak into the most back. Yes, the language program and for elementary students and the uh and to see if we can keep our teachers going and see what we need for the future. I want to thank you for making it a priority to do things that are impacting the kids directly that's impacting their education. Thank you. That's on purpose. Uh that is exactly the way I feel. Uh, someone else. Good evening everyone. My name is Karen Corbin. Um, at the last board meeting, we were given an example of that this budget issue would be as if you had to take a pay cut at work, but the bills were still going up. That's what you have a savings account for. You don't have a savings account to go
062on a spend money, to go on vacation, to do things. to tap into that savings account to keep your household afloat and normal for your children and for everybody else. So, I don't understand why we're not tapping into the reserves. Um, it's actually quite infuriating. I want to thank Desmond and Kathy for being here and actually questioning everything that everybody back here is thinking because it's absolutely absurd. This is what those funds should be used for. We should I agree with her. We shouldn't be cutting things like the language program for our children compared to other countries. We are so behind on different languages and having many people speak different languages. When you take a pay cut at work and your bills go up, you tap into your savings account. There is no reason why
063we can't do that here. Especially with the savings that we've been told are going to come next year, like the savings that we're having from the solar panels, the money that's coming in. Is there something going on with Bristol? Is that money coming back to us somehow? We need to be able to tap into the savings. We need to stop the bleeding and that's how you stop it. I I don't know why we can't agree on that. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Um Amanda Mullen. I honestly don't even know where to start tonight. Normally I stand at this podium and the only thing that I speak about is protecting our kids in the best way that we possibly can. It's no secret that I've led this charge for armed guards. I am horrified by
064the amount of cuts that are happening in this district. We all pay $15,000 or more to live in this community for not the cute little downtown. That's a bonus. We're here for the schools. The schools and what makes them so special are the people sitting in these seats, these educators, the programs that we want. Your job as a board is to protect our children, protect the people that educate our children, and to protect the programs that we live here for. This is an absolute mess. Many of us talk in this community and we want an external audit. Where is this money going? There is no logical explanation other than that there has been a disaster and misappropriation of funds for far too long. I want clarification while I stand here on these cuts for the
065elementary school because I'm not a mathematician. I run a business but your math doesn't math. You're saying that there is one teacher cut for elementary in excess. There's three. I want it explained better. I'm sitting in this audience of people filled with teachers. We're losing one in Cherry. We're losing one in Lincoln. We're losing one in Sunrise. Yes or no? Because the the presentation leads us to believe that there's one. And that's just not the case. There are four people. four people total to include the AP at my school. Yes. Great. That's not okay. We're not going to accept it. The teacher shouldn't accept it and neither should this board. That's it. Thank you. [Applause] Anybody else? Thank you very much for your comments. Uh the board really appreciates the open dialogue. Thank you. Just
066one question that was asked was uh a request for an external audit. Every school district in New York State are required to have and undergo an annual external audit. Those are conducted after the books are closed for the year and the purpose is an opinion on set of financial statements. Every audited financial statement is on our website. So you can uh check those out there. [Music] Correct. We have we have both internal and external auditors. We're required to do that by law. So we do and we also have a claims auditor. Our internal auditor is serves the purpose of risk assessment and uh also provides annual reports. Those two are on our websites. Just Um, Mr. Robinson, uh, I would love to invite you in and just, you know, if you want to talk about
067those numbers and Sorry. Um, I'm just responding to Mr. Robinson. Um, if you'd like to come in and set up an appointment, we could go over some things. We will be presenting to Teal's question, the entire expenditure budget on April 9th. everything the three-part budget which includes the um well you can explain what it includes but all of the different aspects of our budget on the expense side will be presented on April 9th. Yeah. The threepart budget is uh is the administrative capital and program. It's the three components of the budget. It's just another way of looking at it. And I do believe Mr. Robinson will get a lot more information on April 9th because you will then see an entire budget both the revenue side and expenditure side and I think rather than just
068bits and pieces of a budget uh it will make a lot more sense for many I think it's Mr. Robertson, I'm sorry. Robert, my apologies. And did I and did we massively overspend from our our budget from last year? No. No. No. I think that was an inaccurate statement. Uh I believe we spent $1 million less this year than last year, I believe. No. I mean, did we did we overspend on what our stated budget was? So, we have never overspent our adopted budget. Um what we had done is had expenditures that were in in excess car revenues. Those are called operating deficits. Um we've had that last year and uh the projection that I had shared is showing that for this year as well. Um I think what um perhaps Miss Rizzo had made
069a comment to was um when we have our original budget when you encumber at the end of one year that means you have outstanding purchase orders those are commitments of items that you have you know committed to but you either don't have the goods or you haven't paid an actual invoice. you need to keep those incumbrances, those purchase letters all together and they serve to increase the next year's budget. So I think that presentation is what is being discussed that you know it's a function of how you are able to keep one year's budget, the prior year's budget intact and you're still you've committed with those monies. It just didn't come to fruition by the end or the close of your book. So you bring that forward and that in itself increases the next year's
070adopted budget and you're trying to keep those monies separate you know from your uh adopted budget of the next year. So an external audit or auditor would see that and pick up on that. Absolutely. Uh an external auditor one of the functions of an external audit would be to actually audit what your outstanding incumbrances are at the end of the year. Is our external audit is that by law? Is that is that is that public? Yes, it's on the website. And the presentations are typically done in the first part of October. Yes. Because they are due to the state education department by October 15th. And could you just share the outcome of our recent external audits because I think it's important for people to know that um the highest opinion you could receive on a
071set of financial statements is an unmodified uh opinion and that is what the district has received on our external audit um financial statements. That's one you showed about three three or four weeks ago in October. No, in October. Um, typically it's the external auditor that has an exit conference with the board of education, goes through all the financials and the note disclosures and then once those are accepted by the board and submitted to the state education department, they are placed on our website. Okay? And every payment that is issued by the district is reviewed by a claims order that to ensure that it's proper and that's the function of the claims. That's the function of the claims order represents the board of education. Yes. I have a question. Um do we have the ability to
072move money from the capital reserve fund? So the capital reserve fund was was established by the public referendum. Uh it is specific in terms of what may be used for. There are time limits of of funding that reserve and it also um has uh you know a period of time and amount of I think yours is unlimited but um in order to take money from that reserve you have to have a public preference. All of those stipulations for that fun are can be found on our website like all those things you just said. Yeah. So even in the state controls office they have very each reserve has very specific general municipal law. Really the only reserves that we're able to appropriate for some of our expenditures each year is our retirement reserves. So that's our
073employees retirement system, our teachers retirement system, our unemployment which is self-insured, our workers comp which is self-insured, the the capital reserve has another set of rules as I've just discussed and then also we have um other reserves and I I think I explained this in our last um presentation. They um the tax reduction reserve is you know for the sale of the building. uh and then you have to use those proceeds by a certain period of time. Also, debt service reserves are either bond proceeds that you had gotten that were expensive to spend down on the debt service or perhaps it's, you know, interest that was earned on bond proceeds while you're building and constructing. That goes into a debt service reserve and that can only be used on the principle and interest of particular
074bond. Yeah, I do want to make a point about the capital reserve fund. We recently created that and that was a ballot. Now, the purpose of a capital reserve fund is oftentimes when you think about budgets in schools or outside schools, you think about that use it or lose it type of mindset where there's towards the end of a budget cycle, you have to use this money or you're going to lose it. That's wasteful. That's an irresponsible use of taxpayer uh don you know contributions. So rather than do that, rather than operate in that sort of mindset, you create a capital reserve fund so that when a roof goes, when you start to have significant problems with a parking lot, rather than having to go out on a referendum to borrow more money to fix
075it, you put on about the capital reserve fund. Does the public approve of the use of these funds for this parking lot, this, you know, a pool like know? But the point is that's an efficiency. So that reserve fund it is not just waste for money. It's to prevent us from having to ask for more money and it's to prevent us from wasting money at the end of a budget cycle. Like that is something to me that I think was one of the more it was a difficult thing to get past because the public didn't understand it. Uh but it did pass and and it was a lot of hard work on the part of the school district and the board of education to help people understand we need to be very responsible and efficient
076with so we're equating that with like a savings. It's not what it is. It's to prevent so that when we do borrow when we do have a major expense we don't have to borrow. We don't want to do that. We want to be more efficient in our operations. Just wanted to clarify. It's an important point. Yeah. If you if you fund a capital project by the use of a capital reserve, you're actually saving on the debt service of the bond issue. And that is the whole purpose of that. get access to the revenue piece. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. [Music] UK an option to say what's in the budget. We're looking at everything. what we're going to look at everything and that's something we have been we've been UPK I didn't say we're looking into that
077specific thing but we've been talking about UPK and looking at that carefully [Music] we haven't gone that far right now we don't know you know we're still looking at the budget and we're asking the administration to come up with different proposals where we can uh have the least impact Am I wrong in thinking that that would access more teachers? If we were to move, just to clarify, if we were to move if we if we were to move to a scope program, we would have to access eight teachers. Just looked back from the beginning of the inception of No, it was not. This is about six years ago when they created it. There was a um I believe at the time, but other districts do use it, right? Um and it saved the district. We
078we felt at the time that the teachers our teachers doing it in our programs in our schools would be a stronger program and we still believe it's a stronger program than any outside agency program could provide. But that was the decision at the time and that's kind of where we are now. The state doesn't pay us for what they do for this money. We get we get a portion from the state $5,400 per student which is the cap about $740,000 we get from the program but it does cost us money right now in the legislature one of the proposals from Senator Week who's on the education department or committee is to uh raise that cap from 5400 to 10,000 and in the assembly they're proposing to raise the cap from 5400 to 7600. So if
079any of those things get adopted in that legislative budget, that would significantly change the conversation we have about PBK. So we're kind of waiting to see what that legislature does on April 1st because that would significantly uh impact the decision we make on that. Just one more quick question. Are you guys like actively trying to raising your revenue sources? Like I work in East Iceland and I've had, you know, dance competitions, karate and like that. That's a source every year after year. So likely promoting that or like I would love to see that just to see like what is net coming in what is like that that's stuff I was Thank you. Thank you. Yes, we can talk about that. Okay. So uh I need a motion to move into exec session to discuss particular
080personnel and legal matters. Motion motion. Second. Yeah, we just said yes. Yes, absolutely. And that's usually presented as part of the budget is revenues. Like for example, there's revenues we collect through rent through this building. That's what he meant us personally. No, he was asking seeking like seeking ways to increase. Yeah, we've been talking about that as a board and we've been talking about as an event team to see if there's other alternatives to getting more revenue. Yes, we've been looking into it individually too. Did you look into the legal side of selling spots for UPK that you said you looking to at the last meeting. We've been looking through all these options. Um, but I thought we were maxed out. Let's see those students. Let's move on. Okay. Okay. We have need a motion
081to go into session. Motion being we already answered the question. We all love [Music] Hold on. If if somebody wants to ask a question, you know, come to the podium. I will speak to the question. We do like we discuss ways to raise rents. One of the things I can mention rent here, but another consideration which is something that we would discuss is can students tuition that present that was explored fully a number of years ago and it creates more hidden costs uh than you would expect. But we definitely look at the revenue side because it's it to me we recognize that there's certain payments where if we raise revenue then that helps offset some of the cuts. That's absolutely part of the budget and it's presented in when we go line by line through
082that. Um so that information will be made available I think another question. I mean right now we we need to go to a Z session. Is it normal to be doing this in March when we need a presentation in defel? It seems to be a lot to ask the board to make these kinds of decisions like that. Everyone's under a microscope. These are serious decisions. This should have been started months ago, not last week, not two weeks ago. These are serious decisions. We're It's also depending on this way the state aid works. But we need to be able to make those decisions and see, okay, if this state aid goes this way, then this way. If it's just like planning a budget, it's a budget. like we do at home. If we get this bonus,
083then we'll get this. If we don't, then we don't do that. This shouldn't have been started the month before. We should have been able to know this. The problem is we can't do this and have these kind of discussions until they do budget runs because we don't know what our aid is going to be. But we need to have that kind of mindset of where we're going and we don't and these seems to be a lot of really hard for you guys to make in a very short amount of time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, a motion to move it into exact session. Motion. Second. All those in favor? Motion passes. Thank you everyone. Have a good night.