Sayville BOE Meeting Mar 13, 2025 - Workshop Meeting

001good evening everybody uh please rise for the pledge conations to the flag United States of America and to the which nation under God indivisible Liberty for all good evening everybody um I think the first item I have on the agenda is our correspondence Let's see we have one letter from a resident regarding the um the tax break and then the next item is a report from superintendent schools Ahad so for uh tonight we are focusing on our budget presentation we have a couple of um uh items to go over with the board and with the community I'm just going to go over to the podium so we can start the presentation is this working can you hear it great all right so good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Board of Ed and people in

002the community those who are here and those who are at home watching um tonight we are presenting the uh Revenue side of the budget uh normally in this presentation we would do the revenue and the expenditures and then present a full budget uh but we're facing some challenges and we we wanted to talk about it with the board of education so we're going to present a portion of the budget and then we're going to present a portion of the budget in F in future meetings um what I guess I wanted to say just to kick this off is um almost all of the people in the back of the room and myself and a lot of the people in the room got into the role of Education because we care about kids and children and

003we want to do our very best um it's a it's a a great honor to be the superintendent of the school district when I took my first day here I had to take an oath to protect and to serve and uh it's it's really something I take very seriously uh we are facing a budget challenge that um that we need to discuss that is going to be difficult um and I'm going to explain it in the best way I know how and the most sincere way I know how and then also what we're doing to kind of address it because we can get through it uh with with what I hope is the most minimal effect on our children and our students and our programs our staff as we possibly can so I'm just going

004to jump into it and tell the story um our projected 2526 total budget revenue is 105 m67 6,793 um that is a projected Revenue decrease from this year and I'm going to explain why uh even though we're going to be raising or asking to raise 2.2% 03 uh a tax levy which is an increase of 1.4 million how it's possible that we're actually going to have less money next year to work with than we will this year by $351,000 um the story of a budget has two parts to it it's the revenue the amount of money you take in and then that's the only money you can use and should use to run your District the expenditures so there's just two sides to that um to make it as like base as possible if I

005had a salary of $100,000 and I'm an individual that's my salary that's what I use to live I pay my rent I pay my utilities I pay for transportation whatever I do as an individual I know that I have to have under $100,000 to spend that year to survive as an individual um so the equivalent of what's Happening Here is and it's a minor like difference is if at the end of the year your boss said to you okay next year you're not going to get $100,000 you're gonna get $97,000 and you say okay I have to plan accordingly the only way to deal with that is to spend less and then you're good but if at the same time you get that three that uh $33,000 decrease and at the same time you have

006an increase in rent and an increase in gas bills and an increase in electric bills and increase in all those other costs it's actually more and more challenging to spend lesson to get through and I think that is the story of an individual which could be applied to a larger sense instead of $100,000 we're talking about hundred million and how it is affecting School District it's a small percentage decrease it's 33% but it is still a decrease while costs are going up so I'm going to show each part of that the why and then uh our assistant superintendent of business Miss mol is kind of going to get into the numbers in great detail to show the the why and the how and then and then we're going to talk about what we want to

007do about it um so the total major Revenue category this is our reductions year-over-year is about $1.9 million in reductions uh and that has a number of factors um and any one of these factors that are up here uh we can handle some of which we knew about and could prepare for some of which we did not know about until recently and could not prepare for uh the state aid decrease of $597,000 uh we were thrilled a month ago to get the news from the governor that they were going to fully fund uh our foundation Aid and in fact give a 2% increase so in my mind I was like this is good news and we're gonna have more money and Ronda will explain when you look at the it's not the foundation Aid We're

008talking about it's the expenditure Aid that we got less money than what was calculated and she'll explain how that is and why but at the end of the day it's still $600,000 less Revenue than the year before from state aid um we have something called pilot payments in the district and uh the the Bristol is a Senior Living Center that pays a pilot payments in L of taxes that agreement was made when they built the place years ago they were paying us almost $800,000 a year in Pilot payments and that was a revenue and uh miss mesero when she was looking at the incoming money from taxes noted about a month ago that the amount coming in from the Bristol wasn't going to add up to the 800,000 or the 700 and some thousand that

009it normally does so she called the county to say this is odd the money coming in this year is less than what we're used to getting and the county basically told her oh uh they grieved their taxes and they were rewarded a $400 and some thousand decrease in their pilot payments uh to you uh so nobody told us about it on the first thing two it's affecting us this year because that was money we counted on that was part of our budget last year that suddenly isn't coming to us so that's less money that we actually have this year for operating costs but more importantly uh it's money we don't have next year that was once revenue and again we can handle some of these things when they come our way but not all of

010these things interest is pretty basic the interest rates are just a little bit lower so we're getting a little bit less interest from our uh money that sits in the bank uh the other thing that happened was tuition decreases uh we had a number of students who were coming to the district uh last year from other districts for special education programs we have some really great special education programs that we're proud of and um other districts would pay us to send their kids here but what other districts were facing as their budgets got tight is that it was not a cost-effective way to run their District so they started building their programs in house and less and less students are coming to our district uh for those programs so that is a decrease in our

011revenue of $350,000 not only U for next year but also also something that hit us this year as well but we didn't account for it because we had that Revenue in the years past um the one we did know about and we're planning for was the appropriated committed fund balance decrease of $434,000 um that one was a uh payment that we make from a reserve every year basically there was a settlement about five or six years ago where the district got over a million plus dollars uh from a from a health care settlement money they hadn't been given that they were owed so the at the time the board education and the superintendent put it into a reserve and made an agreement to spend a certain amount from that Reserve each year to help reduce

012taxes for the taxpayers which was a good plan for those four years or five years but we're at a point when we knew this we were planning for this where that was being decreased this year that doesn't exist anymore so we have to absorb that cost in the year that it disappears we were ready for that one and we were kind of planning on the tuition one but we were completely taken aback by the pilots and taken back by the state aid uh outcome when we realize the projected versus the actuals did not match up um so that comes to $1.9 million of less Revenue the reason that we're we're kind of not losing all that money is because we take in 1.4 million in tax revenue so the difference between that 1.4 and the

0131.9 is the $350,000 less Revenue in most years in a typical year when you have a 2% tax cap you get about $2 million more it sounds like a lot but percentage wise it's about 2% more and that's what you use for your increased expenses but in this year we're in a unique situation as a result of this that we're not getting that increase and it makes it harder to meet the expenses that are going up so while we were planning our budget and kind of putting everything together without really any additions uh we looked at our budget uh and it was about 109 mil n60 we knew that when we plan a budget like that you have to pull back so you put in the things you want we talked just two weeks ago

014three weeks ago about coaches we talked about armed guards we talked about um Elementary World language program we talked about pre- we talked about a number of things that we wanted to have in our budget and so that was the 109 when we added all those things in um and our target has to be 105 so when you look at that you say wow um we are 4,283 27 over where we need to be come in under the tax so we have to get to work uh cutting some of the things that we wanted to do that uh that we can't do um what were the things though on the expense size that also go up so at the same time that revenue is going down expenses are going up so like for example Bose's

015administrative and program fees are often increasing five six and seven percent even though um our revenue is not increasing uh contractual obligations are pretty much around 2% and we do that Within intent because we know in a typical year when we get 2% we're able to cover those contractual obligations in a typical school year when you have that 2 million dollar Revenue coming in from that 2% increase uh cost of living increases utilities electric heat gas water all is up in some cases 10 177% um and each one is different but just like you are facing at home I know about you but my electric bill is probably $300 more on average than it was five or six years ago it just keeps going up and we have to pay those bills that's one of

016the reasons why we're doing the solar project because we want to recoup that money in future years and that'll be up and running unfortunately not this year but hopefully next year um Regular insurance we have insurance in the district just for um like if someone trips and falls on our property we have insurance that covers Us for that that rate I think Ronda is going to talk about went up 27 20 28% to the tune of $180,000 increase just for the regular insurance and I think you might be seeing that as well that your home insurance rates are going up because of all the catastrophes around the country these companies are raising their rates to make doe for the payments they're making in other places um and transportation we knew Transportation was going to go

017up uh we have benefited for years because we had a five-year contract right after covid other districts were getting hit we were kind of protected by our five-year contract we knew that there was going to be an increase we were hoping it would be about 20% it looks like it was more like 28% uh but Ronda will miss rasero will speak to that specifically when she goes over the transportation budget so and then that also we want to add um uh armed perimeter guards uh to the budget um and I want to speak to that a little bit our original plan was six um there's just no way that I can fathom how we can fit that in I would like to propose that we go with three um for the cost of approximately $200,000

018and when I say that they're armed perimeter guards they're not in the buildings and the goal is to reduce response time it's not perfect it's not exactly the way we would have drawn it up but it provides some level of comfort to our community I think I want to say having witnessed and collected all of the data from the um arm guard or the the security forum and then also going to PTA meetings and talking to parents there's certainly a group of parents that are not in favor of armed guards but I can tell you with great certainty that the large majority of the community parents that I speak to are in favor of it and I do worry that if we don't have armed guards in our budget it could risk um whether it

019passing actually so I'm just putting that out there and I think this is an important thing to consider um but all of these things are increases and there's just no way of getting around that there's not like I think it's an increase uh it might be an increase these are factual pieces of information I'm giving you um there are increases so again revenue is down costs are up and we need to meet this challenge um so here are line items that I've currently removed from the budget um in order to get us down um the principles and I meet every year and we talk about wish list items principles are very creative and they care about our kids just as I do and they want to create cool spaces for Learning and we had a

020lot of those planned and all those came out so special projects wish list items are all out of this year's budget all new equipment and additional buildings and grounds projects out of this year's budget uh that means um you know we were going to pave a couple of spots we were going to uh get new lawn mower uh we're gonna have to push that you can push that one year and you can be okay but if you keep doing that you run the risk of your buildings and grounds in your plant uh getting in disarray so we don't want to do this year after year we want to do this maybe one time and then correct it in the future but for now all new equipment and additional buildings and grounds projects are on hold

021uh we're going to be cutting two administrative positions from this budget um one central office administrative position uh was vacated in August the assistant superintendent for human resources and we've kind of reconfigured our central office without that position and we had intended because we heard the community loud and clear in the past uh to cut that uh central office administrator from our budget we're also and I really say this with a heavy heart uh going to be cutting our one Elementary assistant principal at Lincoln Avenue uh there is no way we can afford to keep that in our budget we still maintain three principles in each building um but I I do know that that principle is very well supported and cared for by both staff students and families and if there's anything in this

022that makes me really sick inside it's it's it's that one all curriculum work that's paid will be uh postponed next year our assistant superintendent for curriculum will'll find creative ways to work with teachers during preps during te meeting times during grade level meetings and or department and or faculty meeting time to do curriculum work uh that includes all professional development we have brought some really great trainers in from the outside but the truth of the matter is we have some really great trainers who work here every day our teachers our administrators Miss deola will work together to build our professional development creatively from inside uh so all of that will be on hold and conferences outside of the district uh we will be reducing four sections of Elementary School classes three in second grade and

023one in first grade uh those class sizes currently sit around 15 students maybe 14 15 and while that's a lovely thing to have we cannot in this situation maintain it the class sizes will go to about an average of 23 in the first grade I'm sorry 23 in the second grade that's not a bad class size for a second grade class room uh no classes at the elementary level will be above above 25 um I also want to note that the cutting of those four sections will be will will mean um releasing currently leave replacement teachers there are no teachers currently being accessed in that situation that doesn't mean that we won't have to think about some potential accessing to get us across the finish line but as of right now uh those cuts do

024not include uh permanent staff um we were going to put two Elementary RTI providers coaches into the buildings we're no longer going to do that um we are going to be looking at non-essential AIDS and monitors through attrition the we get a lot of retirements and resignations at the end of the year so we believe we can do that without losing any current staff but we do need to look at the non-essential non-mandated uh spots all non-essential software and Bose's contracts will be reduced we Chris cowder has been absolutely phenomenal in looking over the budget looking at our software obviously things teachers use across the board we're going to keep but if like two teachers are using a software program that is a license for the whole District we're not going to be paying for

025that uh during covid we ramped up our software quite a bit and we feel like we can reduce that in certain areas and be clever about it and we're going to be very clear with staff about which ones those are but we're going to the most the least used programs we're going to be removing from from circulation we're going to be doing reductions in Technology support staff uh in the one Tech and um our data specialist will be removed from the budget and we'll find alternative ways to uh to get those that work done uh we're going to be condensing Transportation runs to be more efficient I met with Miss meso in our transportation department looking at the number of students on each bus the issue there is that students have a right to ride

026the bus if they live within a certain mileage but yet we're looking at these buses and they're half empty uh going to school and in fact at the high school we have buses that have like you know the bus door opens it's a giant bus and three kids get out well you still legally have to run that bus because they have a right to be on that bus so we're going to send out an email to the community tomorrow um with a statement saying that we would like to try to save funds for taxpayers and to get us at the cap if you are currently have access to a bus but are not planning on using it you can opt out and if we can get a certain number of opt outs we can reduce

027the number of buses one long bus cost $180,000 a year so we could reduce two or three buses that could be a significant savings and I would just say to any parents who drive their kid to school every single day and you never use the bus and you don't intend to please give us a chance and and please um wave your bus just for one year see how it goes every bus I can reduce will save program and jobs um and we will be removing all non-essential supplies and materials everything on this list excuse me Dr Ferris that um opt just to clarify that opt out for the transportation would be a yearly question that it would be a yearly question okay so if you opt out this year it doesn't necessarily mean I don't

028want you're not committing for life because you might have a situation that changes where you need the bus and I don't want to make it so that a parent couldn't get the bus back but I do feel that we could save a lot of money on these empty buses and I think we have to like ask the community to really do a do do a if you used it once this year and that's it can you please give that up and just you know drive to school but again you're entitled to it so no one's taking it away from um and again we can save some money there all of the things on here is everything I could possibly not I we the administrative team the uh principls the central office staff the board could

029think of that doesn't directly it indirectly affects kids but doesn't directly affect kids in classrooms and programs so there's still not a single program touched and class sizes again as I said will not be higher than 25 in the elementary school and they'll be about mid 20s in the middle school and high school which is what they've been for years um so nothing here affects our programs or the daily experience of a kid going to class I've cut with that number $3,832 I am now sitting at a deficit of $1.2 million that I have to make up and I'm going to try every and and again we're going to have more meetings tomorrow we're going to have meetings Monday looking at every single possible angle that doesn't affect kids can we glean out uh can

030we we're going to look at our Bose's contracts we're going to look at our coasters we're going to look at anything that has been used somewhat but not really essential and that does not affect kids directly and my commitment to the board to the staff to the unions is to touch everything that doesn't touch teaching and program first before I go to that next level uh which is Staffing and program I don't know how far we'll be able to take it and I do think we'll have to touch some programs and some staffing but I would like to minimize that to the greatest degree possible um sorry so um that tells the story of our revenues why they are what they are some of them we knew about some of them snuck up on us

031and it took you know it kind of was a gut punch a couple you know several days ago to get some of these numbers um and then um our expenditures which is where we're trying to get to where we need to go um we have a great school district and we want to maintain that and if we can get through this school year I don't think there's any Revenue surprises you know I can't promise it that would get any different than that if state aid continues to be what we hope it will be um we can benefit from that next year and I also one of the things we did last year was a retirement incentive and sometimes when you do that it helps you in the year you do the incentive we had 18

032retirements we didn't replace nine teachers but in the year after you get no retirements and we have one retirement this year so part of the natural progressions if you get eight retirements every year it stays steady and you use that retirement you lose a teacher that costs a certain amount and then you hire a new teacher there's a significant saving so if you have a steady flow of retirements you can bring your costs down quite a bit it helped us get through last year um but then this year the effect is that some people who would have stayed and then retired this year are not present so you have to wait probably till next year to get six or seven or 10 retirements and we do see a steady flow of retirements coming in the

033future in not next year the year after and the year after which will help you get your numbers of expenses down while your revenue is going up so um this is the status of where we are the board and is going to have to discuss a couple of things um I want to talk about the universal PR program we currently run eight sections of that program uh we get funding for that program uh but it does cost us about $60,000 per section so we we have gotten everybody in pretty much with eight sections we've run six in the past and had a weit list we've run four in the past and had a weight list so that's an area we could look at um I lo to say this but the program that we started

034two years ago with Elementary World Language is another area that we have to look at um and I'm not saying it's a definitive but that's an area to look at could save us $190,000 if we just did not do that Pro program I think we should be looking at the stretch program at the elementary school um because at the time stretch existed um there were no other enrichment programs and currently we do have enrichment with coding and and librarian coding programs and also the steam program uh we have to look at as well um so there are areas to talk about I'm hoping we can minimize not talking about those areas but those are the areas that have play um anything else uh would would be reducing things that have existed in the district for

035quite a while and I want to stay away from some of those items to be honest with you I want to run our electives I want to run our AP courses I want to run all of the opportunities that students have at the middle school and high school and and I want to be able to do that um as we always have but I we have to be kind of smart and thoughtful about where we go and what cuts we do uh put in place but I don't think we can get to the end of this road without some give somewhere um and now I'm going to introduce Miss mesel who's going to kind of go now over the numbers and the detail I hope that that was just painting the broad picture and then

036I'll come back and we'll answer questions together okay uh good evening uh thank you Dr Ferris for that introduction uh and where it brings us tonight um this at if you looked at the budget calendar at this point uh in time we would be showing a balanced budget of revenues and expenditures um so tonight it will just be our proposed revenues uh and the status of our expenditures thus far um typically when you prepare a budget it's expenditure driven uh and we started with our departments building the dreams and those things that we wanted to put in place um however uh knowing the status of our revenues that has become our starting point at this point so as Dr Ferris had shared our 2025 2026 budget now stands at 105 m6700 793 and yes that

037is a decrease budget to budget of 35,8 38 or minus 3.33% uh and as I shared in the last budget presentation uh the calculation of our tax levy cap came in at 2.23% and that uh added another 1,454 256 to uh the revenues over last year uh that was the maximum cap and uh that is what was filed with the New York State controller's office yes just uh can you go back to that slide the uh the one with the percent which one the percentages it show the tax levy yeah that's it now uh next one the next one oh I didn't get past this one she's not there yet she's not okay then I'm ahead of you okay let it continue sorry you're trying to confuse me okay uh so here this is uh

038the chart um that looks familiar because I shared it the last time um and uh the 2025 2026 is bolted at the bottom the maximum allow allowable tax levy percentage is at the 2.20 3% and that is what the actual tax levy is at this moment uh in time is this the slide that okay I was I was just looking at it sorry historical data on what the calculation was at the maximum and then where we went to and in a few instances uh we did go under the tax levy cap um first in 2020 21 and then uh last year no and I just wanted to um mention because we were talking about the revenue situation and last year we went under the cap and um because we wanted to give the money uh

039back to the community and as you can see the tax cap is lower this year and in reality if we would have probably went to the cap last year we would have had some some more reserves that again that impacted our reserves yes a little bit so um it's like a domino effect uh you then begin at a lower base when you then apply the new calculation and each year the the calculation is different based upon your debt service payments and the capital projects that you're um preparing for if I can ask how much are you talking tom would would that have been so so oh I'm sorry R can yeah um so when really what we gave back to the taxpayers between the 3.99 um six and 3.77 was I think it was about

040186,000 something I can get the exact figure for you um that's fine I thought you were talking much bigger no um but why that was done also was because um last year was also a difficult uh budget year in planning and we had built the dreams and then when the governor brought out her executive budget uh we were cut and then it was a push to for the save harmless so um through that uh process it was sort of like we understood the magnitude on our residents and it was sort of a recognition that uh the tax burden does lie there and I believe it was the um belief of the board to to go with a lower tax levy cap and I I always put this disclaimer at the bottom but um just so

041that it's clear our residents vote on the District's tax levy not the tax rate so even when I give um estimated uh values of what the tax um Levy would be for our residents in 25 26 I'm using the final assessment values that were provided by the town for the 24 25 year I don't know what the that usually comes out in August um so it's an estimate but um the tax rate are all dependent on each resident's individual assessment value to their home so I apologize this is a little bit tiny um it's hard to get it all um in one place but um at the top I'm going to go to my own uh page here um so what it does is it breaks down um this is our total revenue budget and

042it's comparative to the 2425 year um and I just want to say also I say this at the end of every presentation but these these presentations are placed on our website so if you can't see it you can go to uh the website hopefully tomorrow um and uh see it and then you can uh digest more of it or blow it up or look at it closer um and if ever anyone has a question or needs that information provided to them I'm happy to do so um so uh comparatively we start with the uh state aid and what we show on the leand side is our 2025 2026 amounts and then the 20 compared to the adopted budget of 20242 and um as Dr feris had said that is a a negative variance of 59717

043and I'm going to get into that more in a few slides um next another category of our revenues is the pilots and uh there again that is from One Pilot not officially on our tax roles uh and when I reach out to the town for that information I was provided um information through the Ida that uh the Bristol had challenged their taxes and that going forward the pilot was their assessed value was reduced so that meant that the pilot was going to be less for 2025 26 and then I delved a little deeper with them in my inquiries and they provided me the settlement of the reduction of the assessed values it was not only just for the 2025 26 year but they had challenged their taxes all the way back to 20156 so what

044they did and the largest piece of the tax bill is on the school district um so they uh provided refunds all within the 2425 year this was never told to the district uh so as the um even the library reached out why is it half of what we anticipated uh because they get a percentage of that um pilot payment as well uh so all of the credits were done in the 2425 year so that contributed to our shortfall in this year and then moving forward uh next is the break I'm so sorry I just have a question is there like this might be a silly question but is the can we not like argue that that could be spread out did they all have to be in this year so the we're not our own

045assessing unit so we put in what our tax levy is but similarly the um e every resident May challenge their taxes they don't do that through us they do that with the town so the town has their tax grievance days and they listen to all of this they make assessments on what the properties and they either say yes or no or this is what we will reduce it by um and then you know typically there's a refund piece and then a lowered assessed value moving forward so there's no Challenge on the refund piece it's not a challenge on our part on our part okay so the I think they should communicate it a little bit to us especially since we're I think like 73% of the tax bill but they don't and I wouldn't have

046known that unless I called I have my contacts so I reach out to them so Ronda that 42.85% that doesn't mean that they grieve their taxes and they got a 42.85% uh decrease in their taxes that means that's including the payments back to 2015 no so what we're looking at just here is budgeted data so we're I now you know knowledge is powerful and when we build a budget we're building it based on the information that we currently have so last year we did not know that they were going to challenge their taxes so the tax cap was um calculated we knew that they were officially like not a pilot anymore when you have new building you can go up to 10 years so that ended in 2324 but um we anticipated that based on

047the full now taxing power that that property would be would derive a revenue to us of 786,000 um and we learn now no we're not getting that we're getting half but the variance you see here is just now reflective of what we might anticipate from that Bristol for the 25 26 year so the variance is what we anticipated getting for 2425 and now our new anticipated amount based on that the information that was provided to us but that's the budget yeah and and I guess budget is actual yeah right so they grieved and they got 42% off their taxes which would never happen to one of us as a as an individual taxpayer and I don't know what that process what you know how they decided that but I think what's uh special about the

048Bristol is because of this pilot program that they're in with the town though those monies are directly allocated to the school where if it was a normal grievance they would uh that would that burden would be shared with all the taxpayers correct so there the library has a piece of that they're not getting as much and and then it goes down you know the but what I'm saying is normal Town residents agree their taxes that doesn't create an extra burden to the school district because the the levy is still collected yes that's spread where pil of payments are in lie of property tax tax which is a special deal that the town grants to Bristol yes and and and they actually should expire at some point and even though the town makes the deal we

049get affected by it and have no control over the deal that they make yes and they're not officially on the tax rols yet so they're being treated sort of like an independent party yeah okay um so then uh we have a detail of more of the other incomes and it's very detailed here for you we do have rent from uh two buildings that that we own um and are occupied by uh bosis Eastern suff bosis um you know different program programs we run and uh as Dr Ferris had also mentioned you know the tuition is a piece of that as well and um that is uh something that we anticipated receiving even the 500,000 you know we try to be a little more conservative on the revenue side and if you looked at actual amounts

050that we received in Prior years that was more so we figured okay 500,000 is a good estimate to use but even that um did not yield uh to what we actually will be receiving so now we brought that down new knowledge we brought that down to 150,000 so the total other income is um you know the the category there it's for the 25 26 year we're anticipating 3.7 million in other income sources and then um below that we have uh the amounts of the reserves that we're appropriating toward the 25 26 year as well as our fund balance those are I I kind of coin them rainy day funds but it's like the money we have um set aside that we appropriate also to help B balance our budget and then below we have our

051property taxes so to the right which you can see clearer um we use a assess value of 45,000 a home estimated average of 450,000 so uh there you can comparatively see what it was for 2425 and then what it is uh anticipated for 2526 which is a $211 annual increase uh broken down by month $17.50 so here you can see this a little clearer um and it's the broader categories not with the detail um and I do have have a big star up there with a variance of the 5971 197 which I'll explain um in the next slide um but here you can just see where we are at 2526 and that's as per the executive budget for the state aid piece um and the other uh amounts there and appropriated reserves um the state

052aid proposed is from the governor's executive budget um we have understood that uh they hope to have a budget not by April 1 but shortly thereafter um and there is some talk about perhaps an increase to the foundation Aid or um other things that the uh legislators are um hoping to uh get into the final Governor's budget yeah um a few uh weeks ago Miss mol and I went to the refit breakfast where we heard from some assembly men and women and one of the things they were optimistic think about was raising the amount of fundation Aid to school districts like ours by 2% uh that would be equate of $400,000 so we won't know that till after April 1 but that's why we're pres we're we're we're proposing that we do our our final

053budget presentation to the board after we get the legislative budget because that might help to impact you know some of our decision- making um so uh and also just under the fund balance I'll cross that line uh the negative variance of 434 that's something that we knew about um and I'm sure was mentioned in last year's budget presentations but that committed fund balance uh is part of it's the 434 so um five or six years ago more than that the district had uh self-funded their own health insurance plans and they decided that they then were going to um transition to n which is largely what most school districts um and other governmental agencies use for their health insurance because it's a pulled public uh uh insurance plan um so what happened there is uh the

054sville was part of a a a conglomerate of other school districts that also have self-insured their health insurance and um when we pulled out of that there were s certain I guess reserves that that they had for claims for the saille school district that they then finally released so that was to be committed and to you be used in future budgets and that was done systematically but it ran out so um it was I think 1.6 million and it's in one of the other slides and I just want to comment like that's something as an example of something we knew was coming and we were planning for and if that alone was what happened we would be in a different situation but the combination of all of that and all those things is what's making

055it challenging okay so hold tight this next slide um and there I know uh I'm going to read it because you can't see it um but again go on the website and you can uh read through it so um this is just the state aid um and the First Column is the 2425 budget adopted budget and what was put in for state aid the 2526 state aid column is what is part of the executive budget as we know it today so the negative variance that has the arrow at the bottom is 54797 and uh in this you must also include or add to this a minus 50,000 um because that represents CPS administrative state a which is applied for annually uh by the district we're entitled to a reimbursement for all costs that are of

056administrative type through the CPS meetings that are held um and that's not a part of the governor's budget or in on state aid runs it's um filed through the county and it's separate and distinct so that is money that we get um and I believe the budget for 2425 it had the 50,000 um I still am not in receipt of the money um but that actually 42425 is about 77,000 so again you try to be conservative you don't what those costs are going to be but um just if you want to reconcile to the 597 1997 in the state aid figure it it is included in that so um you just to reconcile you have to add that back um so uh the ma major VAR here is the last line Universal prek so oddly

057enough on all of the state aid runs that is always a part when you go and you get them printed it will always show the universal prek there um that is not a revenue of our general fund it is a revenue of our special Aid fund which is where we house all of the activity for our federal and state grants when Universal prek started it was a combination of federal and state monies probably a little more Federal and then as the years went down Less Federal more state in 2425 100% state so um that's why it was always it was a practice to always include that because it's on the state aid runs but it really is not a revenue of the general fund the the budget that our residents vot on and C Cast

058their uh vote on so um we also showed on the expenditure side so I just think for a clearer presentation we're stopping that practice of showing the universal prek in here there's also misnomer just because the governor has said you know saal is entitled to 745,000 doesn't mean that's necessarily what we may receive uh we receive 5400 per student served in our upk program uh that number equates to 138 students in some years I believe we ran as Dr ferrah said a four classes uh some six last year or for this year 2425 we ran eight programs eight uh classes excuse me of 18 students so um we were able to derive the full benefit of that aid but if we didn't service 138 students we're going to get however many students we serviced at

059the 5400 um the other uh information is that there is some talk about increasing that 50 it's been 5400 for a number of years nothing is finalized yet but we can hope that that is a number that gets increased in the final we find out if that increases um that's all the same yes so um so for clarity that is coming out and that's why it's a negative variant so um you know I I think it's important to um show that the other variances in between the foundation a and the universal prek those are all of our expenditure driven AIDS so even in the 2526 budget the governor is estimating based on our historical data what we may anticipate receiving for each of those different categories um however that number is reconciled after our st3

060and financials are submitted sometime in November they put out new output reports and those numbers are either negatively or positively adjusted based on what our actual expenditures were for the year prior so 2425 actual state aid will yields based on our actual 2324 whether it be Transportation Aid building Aid we also never receive full Transportation Aid because we're actually transporting under under the state um mandated distances um so they won't give us full aid for that but those are choices that we make so we know that uh so I hope that that um helps explain maybe some of the variances a little clearer uh also it's important to know that those expenditure driven AIDS are not formula based like the so let me just speak to the upk so upk can't be on two sides

061of a ledger it can't be on the aid side giving you money and also on the expenditure side saving you money so we can't have it listed on that side so we do have it listed in the expenditure side as a grant fund so when we run prek uh we have eight prek teachers I think six of them are covered by the grant so when we look at our expense side those six teachers don't there's a zero next to their name and they're covered by the grant but what we can't do is do that on the expense side and at the same time have it in the revenue side so we had to put it where people recommend we put it on the expenditure side which shows the negative on the revenue side yeah so

062we're pulling it out of both the revenues and the expenditures because that's where it showed okay so the next slide here um and I want to point out that um it might be a little revers but uh so on the leftand column that is our 2425 actual state aid figures now what we anticipate receiving um on the right side estimated it says January 21st 2025 that's when the governor released her executive budget so that is our 2526 state aid um and here again it shows that the the total Aid and these are always in the aid runs and then it backs out the universal prek because that is booked in the special Aid fund so um that shows even though we are receiving and obviously they the two in extra 2% in our foundation Aid

063and then some are down and some are up in terms of the expenditure driven AIDS um and then I just then again also clarify here that the universal prek allotment is 5400 per student and uh a classes um we have 144 students in our program we receive Aid on 138 but the 144 rounds out nice classrooms of 18 okay so uh I know it's a lot of data at this hour uh and tiny print um so this here is an analysis of our Reserve and our fund balance and um we start here because you always kind of show you know five years uh start at the actual of n 2019 2020 and um the first part of the the top part of this graph is our restricted fund balance or our reserves and each one

064of these reserves listed individually stands for something different very specific there are different rules for each of the uses of these reserves and it's all part of General Municipal law so the first two reserves are our workers comp reserve and our unemployment reserve and those are self oh did I just do that oh um our uh first two reserves are our self-insurance reserves for workers comp and unemployment so we're self-insured for those two things um workers comp as you can see so we've used a lot of those reserves and in the last couple of years we haven't further funded those um we're still okay on that but these are things that we're going to have to look to also fund because the funding of reserves um comes when you have an operating Surplus to some

065degree you're capped at 4% of next year's budget for your fund balance but these reserves allow us to make strategic plans so that when there are spikes or change changes in certain years in terms of rates for uh our ERS or TRS were able to smooth out those spikes in rates so uh the the one below it unemployment that we explained last year uh during covid it unemployment was crazy people were receiving unemployment there was there were scams all over the place um so we were paying unemployment and then when the um New York State unemployment board was able to reconcile all of those things we received a large refund but because we're self-insured for unemployment that money could only go into our unemployment Reserve so um last year our first year we made a

066resol the board approved a resolution to move 600,000 of that Reserve because it can only be done by resolution into our fund balance so that we could use it towards our budget uh there still was an excess and we had mentioned we'll be able to do that again next year so we will be asking the board to resolve to use another 700 and then that will bring that unemployment Reserve to where it really needs to be um and that's the only way that you can get the money out of an unemployment Reserve into uh a usable source so then after that we have our ERS and TRS reserves those are only for the employees retirement system for that class of our employees and then the teachers retirement system um for our administrators and our teachers

067and the TRS is um a larger expense in contribution uh because it's a larger pool of our staff um and that is a newer Reserve so that in itself is lower than the ERS because it's newer however um we have seen a steady decline in that and uh We've this year you'll see in our 2526 proposed budget we're proposing appropriating 650 to that Reserve well if we did another 650 in the next year we're not going to have that Reserve anymore to utilize uh so this is the purpose of this slide just to see what we do in analyzing how much we're appropriating towards the budget and where we're going and the trends um so then uh the next one reserve for employee benefit that's our acude liability that was used appropriately last year when

068we had our large retirements that um Reserve holds money for a crude sick time uh and then when we had our uh 18 I believe retirements uh a lot of those staff members were here for years and they had accumulated sick days and so those payouts were made from that reserve and that Reserve is still pretty healthy um the remaining reserves for debt tax reduction and bonded debt those are reserves that happen as the result of a transaction so um for the debt Reserve in the library that's the libraries piece of that reserve and they use it over the years uh they communicate to us how much they're going to be applying to their budget um that's on a Serial Bond you go out for a bond um I'm just going to break it down

069you get a million doll Bond you spend 950 on projects that remaining 50,000 goes into a reserve and you must use it to pay down that specific Debt Service on that Bond um same with our reserve for bonded debt uh the one for tax reduction that is the result of a sale of a piece of property so um that uh is gone because you have to use it within a certain number of years after you use that in you can use it in one year or over um I think it's 10 years uh don't quote me but uh it's a specific number of years uh and then the last Reserve that we added um in May of 2022 with the budget vote uh was a separate referendum for the 2223 year was the capital reserve

070and that actually was funded at a million dollars in May um of 2023 and uh since then it's grown some interest so uh all of these reserves are in accounts earning interest but if you're pulling out more money than the interest that's earning um obviously that affects the uh balances the middle piece is our assigned fund balance I spoke about that the committed fund balance and the assigned appropriated uh and you can just see where that total number is we're almost back to n 201920 um and then our ass unassigned fund balance So Below um is a projection we do fund balance projections uh to see where are we ending toward the end of the year this is part of our plan and where we need to make sure we're going and uh we uh

071are reflecting an operating deficit of two almost 2.7 million so um typically around this time of year we send out uh memos that you know we're going to be cutting off purchase orders it's typical in in every school district uh you know if you have equipment needs or Supply needs you should be getting those early on in the year so that the students can have access to those items uh on but you know some of it is cyclical some things are planned um early on we do a lot of blanket peels at the beginning of the fiscal year but uh that is something that um you know is a message that is sent so that is our analysis of fund balance and the components of that here is just a draft resolution uh we're looking

072to take 700,000 uh from that unemployment reserve and that would really be the remaining excess that exists there and this is just resolution language and we would do that before the end of June 30th 2025 this is just a graph that shows uh our revenues as proposed for 2526 and uh the largest piece of it of course being from our property taxes at 64% the next big category being our state aid at 27% uh we have our appropriated fund balance and Reserves at the bottom there um I believe at 5% and then just the other income and uh our pilot so transportation this is one of the expenditures that I can um speak about uh on this evening's uh board agenda there will be a resolution to award our RFP request for proposal for uh

073Transportation uh that for our regular um buses field trips Athletics um uh and uh parochial and um special education uh buses uh was on February 21st so that bid request for proposal closed uh and we had one vendor one sole vendor suffk Transportation Services Inc which we have been very pleased with um and we knew this was coming because of the uh talk about uh zero Mission buses uh for busing companies throughout the country uh to either recruit or retain drivers is very very difficult um part of our scoring process for the RFP is to actually take uh a tour of suff Transportation Services they have a lot of very nice facilities I sat and spoke for hours with the officers they uh shared some of the things that they are doing um some of

074it with GPS and uh different things coming to the Future they have a plan for electric buses they already have 11 in their Fleet um so uh they are a very good vendor they know our students they know our routes uh so I'm pleased that we had a vendor um and uh they will be awarded awarded this evening a five-year contract um that is my recommendation uh a one-year contract we could do but a five-year contract we wouldn't pay what we would in one year until year three so in essence we're getting a two-year savings but uh let me go through that is that is that typical to receive one bid for for something that big so I don't want to say I don't want to say that these vendors are territorial but um usually

075people have their areas um they certainly have very well-placed facilities they have a number of them all over I think we're serviced through Pon road but um they have training centers uh but there are I know I had done an RFP in my last district and they usually are i' would like to add because we went to the uh I uh Town school board meeting and uh cic Transportation gave it a presentation there and they um they also indicated that the number of vendors that are in that business are you know there were mom and pop shops or whatever that right they you with covid and everything from the they went out of business and they didn't survive the ones that are in existence they they're pretty much stretched to where they they can go

076so is very difficult when the bidding process comes in because it's not well well it's ironic that you use the use the word bidding process because there's no bidding process if there's one person bidding it's it's a borderline Monopoly so when you look at something that says 22.8 n% increase but they know that nobody's gonna come in but this is also explained though too we had a contract for five years and um in the last contract and those rates are relatively low right you know so of course with all the uh we all know you know all the increases and everything yeah so obviously you know it it's a it's a shock to our system uh but unfortunately there's there's no other game in town no I know if I know if nobody puts in

077a bid that's why I asked if it was typical because you know if it is territ if you're telling me like it's Territorial and they typically you know run this area and by geography they're they're their um what is it yard like their yard is you know it's it's beneficial for them to for the moon and when when they return the RFP and I understand that um however what they explained I really anticipated a 25% increase what they shared with me was that what we're seeing in this 22.8 n is what they need to offer their staff to get good staff that they're constantly training um and retain as well um so it does have uh yeah an impact I thought it more you can only deal with who puts a bid in right like

078there's there's nothing you can do about it and the only way to save money in this area is to try to reduce our ridership which I think ISM so we're gonna try to do a campaign for that maybe the ptas would help us uh spread the word that you know this is something that would be good for the dist you don't do not a fundraiser uh get out the decline the bus vote that's lucrative and they are familyowned suff transportation services is familyowned they give scholarships every year to students I mean they are a really I feel a topnotch uh I'm not I don't get paid from them but uh you know I do make have to make that assessment and uh I do believe and what I hear also from other districts too like

079the districts that have their own buses they have the they have to somehow deal with these mandates that are coming down from the state as well so there's there's really no ideal you know way to go with the buses yeah so the five-year contract provides continu it and predictability so we'll know what our costs are now for the next 5 years and the 2025 2026 school year we would be in year one of a five-year contract so um and we have to be very transparent about that so um so the other expenditure that I can um speak with certainty on is our transfers to Capital and special aid funds so each year our district um puts together a million dollars for different programs and um capital projects and this is outside of uh bonded so

080you can either fund capital projects through a Serial bond which we have uh currently uh our rofes and uh our high school hbac and um in the cafeteria and Auditorium um and uh there's a lot of process that goes into planning these projects so what we have completed now with the 2024 25 year is our elementary bathroom Renovations um and what we're moving now on to is our secondary oh I'm sorry yeah Tom asked me if we could explain how the capital line Works we're not adding a million dollars to like a program or anything it's not like we're putting it in a reserve there was a line in our budget every year for the last several years that was a million dollars and it's used to upkeep our plant and it's outside of the

081tax cap could you explain just how that works and just so it's a component of the tax cap however um dollar for dooll if we were to remove this um it's not going to help us with our current situation and cuts um and there's a lot of groundwork that is done in order to get these projects to a place where we may actually be able to construct right I also just want to add in a year where we're reducing all of our buildings and grounds projects that we have in our budget um it's really important that we don't become a District that does this where we don't put these capital projects in place because in three or four years you look around and you'll notice and things will be you know we need these bathrooms

082are in some cases from the 70s and 80s and they're and we just had to replace a bathroom at the high school uh because the pipe burst and there was aestus it cost us $160,000 I believe um 125 thank you $125,000 because it just was so old so we can't wait for those moments to be unplanned and not have them and now that takes money away from what we were going to spend or save for taxpayers for the future so this is a really effective way at maintaining your plant to making sure you keep the schedule based on the um the U engineering reports that we get about what we should be doing yeah our infrastructure is as important um because you can't have students learning in crumbling or um you know inferior buildings so

083um and it is four bathrooms at our Middle School that are identified I have picked in a slide or two uh and then four in our high school um the other transfer that we're required to make each year is for our special Aid to our special Aid fund and those are for our special education summer programs we pay um 20% uh the state pays 80% for those summer school programs um so uh that is the interfund transfer line that you will see in um a future presentation of our total expenditure budget so uh here is the before in big letters um they are clean because we have a wonderful facility staff uh they're just very old and in need of uh you know renovation so uh there's a a boys and girls Middle School auditorium

084bathrooms outside of the auditorium there uh and then also right outside of the Middle School cafeteria and around the corner uh is a boys and girls uh bathroom when I when I was looking at the slide earlier I read it quickly and I'm saying before and after I'm looking left and right I'm saying they both look B I was trying to figure out like what are we trying to sell here so they're all before pictures they are and yes uh and uh yeah a picture can say a thousand words but um the in our high school we have uh those are the boys they're smaller bathrooms but the high school uh near our our gym is uh boys and girls bathro B there and Below uh near our guidance area is um a boys and

085girls so um and the the renovations of the bathrooms that we have done um have come out beautifully and they're very easy to maintain so um it is something that uh you know Keeps Us busy in the summer but um good stuff so uh these are a a schedule of our future meetings March 27th uh is what we have slated I'm not sure that that uh you know how that will go yeah I'm going to say right now we're going to change that to April 9th or 10th I'm not sure exactly because we want to wait till the legislative budget comes out last year we did four versions of a budget and then we had to we were on April 20th doing them I think it would be I'm not going to propose cutting a

086program if we're going to get funding back so I I think we should stick with um we will give progress updates at each board meeting so I will update the board on March 27th with with Miss meseroll about what additional Cuts we're recommending and how much closer we are to the cap as I said we're at 1.2 million away from the cap our goal is to continue to meet with our admin team our staff talk about what we can live without that least impacts our children and then come back with what we've come up with to you as a board and hopefully get that number 1.2 down to closer to zero okay and um and whenever that meeting takes place you will um certainly have uh both the proposed revenues and expenditures as well as

087a three-part budget which we're required to show uh what a bu a contingent budget looks like and uh perhaps additional voting information um so uh and you know I don't know if then the second bullet of additional meeting but we'll somehow work that in so that um our residents have uh a full and our Board of Ed has enough knowledge um before they actually have to adopt a budget on April 23rd uh because that is both uh I think the last time we can uh prepare for a board of ed adoption date on a proposed budget as well as that is the Bose budget vote um and then during April and May we'll be out um to our smaller groups our PTA groups our other community groups um just being uh present to answer questions

088and uh present uh the data and then uh finally uh the culmination is on May 20th which is the annual Board election and budget vote so um for the school district our proposition one is just a school budget vote we have no other referendums being put on there's also the election of two Board of Education trustees um the library will continue to be part of our ballot uh that would probably be a proposition number two right Julie uh and then the historical uh also the Historical Society joins in on that ballot too um and just to remind everyone again that it's the same place May 20th same time uh except a different room within the old Junior High a renovated gym so we think that's a a positive change um for our residents and just

089a thank you for our strong Community you come to board meetings you're engaged our board ofed um Works tirelessly so that uh all of these programs can be um you know structured in uh the perfect way for our students and uh so thank I want to thank Miss mol for her work on this all of the detail and all of the things that we do you know we talk about things she has to make it happen in the budget book so uh we really appreciate that uh from you as well and I just again want to say to the community to the staff that's here uh we are committed to doing everything we possibly can to get this budget at the cap and to minimize the impact it has on our students um this is

090not going to be easy uh but we are not resting we will not sleep until we get it to where it needs to be and we're going to be working with our unions working with our admin team to kind of get through this to the best of our ability uh we have two ways that this can go uh we could work collaboratively and keep kind of focusing on the goal in hand or people can start pointing fingers and saying you should cut that you should cut that you're you're hiding something you're doing something the truth of the matter is uh every single person in this room myself included cares about our kids and everything we do is about our kids and budgets are really important because the budgets fund the programs so uh you know

091I know Facebook and the world will start saying all the things that are wrong because that's what people do uh call us we have telephones we have email ask questions there's nothing we're hiding we're being very um very genuine about what the issues are that we're facing and our approach in how we want to tackle them so um we appreciate your time and your your attention and if there's anything else we can do please reach out to us and let us know and we'll take questions from the board and um correct me if I'm wrong but uh last year's state aid and also this year's state aid run uh because uh we we didn't get any CPI increase basically we just got like a a a set amount last year last year we did not

092yeah right and the same thing I believe is this year that's what the that's what the legislators are fighting for to add a CPI I don't know if they're calling it CPI but the the governor gave us basically a 1.96 or what they're saying is a 2% % increase to Foundation Aid so that was about to the tune of I believe $400 and some thousand um the legislature is saying they are very confident that they want to get an additional 2% if not 3% to hold harmless districts because other districts got much larger increases um other districts got 7% 8% 10% increases we're a hold harmless District because of the nature of who we are and we've been in that category for a very long time uh and so we got a 2% minimum increase

093so it was a good increase and at the time we were thrilled with it because it's more funding for our schools but when we offset it with the other things that Miss mesal has described we're still down 590 something thousand in state aid overall that's not the found Foundation Aid the foundation Aid is up um it's the expense driven AIDS and the upk shift that we had to do that make it a net loss in that category of close to $600,000 okay um the reason I raised that is because I just like to make Community aware that maybe if they could contact the state legislature to to hear the voices um because you know many districts got more so does it's there's not that much talking about it and it's not like last year because

094they were they were giving us nothing you know with the all armor so we need the voices of the community contact them and make them aware that uh this Aid is crucial to our district yeah is there a way uh Mark that we can find out what comparable districts like Bayport and ICP uh have received oh yeah all the state runs are available to look at there's a uh there's a website and you can go on I can send you guys the link um and you can look up literally every school district in New York state and you can see what the differences were and what they got um so hold harmless districts uh got basically 1.9 something percent they're calling it at 2% and other District that we were the lowest amount and other

095districts got more um but I don't want to bank on us getting more uh funding I hope we do and that will certainly help uh the work that we have to do now is to dig into our budget and continue to reduce expenses and hopefully reduce expenses that are not staff related and not uh student program related even if we were to receive that two or three% how much are we talking about 400 Grand uh 2% would be 400 Grand 3% would be 600 Grand and even with all the cuts that you proposed we're still 1.2 million right but if we got as just an example 600,000 from the state in addition we could really make up ground with minimal minimal Cuts so I guess the the question is um I feel like and I

096obviously I wasn't here last year but you know I would come to I would come to the meetings and I I would see all the the work that you guys were doing and now I see you know behind the scenes the work that gets done um you know last year we offered the incentive right and that helped us okay this year we're proposing cuts uh no people no programs right hopefully is the is the is the is the plan right that's well I I wouldn't say as of right now there's no people no programs but I don't know if we're going to be able to get that 1.2 down without touching programs we have to talk about those programs understood understood so my question is what can we do right like what what can we

097do as a board I'm asking I guess Ronda and Mark what can we do to stop like just putting our fingers in the hole and you know to kind of look down the road and so that we don't find ourselves like in this position every year where we where you know you're trying to you know manipulate numbers left and right Mark's trying to manipulate numbers and we're having to make these difficult decisions what is it that we can do if anything to to to prevent something like this happening again so put ourselves in a more like uh financially stable position year after year where we don't have to like continuously just plug the holes so if I can just interrupt so saal I find this very sad because saal prided itself on its secure Financial

098situation for years so what did happen and as I'm as Desmond we have such a fiduciary responsibility to our community this is not okay yeah so again this is not something that sail did or saal didn't plan for this is something that you know as you saw there were five or six factors that happened to happen at the same exact time that affected our Revenue the state aid the um Bristol like there was nothing in our control that could you know we could pride ourselves on everything that happened in the was $300,000 and each one on each one on their own causes a minor problem but when you add them all together that's $1.9 million in Lost Revenue if I had $ 1.9 million in Revenue I would be saying to you that we're keeping

099all our programs that we currently have and we're adding armed guards and we are um GNA tweak and add a couple little details but it we'd be in good shape so if you add all those things together just on the revenue side uh it's problematic and then I also explained the cost side and this is not unique to sville these are struggles that districts are having around us as well um I can't point to and if someone can you know a spot where savil should have done something differently uh or could have done something differently we have healthy reserves we want to maintain those healthy reserves there are districts that don't have healthy reserves I don't want to use reserves every year like we could fix the problem with reserves but then we would dig

100a hole for ourselves next year so we have to be so what can we do uh to the point of Desmond and what you asked is reduce our expenses as much as possible this year and then uh make sure we have a healthy uh fund balance going into 22 20 25 26 and then be very careful about what we spend next year and then what I'm anticipating is that the damage of Revenue loss that we are seeing has been done the upk flipping the uh the Bristol can't get much more tax reduction than I think they've gotten I mean go and the health insurance hit is over with and that happened uh six years ago that decision was made to use the health insurance to bring and on its own it's it's it's fixable when

101you add all those six factors together it's a revenue situation that is very challenging and then at the same time you know it happened to be the year the bus contract was up so like you have a couple of things happen at the same time so without like holding you to this word is like an anomaly is what you're saying well think I think we've had two two years in a row that were pretty tough and I think next year's going to be pretty tough as well I think next year will be uh much better if the revenues are typical and we don't get any surprise Revenue decreases um if we get a typical 2% state aid increase that's $400,000 and we don't get a Bristol hit we don't get we don't have to worry

102about the appropriated fund balance $400,000 hit we don't have to worry about the um revenue of special ed students going down 300 50,000 because that line is gone now yeah so all of those hits that we're here feeling they can't happen again and they won't happen again because they don't exist after this year so unless they reduce state aid in election year I would I would also say we could we could probably if we were not mindful we could solve this problem with reserves right right but that would hurt us so severely in the coming years that's why we really have to look at it now to protect the future going forward and it's and it's and it's also like you're saying why is this happening it's also from the covid funding that we had

103you know that was an extra cushion for for school districts for for the last couple of years but that that money has I would also add the re those are all things that you you plan on know that you know that's drying up and we knew the retirement incentive would help us through last year but would be an issue for us this year I said that to you when you guys were considering it I said the one thing I want to say about a retirement incentive is if you offer it you're going to get more retirements that will help us through this year and I did say that would affect the the the amount of savings you would have next year when you have a steady retirement of eight teachers a year that's like $400,000

104savings every year um the other thing that we're doing next year if we get those solar panels online that's a $475,000 savings we've been very thoughtful about putting the roof on and then now putting the panels on Additionally the payments for the panels won't kick until the following year so we'll have a whole year where we get a reduction in um what do we call that Rhonda performance uh contract cost yeah it it might not be a full year because um it's contingent on when we actually go online but uh there will be a period of time where perhaps we're um receiving the uh reduction in our energy costs and uh we don't start making Debt Service payments on that energy performance contract but I want to say like so I can't promise you ever

105that anything's going to be perfect yeah but I can tell you that the the the factors that are affecting this year's budget will not be in play next year okay and there will be some things in our favor and we will get more retirements because the natural Curve will kick back in because we made it an unnatural curve through the retirement incented last year so again uh savil is strong financially our reserves are healthy this is a tough year because of the situation related to the revenue loss at the same exact time things like the bus contract and other things came up it's just a stinky situation we have to get through it and then we will and we'll move forward okay wait a second wait one second first of all the most important very

106patient by way I tried to be patient um one of the most important things that we have is reserves we have to maintain our reserves uh secondly this is not an anomaly this has happened other times uh but what we have to look at are our spending where we spend it the most appropriate way where our costs are too high where we can make keep them down yeah that more or less what I was asking that's all that's basically budget that you would do always and uh it's very important that we do that so we can maintain the programs for our students I mean I mean an analogy in the beginning about the person who makes $100,000 a year and their their salary is frozen and their costs go up there's only one way to

107solve that spend less yeah program and we have to move forward with our programs or make more for students we have to figure out how we can make more well you you can you can you can you can make more I mean there are like if if you increase I know we're talking about programs but if you do increase programs that attract students then you know you you charge tuition I know we like we lost tuition like you said those schools those other schools were saying why are we paying saille we're just going to build this program in our own district and and save the money um so you can't make more and there are other ways to make yeah ABS absolutely we have to look at the whole picture that's very important so as

108an example we spoke with um we spoke with Eastern suff posters today they're looking for spaces and they're they want to rent out space and put students in their programs in spaces in our building if we were to do that I said well what would it look like and you know if you gave them three classrooms and they had their students coming to our district we would um I think it was about like $25,000 so the question is is it worth it to take that if was a 100,000 you know hey different story but so again it's different than when we rent the building here and we get $600,000 that's a huge rental property compared to three classrooms or two classrooms is it 25,000 no it's for the whole the three class three yeah you

109I mean I just want to say something very Sim simple I in situations like this kind of you know to Kathy's point we have a reputation for financial stability because we don't go into our reserves and you know when encountering something like this we could look at cutting or could we could look at reserves I'm just glad there's total consensus that we need to cut because that's how you maintain stability is you know I I I think we need the financial Independence in terms of borrowing um that you get from your reserves um I I'm not happy about this I also I'm not it's difficult to to make a budget and the way the state has been operating the last two or three years and I think at the root of it I just wish

110that the state was more predictable um because you know we're talking about cutting positions and then lo and behold let's say they come forward with the money and then like we passed on certain positions or maybe we giving people notices that weren't going to be coming back that we find we have the funds but we could have lost a candidate I just I wish the state did not operate this way you know so I think I encourage people contact assemblyman contact your Senator um this is there should be some stability that's supposed to be after this but I don't know I just Alan is not very reassuring I want to say can I just I just want to interject I forgot to with something I press that one and go on doesn't like me um

111I just want to say that another serious fear if they shut down the federal education department that means our state will get less funding or no funding and some of our programs for special ed students and our most needy students are going to go by the wayside that is very frightening to me and uh I don't we have to call and mention that if you've read up on it read up on it it's very when we spoke good when we spoke to the assemblymen in the assembly and in the um in the Senate from the New York State Senate their feeling was that if they did abolish the Department of Education it doesn't mean they would abolish funding they might give it to another department to manage or something like that so I just I

112know we got to watch that but I I think that we have to also caution I'm just saying that that's what the the governmental officials told us so yeah I also want to say in a in a district like sail Department of Education Federal level funding is not where a good amount of our funds come from certain amount it we certainly get some um I would say that the idea of school choice in diverting public school funds to to private or or Charter Schools is is scarier much scarier um there are districts right now who are col who are paying more to Charter Schools than they're collecting in taxes and that's very very scary um and I think that's something we definitely need to keep our our on sorry um I also just want to

113say um and Tom mentioned it like briefly but something I wanted to jump on is that um you know Desmond talked about how do we wind up in this situation and this is a typical State move where if you look at where some of our biggest expenditures are and our increases are um they are mandates that have been put on us right so we have you know this this 2% cap that has been following us through the years and and we do our best to to live within it um but at the same time they took they gave with one hand and Foundation aid but they took it someplace else and then when you look at why our transportation is going up over 20% it's this this uh Mandate of the U zero emission buses

114which the state hasn't given us any relief on and hasn't given those companies any relief on um you know the cost of of Health Care is still you know out of control we really lucky this year that it stayed stable but that probably is not going to stay like that very long um and the fact that inflation is going up um is those are all things that we have to continue to let our legislators know that we are well aware that they're just playing a shell game with us and that is why we're in the situation we are and unfortunately the only thing that happens is they keep decreasing the percentage we get of state aid and then pushing it over to the taxpayer and you know we've made some really good decisions and in

115just the last couple of months you know we decided to give a break to our firemen in our in our and our in our volunteers we've decided to um you know look at what we could do for our um our senior citizens but all of that relief although very well warranted is going to be spread across all the taxpayers in in this town and we haven't even looked at um you know the fact that we have to cut more and um Dr FIS I don't want to disagree with you but what you have to stop saying that the things that we are going to cut don't have an effect on children of course they do an increase on class size has an effect on children it it may still be a reasonable class size but

116it still has an effect the loss of an elementary administrator you know we talk about mental health and and and we talk about keeping our children safe and the eyes and ears of an administrator are important because they get to see things in a in a bird's eye view that they don't get to see in the classroom and they get to manage the things that the teachers can't manage in a classroom I'm talking about moving equipment Tech equipment and the things that teachers use to to perfect their craft are absolutely going to affect our students so just where we are right now definitely has an effect it may be a scalpel and not an axe but it still has an effect and as we start to talk about more um CS I I it really

117is very scary I'm very sick to my stomach that we have some really bad and big decisions that we have to make coming forward so let me clarify I didn't mean to imply nor do I think I implied that there was no effect on the kids we're trying to make cuts that have the least greatest impact I understand I just I I just don't yes it's like a spoonful of sugar but but it is I never said but wait I find it very offensive because if you seen Scott with kids like and what did I say it was the one on the L that made me the most sick right I said that too that's hurtful I don't think that this sorry I didn't mean that to be an attack I meant that to just

118say that all the things that we are faced with having to do right now are are just they they hurt they hurt I think that they're um they might need to be done but it's very sad that we have to do them correct and I feel the same way unfortunately unfortunately I mean these are hard decisions and and financially we have to you know protect the future as well that that's the difficulty these decisions I have another question I'm sorry I know people want to get up and speak but um prek okay is is there a Max that what is our what is our class size is there a maximum class size it's the state regulation prek can be no larger than 18 and it must have a teacher and an aid so it has

119a teacher and an aid and it's maxed out at 18 and every year do we we max out at that right well depends so in last year and this year we had eight sections the year before that we had six sections yep and we have a lottery every year so some this year was the first year I think that every family that applied got in okay but in past years we've had less sections and students have not gotten in now the aid has been increased each year so that's why we were able to increase sections but for every section of prek if we were to reduce a section we would save money let's say on the teacher salary and the aid salary but we would lose $97,000 of aid for the 18 make no mistake

120about it I'm not thinking that way I'm thinking the other way so my my question my question then would be if there were spots in our up our upk our prek um because seille does their own in-house pre which I think is ridiculously beneficial in the long run for our students would that would you then be able to for lack of a better term sell those seats to kids in surrounding districts where they could then pay us to have their instead of sending them to like a nursery school or a local preschool they can come to full you know our prek program so we would which which has to be one of the better currently if we run eight programs we have 30 four and I believe we have 144 or 146 students that applied

121to be in it okay so that was my question so I we don't have like we've maxed out at 18 we never my question even like so for example as miss m r said we had aid for 36 138 times 54 we had we had a couple seats left we weren't going to leave them empty so we let the kids in because it didn't cost us anything but we didn't get aid for those last five kids got but basically there there's no scenario that I could imagine unless we ran 10 sections or something or nine where we would have extra seats in that program for uh people to to come to all right good idea I mean no if we had like a section of 10 and then we had eight seats left I would

122have to look into legal and see what we could do yeah right I think that's it for me sorry good question so um that concludes yeah I just want to thank you for your time okay so now uh I'll just go on to board discussion uh we have uh upcoming training opportunities at uh the iso Town School boards is having a meeting on March 18th at 6:30 pm in West isop High School uh nassor suffk school boards has uh the 60 days of Disconnect that's March 20th uh 6: to 7:30 pm it's an online webinar uh nisba has a parliamentary terum procedure webinar on March 26 at 12 and um they also have a seminar on welcoming and supporting student leadership to your school board it's a webinar on April 2 3D uh that's also

12312 oock in the afternoon regarding those trainings are they they are taped aren't they or she just sent an email asking so um if you can't make it to and then you can watch they're terrible I I would want to um attend the leadership one it's at 12 o'clock in the middle of the day on a Wednesday I mean they they do have some in the evening I know but I yeah yeah abely yeah um we have a oh then okay any other thing on the training not the training but I just want to add on to that the 60 days of Disconnect I'm assuming that's like disconnect from your technology is that what that is so I just want to talk briefly that I was at um the disconnect conference that was held by

124niit it was a replica of one that I spoke about a couple months ago up in Albany and I was glad to see that there were some administrators here here and some teachers um from the middle school and high school um at that event as well and it I just want to talk about it because the state um the governor is going to pass most likely a law that talks about banning school um cell phones in schools um to make your students disconnect and there was some really good information from there and some statistics that I thought were interesting uh first of all they're expecting by the end of this legislative session for 25 of the 50 states to have cell phone bands in schools in place um and what I thought was really interesting

125is that right now North Carolina and Arkansas have among the strictest bands um stricter than even California's band and California's legislation is going back uh supposedly to the table to replicate the bands that are there um the other thing that I thought was interesting the people who were there at the panel there were um a pediatrician from the American Pediatrics Association there were guidance counselors there were social workers there were parents there were students there were administrators um and they all got to speak about what their um their experience was um and there was um two school districts that they were highlighted one was scary which is in Upstate New York it's a suburb of Albany or skincity um and the other one is Sag Harbor which is you know little District out east but

126both of them have put in the cell phone bands and I just there were just some things that were said um the um the counselors and the um person from the American Pediatric Association I I didn't catch her name name um said that one in three students is showing mental health issues that are either uncovered or exasperated by the use of cell phones and social media one in three like we are right now putting that like in our ha kids hands every day and it's happening younger and younger um and when you think about that I don't to me that was just mind-blowing uh they said the increase in anxiety the increase of depression and that the biggest effect the statistics show on teenage girls and as a mother of girls that hit hard um

127and not only did it increase their levels of anxiety and depression but the attempts and actual suicides in teenage girls since the implementation of or the or the introduction of the iPhone has gone up exponentially um so these schools talked about how um and a and I think sail has taken some really good strides towards what what the goal is but the putting your phone away all day um was really really effective and they talked about all the things that benefited it and how um and some of the students were really good one of the girls who spoke was a a junior and she had come from another school where there was really no cell phone rules she said they could basically do whatever they wanted um and when she got to skill Harry and

128her parents like you're gonna go to the school and now they have the cell phone ban and she was like Over My Dead Body uh but but she was there um and basically um you know what she said was that when she was in a school where they could be on her cell phone she would walk around with her iPads her iPhone her eye buds in earbuds whatever they're called um so that she didn't have to talk to anybody or she would literally pretend she'd have notes open on her phone to particularly pretend she was looking at someone she didn't have to interact with them and that when she was looking oh my God I have to put my my jacket away she said it felt like a jacket and she said by day three

129like she was a totally different person and it opened her eyes and then they talked about how um the increase in extracurricular um increased kids were more engaged test scores went up bullying went down fighting went down the Inc the there were some funny things the um the increase in the request to be removed from study hall went up because they couldn't sit there on their phone it was very boring they took more classes they wanted more classes um the um the um the number of kids that attended or had to go to detention went down because to sit there for two hours and stare at the wall was not like sitting there on your phone there were just so many things The Bullying um the anxiety the level of Engagement um so I think

130it's coming um I do see that I know Dr F didn't have time to do his around the district tonight but I do know that we just had two students in the high school do a great research project on this and I would really Mrs mackus isn't here so she's gonna she's gonna kill me because I'm gonna volunteer it but I think in like our parent University or our parent we really should do a forum here include those kids and their research and and even perhaps bring in some of the schools that have started to implement even past what we have done because it was really eye openening and that one in three statistic is going to stay with me uh for a very long time until we can undo it so I just wanted

131to share that I'm sorry thank you sorry it took so long okay next thing we want to talk about is uh next year's uh board uh meeting dates um uh as we uh discussed earlier years ago we had the process that the uh board meeting dates were on the first two weeks of every month and then you had basically three weeks until the to the next meeting um in the last two years we moved to uh splitting those board meetings up so they were um you know there was two weeks basically in between each each meeting um my personal experience was I would like to to try to go back maybe to the to the Consolidated me method uh because it uh gives a real break between uh the meetings instead of the cycle of

132every two weeks you know having a meeting and I think it would also um might be beneficial for the administration as well uh because uh you know preparing for the meetings you know every two weeks would have you know has an impact um I don't know know what your thoughts on that uh I think I think um going back to similar to what we did you have a week that's business and a week that's a workshop and it was truly a business meeting and a workshop meeting where we discussed what was going on we get it at the business meeting we discuss it at the workshop meeting so this way and in those couple of weeks between you would get information from the community or the teachers I liked it better that way personally but

133that's my personal feeling anybody else know I I only experienced it one year e both ways I I will say that I did I did prefer the first two weeks of every month it was just easier for scheduling it was easier just to kind of know it was more predictable um so I would not be against going back I would be open to the idea that if there are months that perhaps um you know you know education in the school year is kind of cyclical so if there are months that that it makes sense um you know to to add a meeting in in a spot that isn't one of the first two weeks I would be open to that but um I do agree the idea of the business model and the workshop model

134um and and having that breather in between just to gather information to think to gather your thoughts do some research I feel like we're on a constant hamster wheel and I know um although this job is very very important it it's still is a volunteer position and it is really difficult to keep up when it's constant I would um I would add just as far as um if we did do the Consolidated meetings which I am in favor of I'd like that better when when I first started um I know Dr Ferris will make the point that if something needs to be done quicker or before that time where we meet again I think we would just if we did go with Consolidated we would have to agree I guess then to be available for

135a special meeting if need be abely yeah that's exactly exactly there's no problem with that from our end um the only thing I would request is that we have an end of July meeting and an end of August for the hiring purposes sometimes we're hiring AIDS monitors nurses I just need an end of July meeting and then an end of August meeting so that we can like at the last minute sometimes people resign and we have to hire and we just need a meeting to appoint them okay so I won't raise that issue then you want to have a no July meeting how about I mean we could have none but just be have a date set as just in case and if we're not hiring then we could just not have the meeting no

136I mean uh I'm joking actually but uh yeah I mean even in the summer because really we have three meetings in in in the summer we have one in the beginning of July the end of July and in August but they're all needed for those reasons one we have to reorganize the beginning of July that that's a mandatory meeting yeah um is there a reason why we're meeting on July 2nd instead of the 1 we can that's flexible we can uh we can do what what day would you like to well I Christine don't you always go away for Fourth of July yeah so we could do the SEC we could do the first if you want the first would be better okay okay and then the other question I have is for May because

137in may we have um actually three meetings you know because you have the vote and you have two meetings you can eliminate that middle meeting but that's why I we could maybe make that an optional meeting sorry rondae we have a budget hearing and then we have the budget vote okay but what about one and seven so is that I think you can skip the seven you have to have the other two so you can discuss them yeah you know you know that's the only other area I see Mr Ken I will set that up yeah okay y thank you very much and if we and if you if we decide we don't like it we can switch back okay uh um the next item is the claims order report uh any discussion on that

138okay so now um any other discussion items okay so the next item is uh public comment for AG agenda items that going to be voted on tonight uh do I have anybody wants to make a comment on that so I saw for 7.17 there was a decrease up to that am I jumping okay okay no problem okay uh great so uh let's move on to agenda items let's see uh I need a motion for recommended action uh minutes 601 through uh recommended actions Finance 717 Mo okay that's James and Christine discussion yeah so for 7.17 I saw a decrease of $5,000 for something with Roofing so that was a positive so I was curious what that was about yeah um I'm not sure specifically but I can get that information from you there are change

139ers we do have contingencies in each of the bonded projects so sometimes they don't you know they just reduce that and then that's the contract that we pay on but I I can get you additional information on that we need more of that yeah okay um I just had a question with the Health and Welfare service agreement now um is this something new or is this something that we had because I just seen so many of them at once um I think what the issue is we need to verify attendance with different school districts but where our students are attending parochial schools private schools in other districts we are then build for the health care services um for those students so uh we send bills we receive bills okay it's all just come at once

140I believe okay good I have a question on the 715 the um Brook Haven town we don't pay to use those fields do we it's just a w that's just a a waiver or do they town of Brook Haven charge us to use those fields so it's just a waiver they want to make sure that we have an agreement that we know that we're on their fields and they also ask for insurance information so I've had two requests from um our athletic director um Dr Cox for both the town of iip and the town of Brook Haven okay that was going to be my next question thanks and uh the other question I had with the busing contract um that contract gives us the flexibility to be able to reduce costs yeah if we have

141less Riders we can ask for Less buses but the cost of each bus is locked locked okay yeah the other thing is um not only is it savings for us but if we don't need the bus it also frees up suffi transportation services for other routes that they may need so you know if we know that we're not in need of as many buses you know they plan accordingly okay and also one more for the bid award notification from Saum what can you explain that is that the piggyback the piggy back yeah so um we are piggybacking that means that we're asking to join in on their Cooperative bid uh and we can't just do that um so we can join Cooperative bids with Bose we can go with suff County um but when there's

142a bid specific to uh that and that came from buildings and grounds the request so um we derive just other options for uh you know lower prices for it's that's part of the um remember the the the um what do they call it no the um the program that the state was regaliz we already do that it's an example what we already do that they were suggesting yes EXC that's I think Long Island has been doing more of that than Upstate yeah okay so uh any other discussion all those in favor against motion passes then I need a motion for item uh new business Personnel 801 through new business other 901 Christine Kelly discussion all those in favor against motion passes okay uh upcoming dates we have um March 19th the high school uh musical

143something rotten uh the senior show and dinner at 3:30 and then we have on March 20th 21st and 22nd the same musical at 700 p.m. and uh just let Julie know if you want to go to that um we also have on March 25th the Harlem Wizards versus disable staff at the high school gym which is always a good night Y and on March uh 26th uh the all district band night at the middle school at 700 p.m. and March 27th the Board of Education meeting at 7:30 okay so now we have our second public comment period for any uh comments from the public go ahead sure light night okay I actually wrote down some questions tonight while we were doing this presentation I don't know any of what this budget stuff is all about

144but I do have just a few questions um Desmond kind of stole one of my questions with regards to the Monopoly on the bus company and shopping around um I am happy here that we can change the amount of buses that we need um the mini buses save money if they're only carrying now can hear now you can hear me yeah um if they're only carrying let's say a quarter of the students like is that something that we have looked into yeah so last week I had a meeting with Miss meso and the director of transportation and we looked at all the mini buses in the district um they can hold up to 10 students and then we have medical buses that are special education buses that hold one or two okay um so we

145looked at like if if there's two buses with four kids going to the same building like Sunrise Drive let's reduce it to one bus and then have one bus go so I do believe we reduced in that meeting about $150,000 of um transportation cost okay because we but we we were looking to do more but also we're waiting for the addresses of the Kinder incoming kindergarten to lock in so we know where some of those students are going and we're going to continue to have those meetings but yeah we have more cost in small buses than we actually have in in the large reg um and we have a number of reasons why kids are being bused across to different schools we also are required to pay for anyone who applies for parochial schools so

146uh we have a number of small buses going to uh Catholic schools and or special private schools sure um and so that's um and what we do there to the point of regionalization is often times if we have if there's a kid from Bayport our school from Oakdale from another school going to like St Anthony's we pay a percentage and we share the bus to that location okay so we're we're looking at every single bus route and every single small van medical van and um large van the large buses cost about 180,000 the 10 person Vans are about $90,000 and did I understand correctly that you plan to now poll the community to see who is in fact using the buses because for example my kids are entitled I drive them right so what we're

147going to do is send out an email tomorrow um and the email is BAS gonna say uh the email is basically going to say we are looking to save funds for the district and to help bring our funding to a place that we can get up to the cap great uh that there are many families who don't use the buses who qualify if you are a family who qualifies please click here and then the click here there's going to be a form what's your name what how many children do you have and would you be willing to uh wave the bus for one year and if you click yes we go on a list and then we're going to confirm with those people and once we do that even if we got 50 people out

148of the 2,000 that take a bus that's $180,000 great so we're hoping we get 200 people okay um just to clarifications uh one we have till a we don't know who of our students may be requiring um a separate bus for a parochial school till April 1 residents have up to April 1 to make that de that could be adjusted in the budget that you all would have to adopt after we find out about that we don't know what that information is um and then there's also if someone would to move into the district they have to let us know within 30 days after April 1 it's cut off yeah and the large buses are 126 that's okay um and uh you know we also PLL from time to time our our the drivers um

149and we find out how many students are riding your buses you know and sometimes there's more in the there's more in the morning than the afternoon for sports or things where sometimes parents drive the students in but then they take the bus home in the afternoon so um the other thing I want to add uh some recommendations where could we look at the late buses because the lay buses also have less kids right but when we pay for a bus we pay for the bus for the day right so there's a block of time so whether you make 20 runs in that time or two runs in that time you get them for that time so we wouldn't like if we said we don't want the late bus it's still the same price so we

150would we might as well keep the late bus but that will all be updated prior to the budget actually being presented all of you potentially help us and that's why we're postponing our final presentation because we want to have all that information before we make a decision perfect um my second question was you talked about nearly a 15% increase in the insurance that you carry I think it was larger right it's actually 28% 28% sorry I wrote it down unallocated uh for our liability it's all of auto insurance all of our um you know that's been shopped or are you just staying with what's comfortable so um it's a little more difficult than just that um so uh there's a lengthy application that I have applied for um however I've come to learn that if

151you leave nicer which is predominantly what most school districts do they will never allow you back it's a it's a little sticky situation um that seems like another Monopoly I'm just saying sorry I run business I shot my insurance for myself and my employees year after year to save money and that seems irresponsible to just do something because it's comfortable and they're not going to let you back there are other Alternatives we should be looking into them yeah before we're cutting teachers and administrators we should be looking into that yeah um and there are other options and we can also go through the policy um and because I've SE I've seen it happen to people who recently did this and they say yeah we can't beat their rates but we should still be looking into

152it regardless if they say they can't let them give you a proposal no I mean seems common sense to me did you and didn't correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you do that last year didn't you find us a different rate for some type of insurance that was lower that and you ended up saving us money there are a number of different policies um and they come at different times um but I believe my predecessor went through the process and you remained with nyser Oh I thought there was another thing that you're talking about where she looked at different Bond rates and she was looking for Bond rates and then she changed the bond financial advisors yeah and B something where you had me to switch from what we were doing yes and and

153that did save us some okay yeah yeah yeah all right but there's nothing we're not going to look into I mean obviously Amanda that's you know Common Sense okay um I'd like to rewind to when we were talking about the money that was given to us during covid for the unemployment unemployment insurance last year you said that we pulled 700,000 out the board 600,000 they approved it that was reallocated to the regular budget am I understanding that correctly it was used in the4 okay this year you're asking for 700,000 which would bring that Reserve back to where it would be okay so it's just it's already allocated into the things that you already explained that's what my question was um the collapsing of four Elementary sections is a long Haring to me as you know

154I'm the PTA president of an elementary school of Lincoln collapsing four Elementary sections while I understand the need because of numbers being low what happens to those four teachers okay so the teachers that um are part of this are not teachers that are they're leave replacement teachers they're not part of the um probationary faculty um the four sections have 14 15 and 14 16 15 and 15 uh so the class sizes would be uh in some cases 22 and 23 and in some cases 24 no class over 25 which is a typical class size for a second grade and first grade class next year so I understand uh the concern um as of right now there have been no cuts to staff that we intend to have next year but there's bodies attached to there

155are people I'm not saying because it's a leave replacement doesn't there there's somebody attached to that I guess the question is are you suggesting and then the board should weigh on this if we are running we should run classes of 14 um you know the class level part I understand and not uh look financially at that so now we're talking about four individuals who are lever placements why don't we bounce off of Desmond's idea of selling open spaces for upk and utilize those four people for four sections three to four sections of upk is that not a possibility well there's a couple things with that um we're maxed out of the funding that we're getting from upk so anybody we added to upk we wouldn't get any additional funding right but you'd be selling it

156I guess the question is how would we you know how much yeah add sections and bring people into the district that are they would pay a tuition base just like any normal person would if they were going to XYZ I could look into that I could look into that it could be a big Revenue stream while maintaining for educators that we value you could also ask people if they want to pay to come to the district on any grade level I would imagine sure um and you'd have to set a rate and someone but someone would have to be willing to pay out of their pocket that amount okay that legal no there's regulations to that because we we went through the you said you'd have to check have to check with legal I didn't

157say we could do it or not do it I we'd have to check with okay and the last thing I I don't have a question about this but as you all know I work very closely with the administrative staff at Lincoln Avenue and I could literally cry looking at Mr Bullis that gives me a pit in my stomach the school will not operate the same without him I speak on behalf of all 440 students in that building this cannot happen so figure it out find a way he cannot be lost in that building he is instrumental in the day-to-day operations it's not oh we're going to miss him because we love him sure we love him but he is a vital asset to the Lincoln Avenue community in more ways than I think you understand

158so I implore you to figure out another solution there has to be one there are reserves we're talking about a little hiccup of a reserve if it's to save that man until our solar takes place next year do it that is your job do it can I jump in here for a second sure I I think you know when I look at second are are you finished I'm done thank you um I think for me this gets to the really the point of my my thoughts about the state because I I look at Lincoln and I look at what the school went through and I there was very early conversation where we met with the principles and one of the things I kind of we were having a number of problems because we really didn't

159have the support in place for students with special needs um and I think there was a great de deal of stability um that came with you Mr Bolis so I I think for me this the two things that are most concerning to me are those those administrative positions uh Lincoln because I think he completely stabilized the school having two administrators I think we needed assist an assistant principal like than every other totally and I and I think and I also worry about the high school um because I think for me that position is I've looked at where our high school was 15 years ago and where it is now and I think you know we're kind of like on the right track so it's particularly painful to even think about losing those two positions and

160that's why my hope is like you know ultimately at the state level it's like I just we don't it's hard to plan you know what I mean when when they say one we developed three budgets last year I think they might be a little bit more predictable this year but I don't really trust it you know and it's very frustrating because I think about what Lincoln went through and how it's been and I also think about how far the high schools come those are my biggest concerns can I just want to um say that I agree with you 100% about the person as an individual and the position and the need um it's the reason why when we went through what we went through three years ago where we lost the principal in March Mr

161Bullis was like the steady and then we hired Mr armano and we did back flips to figure out how to keep Mr Bullis so we could have the that duo in that building because they are a powerful group um and and then even in the following year using grant money using any means possible to keep that intact you know being very creative because we knew it was important and we care about it and I I really want to emphasize because I I feel a little sting a little sting of it nothing we're talking about doing I want to do and not I love the all the programs many of which I've been a part of creating including the idea of Mr Bullis so uh you know being in Lincoln he's amazing and if there's anything

162that we could possibly do we will do it but there is got to be a give then somewhere else it can't just be yes we love this we love this we love this we have to have it all because we're in a financial situation that is uh very challenging so we can all say we want you know I make a joke like we'll have a budget meeting with the principles okay we got to you think about this what do we what can we what can we we'll all sacrifice okay what and then there's really nothing anyone wants to sacrifice not because they're selfish but because they care about the kids and they don't want to lose anything um so something has to give somewhere and I do feel even when I presented the one area

163that made me the sickest was that line um and Al I'll just add also I mean um yes we're talking about finances but we also realize there's people behind uh these numbers and um and that's why we're you know trying to slow down the process so we can make the best uh decisions possible for Sable that Dr had mentioned writing letters again we had great sucess that last year you will to another I can at loln I'm toze resources sure what I would say is um I would I've I would like to be in ation with Alexis week and Jared um I want to see where it's at if they're telling me like because it felt like oh yes everyone's on board with this and there's no need to put your energy there then I

164wouldn't want you to if they say yeah it's looking kind of dicey the governor's giving us a hard time then I would say yeah let's do it um so if you would I want you to put your energy where it could be most effective so I would just say let me talk to Jared and to Alexis and see what their thoughts are and then if they're feeling really good and it's not necessary or if it's like no we that'll help us get it across the line like I I would communicate that to our PTA presidents and we could definitely host anything right but I want to put our energy wherever it would best help us I'll take one more question go I first want to thank all of you for your service I know uh

165what goes into doing this my name is chrisy um I am an educator in another District I have a question for you about the insurance I'm curious what hiring these armed guards is going to do to the cost of your insurance because my understanding is if a school district has metal detectors or has armed security it raises the cost to ensure that District so we are not hiring our own armed guards it's an outside company that comes with their insurance um and the policy is up to $10 million I want to also add um they don't go in the buildings unless there's crisis they're perimeter guards and they stay outside so they would never go into the building unless there was a crisis so as a result of that when you hire an outside agency

166it doesn't affect your insurance rates if we armed our own guards and we had those armed guards in the building that absolutely would do what you said but in this case it would not my second question is to have a guards in the area and not necessarily immediately there when there is a crisis I I find it wasteful to spend that kind of money to have somebody in the community and remove a principal a monitor programs that our kids need that are handson to put somebody that might be there in time when we have a a great suffet County Police we have other we have other resources that we don't need to spend that $200 200,000 200,000 thank you I appreciate the comment and um and I this is directed to you um you said

167when you were talking and it kind of knocked the breath out of me that you um are more concerned about our budget going down because of the parents not voting because they're not getting the armed security guards I think I'd be more concerned with the community not voting for the budget because of the security guards because sa I I grew up here my parents grew up here I raised my kids here I don't want to be in a community that has to have armed security guard for my family that's not why we live in saal that's not why we pay the property taxes we do to have armed security guards for our students we come here because of the programs we come here because of the education that our children are getting the resources and

168you're talking about cutting resources and all these things for $200,000 of three guards you're impacting the Kids Hands-On impact more than you are with appeasing some parents that like the prestige or the we we have guards protecting our kids that's not going to be what saval is okay can I say Mar I just want to say I agree with you wholeheartedly and I believe and I said this previously we have a great guard system where they're not armed they're just there seeing checking idas for kids to get in the buildings and they're wonderful I don't think we need arm guards that's my own personal feelings I'm a high school teacher and I see more interaction with our kids with the security guards that are there that oneon-one and when you start talking about kids their

169mental health impact going from one to three that's huge you would be better off putting that kind of um I'm going to say money toward that type of stuff than to put somebody driving around in a car you know our kids emotionally need that support I want to say that's what we have our kids go to our guards to be out there yeah we have one at every school sometimes too the kids go over to them they know them they know the kids they're great they're great I cannot say enough good things and when you have the monitors there the kids have that relationship with the monitors and the all those relationships no no no I'm not saying losing guards I said you should use those guards because well let's hold on one that you're

170hiring you they want to hire three armed guards in the community not hands on with the kids sorry okay I I appreciate your comments and thank you um just from my experience in talking to parents and being at PTA meetings and being at the Forum and getting feedback I think there are many parents who feel exactly the way you do and I think there are many parents uh who feel the opposite and my worry was what I expressed that's right but I understand I'm not sure that um I'm not sure that the people that are not directly in the school know exactly like what you're that you're going to hire them and once they do find out and it does get out into the community that you're going to have the backlash of people not

171wanting their Community being that way okay thank you thank you okay um any other questions did we talk did we talk about administration pay did that come up at all because I'm just wondering like we're going to lose a principal or an assistant principal is there any way there could be a pay freeze on the raises that are coming up where we could keep him I mean there is you know you're getting the solar Savings in a year or two whatever it is it's just a shame to lose somebody who's clearly made such a big impact on the community in areas where contracts are like in place can but in areas where there are people who don't have contracts in place we can certainly discuss freezes and and we could certainly do that okay will

172it get us across the needle uh maybe but I would definitely explore that with any Cara that we had no contracts that were already locked in yeah yeah yeah we well we definitely got to look into that and we do got to look into the insurance thing too I mean because just because it's tough doesn't mean we can't do it I own a business I gotta go through it and yeah no I I I didn't say perhaps um I wasn't clear um I've started the process I've been in contact uh spent many hours already exploring this um and I also have spoken to board members of nyser who are colleagues of mine and I was not aware that if you do leave nicer you will not be back um and that has other ramifications and

173challenges so um it clearly needs that's kind of crazy though that they can do that I did not know that um and I've also spoken to um awful yeah uh it's bullying I mean also and then you know the insurance situation it's not sustainable I mean you see the natural disasters and stuff like that prices are are going through the roof with insurance and and sometimes it's it's very dangerous then to move to another another carry as well and you but I mean we got to we got to explore to explore AB we do have to explore but we can't be flipping about it because we have to understand that neyers is it is what it is and why V threat of once you leave you can't come back is so scary is that because

174they're so well established and because they're in the situation that they in that we didn't put them in that they managed to get themselves into if you move to another carrier and then you get dropped then you're at the whim of what other carriers are around who are going to absolutely identify the fact that you've left the the the big game in town and now you're desperate to go back to them it's like if you have um you know flood insurance on your house right now and you get dropped try searching for some new flood insurance so um I think that that's that sounds like oh like that's a threat but there is a real ramification that goes with that and we always have nicer claims um there's pages of them yeah um that perhaps

175haven't been settled some have been paid out um so uh there are things that um you know I review with nicer um and I'm not naive to know that they offer every five years of free fixed asset appraisal it's important that we ensure both our new capital projects and also our equipment additions um but as they provide that service through another company they get that information and then they raise your rates because you have more fixed assets so um you know some of that I think is self- serving um but uh I I have explored it and uh I will continue to do so you do and the bus company too because that's ridiculous I mean I can't believe we're stuck with these with this company for insurance in this company for buses I'll start

176a bus company start to go fund me uh as far as the armed guards with her saying um you know sorry not in pointing you but um I think a lot of the people who aren't involved in the school district and are outside the school dis kids graduate and whatnot are for it I mean a lot of the votes that came in were from people who had no idea what was going on I me Cara walked miles to do it and everybody was jumping right in on it um we're not losing security guards so our kids aren't going to lose contact with their favorite security guard in the school um so I just think you know I I think there is a more Pro Community for that than against it so I mean hey I

177mean I know you're saying no but the time for you to speak was at the the community forum and the other things been there okay so I feel like the community Forum was the time for the people who were against it to come out and speaking it was unanimously for it well I I'll also add to that just from a data point I'm not saying anyone's in the grouping is right or wrong in addition to the Forum which is a 7030 I went to PTA meetings and I just did like informal polling where I had it was silly I had them close their eyes and just raise their hand if and you know at Lincoln Avenue was almost 90% of the parents in that PTA meeting at the middle school high school was almost 65%

178I mean I'm I'm ballparking those numbers but so there is feelings on the other side they're just as strong absolutely but that's about the breakdown yeah that's why we're here so thank you your St I believe the staff is about 5050 I know security is pretty for it I believe okay thank thank you okay good evening everyone I just wanted to pay you back on what Ryan said really quick I did walk oh long time and I spoke with dozens of people in the community people who don't have kids in the in the schools anymore people who haven't had kids in the schools for decades who personally thanked me for going out on the street and walking and telling them what was going on and they were more than happy to give their their votes

179on that um in addition to that I just had something off topic with the Bristol is that something the pilot is that something that is going to come back again and again is it something that we can anticipate getting even less and less from them over the years so do you want to answer that um I I'm not certain um however the reductions that they received went all the way back to 20156 and their assessed value has been decreased for the 24 20 uh 24 25 year and forward so um you know the fact that they've gotten a very large decrease in their assessment um I think they would be hard pressed to challenge it again I don't know could that be done in five years from now perhaps okay um but uh they current

180they are no longer quote a pilot but they are treated separately because there's a whole legal process before they actually come on our roles I know other districts have had Pilots expire and it's been seven years and they're still not on their assessments but we would get if if they were off if they even if they were not on our roles but off of a pilot um that one has nothing to do with the other I don't know why they challenged their assessment but uh I have the paperwork and uh it went back from two each year from 201516 through 2425 and the credits were given in 2425 and that was awarded in August and so it shouldn't ever be like this much of a hit then because of it was going back from that

181it was a lot of years I don't even maybe they were only built in 20156 so that's as far as they could go back so you know now on a path and you know hopefully they don't um challenge that assessment again but I think they would be hard pressed because it was um a big reduction okay and then just one more question I know that we talked about shopping for the bus company which we really can't do in the insurance um are we also shopping for financial advisors making are are we able to use like put the money I know we can't use the reserve money really but are you able to put that in something and then use the interest from that for something else that's the you see the interest portion of our

182revenue and wherever wherever we can uh uh put reserves and collect interest we we do that's allowed under law do you want to talk about night class and just how you try to get as much from that as you can yeah so when I had come um to the district uh two almost two years ago um I had uh spoken with the treasurer and the board and um I introduced night class here which is a pooled investment um that is where we have some of our Reserve money um but even there finding you know even the interest rates in the last couple of months have dropped a little there as well um and just to comment again um it's not that we shopped for our bus there's a very specific process that we must follow

183in terms of legal ads and um a bid opening and providing the specifications to people and placing that in in the paper and we only had one show up absolutely okay thank you so much thank you thank you Ronda just a quick question it's the town of icelet that approves that tax um adjustment for Bristol I believe so um the information was provided through the Ida um because they're not fully on the roles I don't know if they both Take A Part in that process but um it's certainly a legal judgment uh stipulation of agreement that they um had approved thank you okay um any what any other comments good thank you I appreciate all the feedback from the community um any other comments from the board yeah I just wanted to um let everybody

184know that Sunrise won the volleyball tournament I know James was fired up about I thought everybody won because it was for charity yeah exactly right okay um thank you everybody uh our meeting is closed I need a motion yes I need a motion to go into exec session uh to uh discuss an evaluation um tesmond second Kathy discussion all those in favor against okay we're in exec session thank you have a good night