001Ready to roll. Hello. Thank you for joining us. Please rise and join me in the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay, we will begin uh tonight with our student board members report. Good evening everyone. I hope you enjoyed these past two snow days because I certainly did and I hope everyone stayed safe and warm. So there's not too much going on within the student body here at Sebr. This Friday, February 27th, the class of 2026, their senior award applications are due. So that provides seniors with an incredible opportunity opportunity to be honored for their hard work. So that's a great opportunity opportunity for the scholarships. And on
002Sunday, March 1st, come join us at Clark High School in East Meadow for the Art Supervisors Association All County Art Exhibit. Sever proudly has 24 featured artists this year. So that's incredible. In addition, the All State NISMA Festival is on March 27th and 28th at Division Avenue High School. So join us there as well. On Monday, March 2nd, the high school will be hosting its annual in school SAT for any 11th grade student. So, that's another great opportunity for the juniors to get a head start. And on Monday, March 9th, the high school spring season officially starts for sports. So, that's an exciting time of the year. But before the spring season begins, there are quite a few recognitions that I'd like to honor. First, the varsity boys and girls basketball teams are moving on
003to the playoffs. And if the boys win this next round, their ticket is secure to move on to states. So, that's exciting. In addition, boysen tradition traditional cheer and the wrestling team were all Nassau County champions and they all advanced onto the corresponding state championships as well. And the traditional cheer state championship is on Saturday, March 7th. So, good luck to all the cheer and all the seafood athletes competing. So, it's just a pretty amazing time all around for seafood athletics. And that wraps up my report. So, thank you. >> Thanks, Matt. Thank you. >> Thank you, Matt. >> Thank you. lots going on and a lot of um accolades for our sport team. So, it's pretty exciting. Now, Dr. Pakora will deliver her administrative report. >> Okay. So, um I would be remiss if
004I didn't give a huge shout out to our buildings and grounds crew for really doing a fantastic job in making our schools and campuses ready to receive students and faculty and staff today. They really did a phenomenal job and they're just such an incredible group of Vikings. They really are through and through. Um When I toured the properties yesterday, everybody was just in incredibly um kind and working really really hard to make sure that we were um ready to receive the students today. We did not anticipate that there'd be as much snow this morning as there was. Um but we still we plowed through literally and figuratively. And um we're really glad. We hope everybody is home safe and sound if they were traveling and everybody's back safely. Now, I do want to mention a
005couple of things. Um, I know Matt had mentioned the success of our our athletes. I just did want to give a little bit more specific information. The girls basketball playoff game is going to be tomorrow 2:26 8:30 at Farmingdale State. The boys basketball is also at Farmingdale State and that will be on 228 at 8:00 p.m. And then the states for the wrestling, our boys are leaving this weekend. It'll be the 27th and 28th as Matt is going to be March 7th and bowling is going to be March 13th. So, the next couple of weeks are going to be very exciting for our athletes. So, if you're around, go support the basketball teams this weekend. And as always, go Vikings. I do want to mention that Miss Meer is going to be presenting the tax
006cap tonight. A little bit of a spoiler alert, it's the second lowest tax cap levy in the last eight years. Um, so she'll elaborate on that. She's done a wonderful job. And then also on the agenda for board approval tonight is we're going to have uh not so new but probationary faculty members. So Christina Winters is in the audience. Just kind of wave a little bit. Uh Christina is with us right now as a speech and language pathologist and she's working with us part-time. She's done a phenomenal job with our kids. Um the whole PPS department endorsed her application to be a full-time employee for us. Uh she, as I said, she's been with us. Prior to that, she had worked at the Little Village School in Seafford and then prior to that, she had
007worked at the Lexington School for the Deaf. All of her degrees, her undergraduate and master's degrees are from Adelfi University. So, we're really happy to have you as a full-time Viking. Congratulations, Kristen. And that ends my report and I will turn it over to Miss Me. Good evening, Board of Education, Dr. Vakora, my fellow administrators and colleagues, um, our guests this evening, uh, who are here in person and at home. Uh, so this evening, we'll kick off our first budget meeting for the 2026 2027 year. Um, the process actually started back in November. uh when our department heads got busy uh working and putting together their ideas and thoughts for uh our coming budget year. Um but this evening will be the first glimpse of our budget development and the calculation of the tax cap.
008So the budget development is uh the foundation for that um always keeps its eye on a number of things. Um first we always try to establish a balanced budget that is within our tax cap limits. uh the use of reserves strategically so that we may minimize borrowing for projects but also so that we have an eye on what our fiscal stress scores are and that we keep those low. Um I'll get into uh a slide on that in a moment. Um that we spend prudently. uh we manage rising costs which has become a little more difficult uh in the last few years. Uh and that also we always try to improve where we can and uh keep our class sizes within the recommended board of ed policy uh so that we can keep those at
009efficient levels. Facilities is always a large component of our um the support for our educational programs and we look to uh our five-year capital plans and our building condition surveys to help guide us with what those plans may be and sustaining transparency. We uh use parent square. Our website is a wonderful resource. We try to uh provide this information um to our residents and all stakeholders. Uh and we can't forget our Viking Pops which is a was a wonderful addition uh that provides a lot of good information um whether throughout the district uh and also there's a budget issue that comes out. So, so with the fiscal stress score each January uh after the um financial statements for the prior year in this case it would be 2024 2025 are um finalized. The New York
010State Office, the state controller scores various governmental entities, namely school districts, towns, and villages on what their fis fiscal stress level is. Um here, as the heading says, low fiscal stress reflects the district's strong financial health uh for Seafford. And that is true. Um it doesn't sound like it, but a no designation is the type of score that entity would like to receive. Uh and although it has crept up a little from the year prior, um we are still well within the range of no designation. Um the there are external and internal factors that come into play for how that stress score is calculated. Um the use of reserves uh which ours is intentional and for the appropriate purposes um with use of those for funding our capital projects, namely our roofing work that has
011been done. Um it our cash gets depleted as it would because you're using your reserves and uh that's all on paper. So what the office of the state controller doesn't see is that we are improving our infrastructure with the use of that money. Um but uh that does cause this the points to be um up a little from the prior year. The calculation of the tax cap, this is the actual calculation that can be found on the office of the state controllers website. And uh I will go into the next slide. It looks a little scary, but it's not. Um and uh I'll show you specifically what the impact is uh and for Seafford School District. So here is the calculation just in a little different format but it follows along. Um I've circled a
012few of the items that are of importance. Um we do receive some of this information from outside sources so we're not able to calculate it until we have all of the data. But we start with the prior year's tax levy and for Seafford that is what was in the 2526 budget as our levy. we apply to that the tax base growth factor and that is provided by the New York State Department of Tax and Finance and that indicates it's a measure of any growth within the Seafford community and that is provided to us specifically um that amount is um 1.052 and that we apply to the levy. We then um add back our are prior year's pilots. Those are payment in lie of taxes for Seafford. We have one outside pilot which is Neptune as
013well as the LIPA pilots that we receive. So that gets added back and then to that we um subtract the capital tax levy which is comprised of our debt service expenditures as well as capital expenditures and an ad back of the building aid we receive. So it's a combined figure that um takes into account all of those items to that we this is where the tax cap gets the coin 2% tax cap. It's really the lesser of CPI or 2% whatever is the lesser amount. So in this instance our the um CPI for our June 30th governments was 2.6 63. So that is larger than 2%. So we are at a 2% um allowed levy growth. So when that gets applied, we then take a look at what our estimated pilots are for the 26
01427 year and um we subtract those and then there are other exclusions and adjustments that one would make to this calculation for the 26 27 year. They're not applicable um tort claims that you would have to levy taxes for. Also if you go up two percentage points on either ERS or the TRS, the employees retirement system or teachers retirement systems that you would have to make as an adjustment here. The only thing that we then take into account here is the 2627 capital tax levy. And again, that's the debt service, our capital costs with the uh reduction of any anticipated building aid. And the end result is a tax cap levy of 2.26. 264%. That is the maximum we're able to levy and that is what we are recommending to the board of education this
015evening. What that levy percentage increase uh relates to is uh an increase of 1,390,943. So um as Dr. for core share. This is um the second lowest in eight years. Uh the next slide shows a history of our tax levy percentages and uh you can see that uh in it is the second lowest. Um and I always like to remind um everyone that this is not we are not setting the tax rate. This is the tax levy. The tax rate is something separate and distinct that comes from the county based upon assessed values for our uh residents. Um and as of yesterday, uh the filing of tax caps for Long Island school districts, there were maybe 25 that have filed them thus far, the average of the tax levy percentage for those districts is 2.49.
016So, uh we're well within that range here uh in Seafford. So, so as even with the second lowest tax levy cap, we still are able to plan for um some pretty great projects um for the capital fund. So, I'll go into and share some of those uh proposed capital plans. So, for our middle school, we're looking to um renovate bathrooms near the cafeteria and the gym. Um we prioritize our projects based on, as I had suggested, building condition surveys, the advice of our architects. We look at the age of our buildings and what projects are in need of. So, this bathroom set of bathrooms just continues our bathroom renovation work throughout the district. So, in last year's budget, we were able to uh provide for um a wonderful improvement to our middle school gym. And
017uh that was for um and there's a picture at the bottom right hand of what that finished product looks like. And it was a big project, but a very good one. Um, so it that was as as in addition to the middle school roof project. So it was the perfect time to do that. Um, but as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words. And um, one of the last projects to complete this renovation in our gym um, are the windows up above. And uh, this is an actual video of uh, some water at the top. on the edge. We had >> these buckets been here for no joke. Just five minutes saturated. All these cows cardboard drenched the south wind seams up top that black strip right there on that s >> water inside
018our buildings at any point is not um does brings us a little scare but uh we want to protect the work that's been done in there so far. So this was became a priority this year and uh will the last project that will complete that gym renovation. So that is one of the projects too we're looking to plan. Lastly uh in the 2526 budget we had a drainage project um that is still there. Uh it has somewhat morphed. So, this project was to be for um addressing drainage work at our high school in between the two sides of the building and uh also to kind of like enhance that outside area and then the idea came for building aid and also a wonderful outdoor learning space. Um so in order to do that which is
019a depiction from our architect of what that would look like we need to um create an egress. So in the 2627 budget we're looking to um put the costs of what that hallway and expansion would be so that our students and staff would easily be able to um access that space. So, that's uh all of the projects that we have and um these are just some of our uh upcoming budget presentations. On March 11th, we'll look to some of the programs and budget enhancements that we have within the 2627 budget we're planning for. Uh and then following that, March 25th, anticipated revenues and expenses. you'll get to see the whole budget at that point and what that looks like. Um, in April 15th, we have our board of ed budget adoption and property tax report
020card. April 28th, which is a little bit later this year, is the Bosey's budget vote. And then May 6, we will have a budget hearing that typically is at the high school. Do we still do that at the high school or maybe here? >> Doing it here. >> In here. Okay. Uh I remember that from my last visit here. Um and then May 19th is of course the budget vote and trustee election. And that's it. Um so thank you. At this point I would open the floor to any questions um from the board. >> Okay. Thank you. Move on to some business. >> I need a motion for agenda item 51 and 52. Move it. >> Any discussion? All in favor? I I need a motion for agenda items 61 and 62. >> Move it.
021>> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> Okay. Questions and comments. Are there any residents here that would like to make a comment? All right. All received correspondence has been responded to. business. I need a motion for agenda item 9 A1 through 9 A4. >> Move it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? I >> Okay. I need a motion for agenda items 9 B1 through 9 B3. >> Move it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? I I need a motion for agenda item 9 C1. >> Move it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I need a motion for agenda item 9 D1. >> Move it. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. Okay. I need a motion for agenda item 91 move it. >>
022Any discussion? All in favor? I >> I Does anybody have any miscellaneous discussion items? >> Nope. Okay. Closing comments. Um well, congratulations to all the sports teams that are being so successful and good luck to the basketball teams, the boys and the girls this week as they enter the playoffs. Welcome, Miss Winters. Welcome officially, right? Um, I will give another quick but heartfelt thanks to the facilities crew, Mr. Costa, for all their hard work at getting the snow taken care of. Um, and I just want to give a thank you to the Secret Symphony for their very generous monetary donation for each school's music supply code. Um, the PTSA for the outdoor picnic tables that are being donated to the middle school courtyard. I'm sure those will be put to by the students once the
023weather warms up. Um, and last but not least, thank you to the FER family for their donation of a drum set to the harbor school. And that is it. Anybody have anything new or different to add? >> Nope. Okay. So, we'll be back here March 11th for that second budget presentation. Thank you everybody. I need a motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All in favor? >> Have a nice day. I'm just I'm just going to add one last comment is next weekend uh Friday and Saturday is the Secret High School musical >> and that's officially it.