001Yes. Okay. Welcome everybody. Philip Dine, president of the board of education. Would everyone please stand for the pledge to the flag? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Okay. Quick part announcement. In the event of emergency, be aware of the rear exits and your exits to your left and to your right. Okay. Uh thank you for attending our board meeting this evening. We're going to start off with um our ISA pride and presentations and Dr. O'Hara will uh do the budget workshop. Uh good evening everyone. Thank you for attending our meeting. Uh we're going to go through um tonight we're going to tell you where we've been, how we arrived at
002tonight's final proposal. Uh this presentation has lots of information in it. I think you'll find it very informative and then uh at the completion we'll take questions from the board and the community. So just a quick review, March 5th was our first presentation this year. Uh that evening we talked uh Dr. Mr. Zedberg presented on uh estimates for state aid and what tax limiting may look like. On March 26th, we talked about the expenditure side of our budget. And our last meeting, April 8th, we reviewed the budget process uh in general. We shared some enrollment trends. We we spoke about the class size at the elementary level and the K12 enrollment. And we shared information about programs in the district. Tonight is the final uh budget proposal and hopefully adoption by the board of education.
003May 7th will be a public hearing on the budget as required by law and then as most of you know May 20th is the annual budget board. So a quick reminder about our mission statement and board of education in partnership with the community will empower students to achieve excellence reach their full potential. Learner focused instruction will provide the whole child with the opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to become a productive and successful member of society. This slide is a review from uh our last meeting as well. Through the budget process, we seek to maintain and improve upon our safe and welcoming, supportive, and inclusive school community. Obviously, we want to focus on students academic, mental, and social well-being. We want to improve our instructional programs. We want to make sure that every child has
004high quality instructor in every class every day. And we want to continue with our long long-term planning for the district's educational programs and initiatives while maintaining safety and security, identifying and continuing repairs, improvements, and upgrades to our facilities, managing our reserve funds, and of course, navigating all of the above in the midst of the 13th year of uh tax cap levy. And the budget we're talking about actually the 14th year of school districts in New York State living under that tax cap. When we were together last, you saw this chart. On the right hand side of the chart is the expenses. So these are the things each year and year in and year out that we have to spend our budget on. General support, instruction, transportation, employee benefits, and debt service. Um the left side
005as you see it right now is unchanged from the last several meetings that we've had. The revenue we get to educate students in the community is from state aid. Local revenues which may include things like um rent, interest payments, etc. Fund balance which is money that may be left over at the end of the school year and the tax levy. What's new for tonight that I want to draw the attent uh committee's attention to and we'll talk about throughout the evening is the use of reserves to fund our budget this year. If you were here last time on April 8th, these two boxes uh would look familiar to you. You can see um that we have an expenditure budget of 102,674,166 and we had a revenue budget of 101,470,46. So as of April 8th there
006was a gap of 1.2 million. So this evening 422 there's something new on this side of the budget reserves and in the amount of $975,000. What we've done on this side of the budget is take into account some retirements that we were made aware of that were not announced at the last meeting. Uh we looked at every line in the budget, looked for areas where we could reduce some codes and find some savings. and we've come up with a decrease of 229,000 and some change. And because of the increase of $975,000 in revenue on this side of the budget, you see those two numbers are the same. And now we have a zero budget gap. So that means as of this evening for the budget we're proposing, our budget is balanced. Our revenue equals our
007expenditures. I thought it might help if we took a few minutes to just remind the community of how uh our budget or our spending plan is funded year in and year out in New York State. So the biggest part of our budget is property taxes or the tax levy this year in Iceland. That's just about 67% of the budget. Then there's state aid and that's just about 29% of the budget in Iceland. There's fund balance which I mentioned is money left over at the end of each year. There's reserves. There's something called payment in le of taxes referred to as a pilot that comes from uh sometimes real estate development or business development. Those associations or organizations make a payment instead of paying taxes each month in ISA. That amounts to only approximately $380,000. And
008then there's other revenue which is things like uh local revenue which could be rent and interest. Like I mentioned earlier, tonight we're going to spend a little bit of time just showing you what the reserve accounts look like and how we propose to use that money. So this is just another visual representation of what our budget looks like this year in terms of the revenue. You can see the estimated revenue is 102,445,46 which if you remember from previous slides matches our expenditures. So again the budget is balanced. All the sections of the pie chart represent the numbers that were in the purple box just a few slides ago. And we're going to delve into the use of reserves just a little bit. I thought it might be helpful to the community if you had a
009little bit of a historical perspective. So, I mentioned that it's been 13 going on 14 years of the tax cap laws in New York State. So, here's a history of where the ISIM school district has been all the way back to the 2012 2013 school budget. Um, if you see one asterisk, that's a year where the district uh proposed to the voters that we pierced the cap. And if you see a double asterisk, those are years where the district's tax levy was below the allowable limit. Coincidentally, it was three years where you pierced and three years where you were below uh the limit. And you can see that the average increase in Icelip over all those years is 2.29% which I I think is a pretty reasonable number. And um I think it shows that
010the tax cap is doing what it was intended to do. So I was wondering uh how does that compare? Um these are the numbers for Suffach County. So this year, uh, Suffach County average is proposing a tax cap increase of 2.73%. Long Island is 2.68. And what does it look like for school districts that are uh, surrounding us? You can see Bay Shore is pretty high. They put Bluepoint up on West Iceland. Uh, you see Art School right about in the middle there. Our district, Seville, Sichum, Central is East Connect. The average increase including us for all those schools is 2.57. And our proposed tax levy increase is 2.42. And the numbers in those two charts are the numbers that are proposed for the 2025 2026 school budgets. So what do we have in reserves
011right now? Um so these are the six different reserve accounts that we have in the school district. The first one is retirement contribution reserve uh referred to as ERS employees retirement system. Uh that's to fund pension contributions for employees such as aids, custodians, and clerical. Uh also sometimes people in our IT department. We have a retirement contribution reserve fund or known as TRS. This is a reserve fund that's used to fund employer required contributions to the teachers retirement fund. We have a workers compensation reserve. We have an employee benefit acrewed liability reserve. that fund can only be used for acred benefits. So the biggest example of that in um some employees contracts is a um benefit where the employee may get paid for unused sick days upon retirement. And so those reserves are there in
012the event that we need some extra money to meet meet that requirement and we can we can tap into that. But it's important to note that that reserve may only be used for that purpose. We have a repair reserve uh which also can only be used for that u purpose and we have a capital reserve and uh forgive me because I think I have a typo does every is it 1 million in net repair reserve it was there that's not with funds from yeah okay but it wasn't 12 million I have typg folks I'll have to correct that okay so this chart shows the same reserves Uh, I thought I could just bring your attention to the repair reserve. The number was $255,566,000. So, sorry about that typo on the last slide. Um, so you
013can see from this chart that uh as of June of 2023, we had approximately $13 million in reserve in total. Uh, for your uh point of reference, that number was approximately $12 million in June of 2022. And you can see that at the end of June 30th, 2024, the number is 12.8 million in reserves. So each year these reserves may go up or down. That typically happens at the end of the year. It's not as if these accounts are tapped into regularly throughout a school year. The adjustments are usually made at the end of the school year. And you can see from 2023 to 2024 where we went up or down at each reserve account. So the reason that I wanted to show this information to the community is because uh we work with um
014uh auditors and accountants and advisors and they they recommend how much money should be in reserve accounts and how long you should be funded for. So this slide shows that for the retirement contribution reserve we have 2.12 years worth of reserves in that account. We have just over half a year in the TRS and It's worth noting that the TRS reserve is relatively new. So, uh it makes sense that we wouldn't have as much of uh time reserved in that account. And we have a workers compensation reserve. Okay. So what um and at the bottom we have a capital reserve and we will talk about this in more detail in the next presentation. But the capital reserve uh we it will be a referendum on the budget uh for the community to support using uh
015using that uh $1 million to um construct a new playground at the elementary school to attend to a retaining wall that's needed beneath the high school and to do some improvements inside the uh custodial area in the building. So the reason I point that out is because if we're making this presentation at this time next year and giving you the same slide, the capital reserve account would be at zero because we will use that money this year and using that money um will be proposition number two on the budget. It's part of the May 20th vote. We cannot do it without the community's approval. Um if the community gets approval to use that money for those projects, it's at no cost to the taxpayer. So it doesn't have an impact on your property taxes or
016the budget because that money is in that reserve account and can be only used for uh capital projects. And as I mentioned earlier, there'll be a more detailed um explanation of of the use of this reserve at our next meeting. So um last time we were together, we we showcased um our initiatives and our programs and the supports that we're providing for students. And so I took everything that Dr. Gio uh Dr. Gioetto presented and I did the best I could to condense it into uh this one handy dandy guide. So I don't expect you to read all of that from your seat, but I know you have hard copies and this will be on the website. Um but you know I'm proud of everything that's on this slide. In addition to raw all of
017our core programs and things that have been in place in the district for quite some time, uh these first three columns represent the programs and initiatives that have been uh started or added um since July of 2021. So it's it's a lot of um effort and um administrators, teachers, board of ed, uh a lot of teamwork to get these great things in place for our students. And um what I'm most proud of about this list is that it addresses the needs of of every age group and almost every kind of student uh that may be in our district. It touches every type of student in some way or another. So quick update from New York State. We're still waiting from them for them. There's no uh budget uh approved by the legislature and the governor.
018So, uh, they failed to meet their April 1st deadline. They've recently passed another extender funding the budget through April 23rd, which is tomorrow. Uh, that's I don't expect there'll be a budget approved tomorrow. So, there'll probably be some sort of an extender. Um, although I understand they've made progress. I'm obviously not in the room with those people having the discussions, but some of the things that have been holding up the the budget from the state, unlike previous years, is not schooling. It's other issues um like changes in discovery laws uh and crime bills, school cell phone bans, uh a mask ban for ill ill people, and um funding the MTA capital plan. Um I don't know when the state will give us its final budget, but what's important to know for tonight's presentation is that
019the two bottom lines that cannot change if the board approves it is the tax levy and the expenditure budget. So, if we were to get additional state aid, that would end up um at this time next year, we would talk about that in terms of fund balance or surplus. Uh so, here's in summary what I just mentioned a moment a moment ago. The proposed budget for the 202526 school year is a total of 102,445,046. Uh these are the numbers, by the way, that were represented in that pie chart earlier. The tax levy is 68,573 216. The proposed tax levy increase is 2.42%. Um, and the budgettobudget increase on tax levy is an additional $2.3 million over what the school district collected in taxes from last year. And the budget tobudget increase is 2.37%. So, um,
020those numbers, if the budget's approved tonight by board of education, will not change. Uh but it doesn't mean that we're done this evening because some next steps include uh awaiting the state's final budget. We're optimistic for a slight increase in state aid and like I mentioned, if that does happen, it would go towards surplus or fund balance. Um purchasing has been restricted now for several months. So we continue to examine that for additional fund balance. Uh we've analyzed some vacated positions. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, we had some recent retirements. Um and uh we'll be analyzing those positions to see where we can provide the same level of service and attention yet realize some savings through attrition. We'll be examining grant funding as we always do. We'll be monitoring our reserves. Uh we'll
021do a deeper analysis of how we utilize personnel at athletic events, special events, overtime, etc. to see if there's savings there. Um and um one great thing that's been happening in the school district over the last couple of years is we've had a number of uh special needs students uh returning uh to our school district. Uh our programs are growing in in efficacy and uh parents are realizing that their students needs can be better served in our school district. So they've been returning to our programs. Um that's a benefit most importantly for the student, but it's a benefit for the district because uh the tuition for some programs is very very high and we do better or just as well here. That means we save some money on tuition and we save some money possibly
022on transporting students to other programs. Um and in the red, like I said a few minutes ago, the tax levy and expenditure budget cannot change after this evening. Um, however, revenue to what degree specific codes are funded um and next year's fund balance may be impacted by the above actions. Okay. So, um please come May 7th, that'll be our next presentation and our final presentation. That's the public hearing on the budget. Um and between now and then, um this will be on the presentation. It's probably printed on the copy that you have, but if you have any questions, you can feel free to contact us. Um, that's my office number, my cell number, um, and email address and you can call anytime. We'll be happy to try to answer your questions. Mr. Thank you. Thank
023you, Dr. And does the board have any questions? I have one just for um the tax levy, the proposed tax levy of 2.42. Um, could you just explain that to the public in terms of the uh the known tax cap being a 2% and and how we actually come out at the 2.42. Sure. Um I I'll give you a layman's explanation and if you need a deeper explanation I will ask Mr. Zedberg to come out of the bullpen and briefly but um so it's known as a 2% tax cap and there's a eightstep or sevenstep formula that every school district in New York State uses to calculate what their tax levy cap can be for the following school year. The first thing that goes into that formula is the tax levy from the year before.
024So whatever that number is, 68 million, it goes into the formula. Then there's a whole bunch of steps. They add this in, they take that out, they multiply by this, and there's what's known as exclusions. So if you have debt service, for example, you're paying interest that you're paying off principal on a bond or a construction project, that's excluded from your debt service. So things like that sometimes contribute to the tax cap levy or the tax levy being slightly more than 2% or as you saw in the slide place like be sure four others with three because there's different things that go into that formula. So would it be accurate to say that the 2.42 is the allowable levy or is that determined um as a set levy by that calculation? So for us, the
025the 2.42% is the result of that eight-step process and that's the tax levy limit that we can go to. So this budget is tax cap compliant which means we we're not asking to pierce it. We do not need a super majority. We need 50% of the uh vote plus one. Thank you. one of the earlier slides um you had mentioned that you you worked on the budget and took off $229,000. Could you share where that came from? If there was any programs impacted, anything like that? Yeah, great question. Um I uh thank you for reminding me because I should say that this proposed budget has uh no reductions in program or support um or anything that students will experience. So, and every program we've been able to provide this year, we expect to fully provide
026uh in the next school year. So, it didn't come from any program. Um the savings uh that equals 229,000 is um uh through some retirements that were announced between April 8th and tonight. And so there's some savings between what the outgoing employee was earning in terms of salary and benefits. And the replacement will be a newer person who come in a lower salary. We went through all the codes and every line and you know we said maybe uh reduce this supply code by 2,000 or reduce that code by 3,000. Um so it's it's been things like that. In terms of um reductions in the district, as I mentioned, there have been no reductions to programs or services students experience would be the same or better than it was this year. Um we are not replacing
027one elementary school teacher who's retiring. And it's likely we will not replace one physical education teacher who's retiring, although we may be required based on schedule needs to replace point four of it or point 6 of that position. And um I believe there are two maybe three special education aids that are either retiring or resigning. And because of some uh students coming back and IEPs and things like that, um we anticipate that we won't need to replace those three positions. But all of those things are essentially due to attrition and not due to reductions. In your um revenue slide, you had indicated that we are spending almost $1 million in reserves to make up the budget gap. 975 that one. Yes. Almost uh almost 1 million. Um what plans are in place to ensure um
028those reserves and you did an exceptional job of explaining that prior to but what in what way are we going to ensure those reserves are being well funded? Yeah. Um we continue not to rely on them. Yeah, I mean a good example is the employee uh ERS reserve. We you I think it said we were 2 something years uh funded in that 2.6 correct 2.12. So um uh we're using um oh which reserve the one we took the 800 from? We're still going to have one and a half years. Yeah, the workers comp reserve we're taking the 800,000 from and we we we will still have 50% over what our advisers recommend is a reasonable amount to have reserves. So, we feel pretty safe here. I have a question, please. You mentioned about state aid
029getting a slight increase or some kind of increase. Wouldn't that money be put back into the reserves at the state? Yeah, it um that's what I mean uh when I say it it could be used as surplus or fund balance. So at this time next year, we would be doing that analysis of how much money of the budget did we spend and and what's left over and then we will make decisions and recommendations to the board about how to replenish some reserves. More thank you. Um, regarding those reserves, I know that there are several different categories of reserves that were gone over, but are any of those um, uh, funded from the based on market volatility and and different rates? Well, or do we selfund all of those? We selfund them. Um, but I think
030your question is, do we get interest on that money? Right. Do we? Yes. Yeah. And so it's subject to market conditions that you know like a year I don't I think it was a year ago I mean interest rates are really high so we did really well in that area in terms of gaining interest on those accounts. Thank you. You're welcome. Any anyone from the community? One second. The microphone. Um before I ask the question just in the future, can the board also use the microphone because it your way projecting your voices this way and behind you so it's hard to always hear you. Um just talking about program changes and program upgrades and everything else. It's kind of I guess a Dr. J question. I'd like to know what change, you know, reflecting and
031moving forward, what changes have come of the Excel program moving forward as someone who's had to remove her child from the program and know that there's some changes coming to it. I was hoping that's a part of the budget and things that we're working towards maybe professional development, anything along that lines. Um, okay. I'll let Dr. Gary with that too. I don't have an answer for you directly. Okay, Mr. L. Maybe little redundant top maybe a little redundant but is there a primary driver in allowing the reserve to acrew or is there every year possibly change? Is it one year retirements? Is it 11 year additional state aid is at some point many many years ago these reserves were not as as high as they are. So what is the determining factor or multiple determining
032factors develop over time? Yeah. So let me again give you a lay person's answer and then uh if you need more detail misses but um one factor is uh interest rates right? So what's the market doing if we have a great year that that would go up a little bit? Um some years we have a bigger surplus than others and it's prudent to fund the reserves and then some years um we could have um possibly a retirement incentive and there's a lot of employees retiring in one year. So we're not able to fund that um acred benefit in the budget. So we need to dip into that reserve. Um and there are uh I don't know would it be not actuaries but we have we have advising companies that recommend um for example if you
033noticed on the chart um our it's we refer to it as the ML but it's uh employee benefits approved liability reserve we're funded to 95% now so they calculate that by um say every employee that's in the district five years and longer if that person left today how much money would we owe them and so it's not likely that that would happen because everybody won't retire at one time. But if that were to happen, we would have 95% of the money for example in that reserve. Using that example, what dictates what dictates what? In other words, um how do you determine where to put that money out of those seven or seven reserves? Is there something that we can say? Yeah, I think we continue to do the reserve study. And so next year if
034we make some choices, you know, for example, we might say, well, that reserve is 95% funded. The TRS is only refunded up to say half a year. So maybe it's more prudent to put some other surplus into the TRS reserve. Part of the surplus you refer to year, year out. Uh yeah. So if we budget $und00 million to make the math easy for me and we spend 97 million we have 3 million to determine every year out of the budget we might take some of that 3 million and we the expression is return it to the taxpayers. So we we use that to keep the tax levy lower. So, we might use a million and a half of that. Then, we might say, "Oh, you know what? We'll put 300,000 uh into this reserve. We
035might put uh 250,000 into the repair reserve um building law. Um I don't have the details in front of me, but there's a capital reserve. So, typically um the board approves and the public approves you can start this reserve today. You can fund it for 10 years up to this amount per year. and it might it might be prudent to put money into that reserve. However, um in the very near future, you know, it's likely that we might go out for a bond and do a lot of projects. And so, we might choose to not fund that reserve in a year or two knowing that there'll be a bond coming off the books and we'll ask for another bond to fund really important projects. So, I guess it's a year-to-year decision. I'm sorry. Just one
036question. Uh just a second. Mr. Zitterberg is uh helping me out here. He's reminding me that we also um it's prudent to maintain 4% 4% of uh unassigned reserve and I think right now we're at like 3 and a half% roughly. So we might say it would be wise to build that back up closer to 4% and that's money that's uh people refer to as a rainy day fund. If there's an emergency to tap into that right away. Good question. Um you noted the increase in uh some FTEEs aren't using exact um but last meeting I noticed that at least secondary level enrollment was remaining flat. Yeah. Or at least somewhat. Yeah. So everything that's on that slide is a it's almost a compendium of everything that we've added over the last three years. So
037those uh FTE increases and artifacts were added a year ago and we're maintaining those increases. So we're not necessarily adding uh new people this year in those areas. Okay. It didn't appear that way from the slide, but we're talking about something. Yeah. Not everything on that list is new this year. That's why I said everything on that list is from 2021 uh July 2022 at present. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi question from Prop 2. Will that be explained on the budget code? So if somebody goes up and is not, you know, sure, they don't circle no. Yes, it um it comes with a pretty thorough explanation at the ballot and also in the next meeting there'll be a much more thorough presentation on what that entails and how it's a good thing
038to go forward with and will not negatively will have no impact on taxes. Cool. Har that will be on the mailer as well that goes out. Yes. Yeah. So on on the mail that goes out to the community, it will see the proposition on there and we'll have the information of what that proposition is about. similar to when you vote, you know, at the regular election whenever politicians might also approve that a couple weeks ago. So, it is in board docs. I don't know if anyone heard that. It is in board docs right now. Okay. Thank you everyone. Thank you. That's it. Good. Great. Thank you. Gotcha. What is this? [Music] Okay, before we move on presentation, but it wasn't posted. Um, this happens to be administrative professional week. It's actually tomorrow as the official
039today. And this is where at the board we get to recognize our district clerk, Miss Harian Carr, who is I've said it so many times before, Yeti drives her body. She's the um she's the voice behind the phone. She's one attack, emails back to people. Um, she's really the main comp that keeps the board moving, that keeps us on point, keeps us focused. Um, that never lets us miss the deadline. And one of the most important functions that Harry does is the budget vote and the trustees election and all that that's involved in that to make sure that that runs properly and it's it's seamless. Energy edition does something. I just like come up here. I [Applause] love everything that you do. Thank you so much. [Applause] Just one second. Okay. Um, that concludes everything
040from our prior presentations. We're now going to move on to our agenda items. Uh, we have two items that are going to be separate from consent. So, um, are there any questions from the board of education on any of the items we both on this evening? Any questions from the public we're voting on this evening? Okay. With that, I'd like to get a motion to consent items 5A through 500. Can I get a motion? So, that is uh Mr. Buer and Mr. Leio. All those in favor? I opposed abstain. And carry. Okay, would you go over the personal schedules on this evening on the A2? We have um a resignation for um an employee for the theater and the technology club. We also have two uh retirements to announce. Um a registered nurse, Miss Anie
041Ferry, and Mr. Michael Zederberg, assistant superintendent for business. On the A5, we have an appointment for a techn um technology and theater club advisor. On the A13, we have regions review sessions as well as a professional development trainer. On the B1, we have a substitute custodian. And on the B2, we have resignations from two school teacher aids and we have another retirement for one of our head custodians, Mr. John Farser. So, congratulations to all our new retirees. taking. Okay. The next item we need to vote on is item 5Q and that is the um budget workshop board of education uh property tax report card. Be it resolved that the board of education of the ISO Union Free School District adopts a budget and appropriate tax report card for the 2025 2026 school year with a
042tax levy of 68 million 573 216 and a total budget of 102 million of 4456 uh 446 46 for an annual budget district budget vote and election to be held on Tuesday May 20th. 2025. Can I get a motion? Some move. There's Mr. Green. Can I get a second? Second. This is Flor. All those in favor? I opposed. And that will disc. I'm not I'm not voting on my screen. Okay. The next item we need to vote on is item five, approval of the CPS schedules. Can I make another motion? There's Mr. Leo. I got a second. It's Mr. Austin. All those in favor? I I opposed abstain. Abstain for the same reason stated in the September 20th, 2023 meeting. And that will carry. Okay. All right. That's now going to bring us to our
043public questions. And just before we bring um our public questions, I just want to remind the folks up here um just for time management um each question is limited to three minutes. We really don't hold people to that, but we need people to stick to that. And actually, it is one question per person. So, if we can stick to that as well. Um thank you. Okay, we're going to start with our first public comment card. Uh Mr. Todd laws. Thank you. 28 hours. Uh two or three weeks ago, we stood in front of you. My wife and I just asked you to reconsider our son's application to school for the arts. Dr. Harris spoke to us about the record, I suppose, prior to the meeting and shared some positive news. Uh there were some items
04412 points or so in a letter to be submitted to the board that we have requested written responses for. Uh we still are interested in receiving those responses. We ask that they be delivered in the respectful time frame. Uh that's open-ended, but we are looking forward to seeing the answers to those questions. I don't believe I have the right to address the school attorney in this meeting. Um but it was communicated to me that the attorney is doing some of those things. Uh some of those items are not necessarily in my opinion attorney driven um because we're not really asking for any personally identifiable information uh for students per se but more so about processes and practices that are happening at the high school and the guidance department which I assume is where certain decisions
045were made for students who want to uh intend to attend. So um of the 12 questions in my opinion our opinion uh many of them are not secrets they should not be secrets it should be something that anyone working in a school at a high school level should know and if they don't then I'd have questions about why don't they so um and those questions could have been answered very easily probably by a guided supervisor or someone else in that capacity um so if you have any progress on those on those questions We appreciate sharing them out here and now. Otherwise, if you want to reach out to us personally, that would be the other thing. But um we are still interested in receiving information about this process. I don't have them with me this
046evening, but I will be in touch with you soon about those and also about um what we discussed earlier. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Walls. Okay. Uh next is Sarah Sarah. Um my question was what is the cost per child per year um with and without special education? Do we have a at least a roundabout number? I'm going to give that to you. So New York State calculates the per pupil tuition cost, provides an estimate to every school district every year. They calculate that cost projection based on what they refer to as approved operating expenses, which essentially includes all staffing related expenses for general ed and special ed as well as the costs associated with services. So the the estimates right now calculated by New York State for 202425 is about $19,000 for a general ed
047student. Okay. And $52,000 for a special ed student. Okay. Okay. So with those calculations, let's talk in a hypothetical sense. Say we had five students within one building that was not legally living in the school zone. That would cost the district $95,000. Now, say we had five students in one building that was for special education, that would cost the district $260,000. So my question or my statement is when we have students that are not living legally within the school bounds and they are using addresses under a relative or a you know a friend. Mom and dad get their driver's license checked out. Utility bills might check out. It's very easy to do but it costs the district a lot of money. So if a staff member or a community member comes forward and reports that
048what is the protocol to remove the student from the district because it is very costly and that money can be used for different opportunities for other children. Um well we do several things and a lot of things. Um sometimes we we learn that somebody may not reside in the district um by somebody reporting it. Sometimes we learn because m bounces back to us. Um, and so when that happens, our first step is to send what we call an exclusion letter. And we tell the family that um, you know, by this date, you'll be excluded and you have to enroll in the district in which you reside. And, um, depending on the day of the week or the time of the year, if there's a holiday break involved or something like that, it's roughly a week
049or two that they have to remove the child from the school and enroll someplace else. Okay. Um, It's not that simple though because um um many times the family will come to the office and say I live here and then we will we have a bunch of steps we do to re to how to reverify. They have to show their papers. It could be a lease. It could be an affidavit. It could be the utility bills like you mentioned etc. Right. Um and um we contract with a company that does investigations for us. So they actually go to the address where the person says they reside and they'll um observe the house for several days or a week or more to see if that student is coming and going from the home. Um often it
050appears to people that um the person doesn't live in the district and when we investigate uh you know I go to the appropriate personnel and they say oh yeah we know that student doesn't live here. uh they're what's known as a McKini Venton student which means that the student did live in our school district but due to circumstances became homeless and the law requires us to still educate that student here even though they may have found housing in another school district. And so sometimes it could be a student who's getting dropped off at the bus stop. Somebody tells us that. We investigate and we find out yes our appropriate office did know that that student doesn't live here. But we're required by the Lord to by the Lord to still educate the person here. So
051we take a lot of steps and I actually have a um a running log of how many investigations and cases we do uh this year. Yeah. And I just wanted to ask that just because there are parents that do say things when we talk and it has seen Listen, it happens in every single school district. We are all not blind to that. I think just it is more concerning about the cost per student and if you get 10 in the district alone that's a lot that's a lot of money. So I think we're just worried that it could be opportunities being taken away from our children that could be doing certain programs or whatever. So it really just comes down to just common sense budgeting. And I understand that sometimes, yes, a child can become
052homeless. And we're not really a community, a community that wants to embarrass a child, embarrass a family, but at the same time, I just hope that any reporting is just taken as seriously as possible just to save those districts money. And that was just my question statement to make. I appreciate the question. I can tell you it's taken very seriously. Okay. I just Thank you very much. Thank you. And our last public comment card one question. I mean, there's a really long line behind me. You can ask me two questions. Thanks. Um, do we have an update on our smart schools bond and the use of that money possibly for school safety and security through things like more cameras? I have a partial update for you. So, um, uh, I I don't know, you're probably
053aware, but I don't know if everybody is aware, to to access the smart the money and that uh that money smart schools, uh, the district has to first lay out the money. So, um, you know, we don't have a million dollars on hand to to lay out. So, uh, to be direct with you, there won't be any progress on that between now and June, certainly in this budget. Um, but as we create the new budget, um, and we begin to see um, how much cushion we have after we have more retirements and we take some of those steps that the slides, we will begin in earnest in the next school year to figure out how to access that money. Um, but I I think I need to be clear, it would not be $1 million
054probably at one time. So, we would identify probably several projects and figure out how we can access that money. Um, uh, and some of them would certainly be related to security. There's one at the top of the list which relates to all the radios in the district and very updated. That would probably be a first step project. Yeah. No, um, I know you weren't here at the first meeting. I brought it up back, but yes, I mean, I know it's a district fronted, you know, initiative as well as I I've educated other people on the same thing. I just think it's important to know that there's steps being taken to utilize that money instead of the state acrewing interest that we can have it for our children and especially the safety. I talk about it
055from a common sense standpoint of being an educator in a building and how much it can help that way. But also when you look at today's society and things that happen around the country, I think when you look at that perspective of school safety, it's just as important as well. So it kind of reaches so many different perspectives and that's why I think cameras is a really good place for it. And then my other question is I see I just we we preach school safety um that last bond that we funded Mrs. Zedberg. There was a lot of infrastructure money, but can you just talk to the work that you did at the building with the um the entrance? Sure. The last the last bond that we did, which began in 2013, was $48 million
056and a good percentage of that was to upgrade uh security initiatives. Every uh school building and the administration building have traps. Um they have to requires a swipe card or a buzz in to enter those buildings. Um the first door as well as the second door. There's permission to get access to the building and other people are meeting for. There are cameras in lobbies and exterior cameras in all the buildings to allow people to come in. There's alarm systems and swipe cards. There's there's a considerable amount of controls. I I'm I'm well aware of the vestibules around the district and I understand that it's very common practice amongst all school districts, but just something to keep in mind, Phil, is that that that's 12 years old. It also requires the update and the upkeep and
057the upgrading and additional resources to piggy back onto what was started. What I'm saying is actually we were ahead of the curve now of all a lot of the other districts that put in the mantras. We were like in the forefront Mr. Zer one of the first districts to do it right and there's a that was the platform for all our security systems the cameras and swipe cards. Uh all those pieces of equipment, technology equipment in general have lights. Um many have been replaced over time were expanded. More cameras have been added exteriorly to buildings. Uh most recent example is we invested in the outdoor classroom at Sherwood. We wanted to protect that. We upgraded existing cameras around the building, interior and exterior as well as added new cameras around the outdoor classroom to ensure
058uh its safety and protect our uh investment in the infra infrastructure. A lot of those cameras, you know, 12 years ago, everything was grainy and it look like a a Bigfoot sight. You know, you really could have made but it's come a long way and there's always look there's always progress to do. There's a lot of blind spots. I know that from personal experience. It happened recently. And I think, you know, those are those are things to take into consideration. I know the outdoor classroom is beautiful and I know it's important. I'm not as worried as um graffiti and stuff on the building as I am about the safety of the students while they're actually in the school as well. So, it's just again it's a platform that we're going to stand on until it
059gets resolved. And then my other question as far as May I answer your next question? Um, I can tell you in the short time that I've been here, there have been uh added cameras and upgrades. And for example, we have a command center in the high school now where our security team can see every camera that we have in the district that's probably uh forget if it's a year or two years old. So, I always say about security, it'll be something we're never done with. So, I agree with you. We'll keep working on it. I mean, maybe a good way to just talk about it would be an update of how many cameras do we have within each building and what are the age of the cameras. I think that would be great data for
060people to understand. So, it'll help us know where we are and where we could be going. Uh, you know what? What I will do on that is consult with our security firm because I'm um I'm not I'm not the expert on security. Um, but my first I don't know where they are. I'm not trying to give people applications here. I would be reluctant to share some of that detail, but I'll work on it. But I think the number is something that the community would be able to use as information to, you know, see where we're at. Um, and I appreciate that and I will say I think it's a fair budget. The reserves make me a little nervous, but I do think it's a fair budget considering the times of what's going on. Um, enrollment,
061I see our enrollment is down, and I I know this question has been asked a few times, but we never really had hard numbers. I really would like to know how many eighth grade students are leaving for private or parochial schools uh or even not even eighth grade students, just students in general. How often is that happening within the district? I mean, if you have data how many of them are coming back, that is even more helpful. But it it's just something that a lot of people have been talking about, especially going into the high school and that transition from middle school to high school. I'm hearing more and more families that are having their children take the Catholic school exam and sending their kids to Catholic school. And I know I'm going to say,
062well, a lot of those students come back, but I'd like to hear the numbers if people can start gathering that data. This is not the first year it's come up and people keep talking about bringing the data, but nobody's actually brought the data. Um, I had to I don't have it with me, but I had the data for you a year ago and um from the time that you asked, we didn't see each other again. So, I will resurrect it and I will make sure it's available. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Yes. Can I ask a piggyback question regarding this uh this smart bond, the school smart bond? Sure. I know that you said we have to lay out the money in anticipation of the um of getting that money back. Is there any
063opportunity to take out a bond such as the TANS? Um, but only obviously not a TANS in in anticipation of a tax refund, but more anticipation of um this kind of refund to cover that upfront expense. Yeah. So, that's a um you know why I think that's a terrific question because I asked the same question. Um I I reached out to um Eastern Suffach Boseies because they have a li leaison directly with the state to find out how that process works. Is it more streamlined than it used to be? And one of the questions specifically was can we borrow to um make those purchases? And um the answer may be yes. And uh the advice was um um what what's uh Hawkins and Devilfield? with co- bonding, you know, a bond council to reach out
064to them and get some advice. And so, we will do that as part of that. Awesome. I I don't I don't know exactly how it if it would work or could work, but that's something we're investigating. Awesome. Thank you. All right, that completes our uh public questions. Next, we're going to move on to anyone have any reports or correspondence? Um, non-resolution topics. You'll see on there it says exeicio student member of the board. And I'm just going to read the genesis of that. On September 5th, 2024, Governor Hok signed into law a bill which amended various provisions of the education law relating to high school student participation on school boards. The new law, which will go into effect on July 1st, 2025, requires that all school districts operating a high school as well as the
065Boseies established procedures to designate at least one high school student as an exeicio official non voting member of their school board. The purpose of this law is to provide an opportunity for students to build skills and habits civic engagement while providing a voice in their district's policies and operations. Under the new law, school districts are no longer authorized to appoint student member via referendum of the voters of the district. The new law expands the pool of eligible students to include all students who have attended high school for at least one year prior to their appointment to the board. It also offers the following options to the board of education to select a member and it's not inclusive to these six recommendations. A student that has been duly elected as a student president of the high
066school. A student duly elected by the student body. A student selected by the high school student government. A student selected by the high school principal. A student selected by the superintendent of schools. A student selected by a majority vote vote of the school board. A member will be entitled to sit with all with the board at all public meetings and hearings and may also participate in all other board of education activities and responsibilities at the discretion of the board. Although they will not be allowed to attend executive sessions or other meetings or hearings not open to the public. They may not receive any compensation your vote as a member of the school board. So as I said this needs to um we need to have a student in place by July 1st 2025. We're going
067to be in the process of developing a policy so that the um student can see what the application process is and then we're going to go on. We're going to be discussing this in public. Um but I just wanted to let the public know about this at our next board meeting. We're going to be um you know figuring out again the application process uh what the steps are involved so that it's wellrounded and that we can find somebody that um you know listen job description and somebody that actually wants to be up here and be involved in this and report back to the school. So we think it's a good thing that the government did. So um we'll keep you all posted on any question. Very exciting. Yes, it is. And again, we'll follow up
068more on this. The next would be Mr. Post. I get to put my cheap plug in for postp prom. I wanted to thank the community for once again supporting us uh with our major fundraiser for the year, the we've egged your house postp prom fundraiser. Um, we egged 143 houses. Over 7,000 eggs went out in one night. Uh, we had 14 groups of volunteers that night going out and delivering the eggs from 7:30 till about 11:00 at night. A few missteps. Uh, we had to go back out east morning and correct them, but that's okay. It was very few. I also like to thank Mrs. Regaki. She took the orders, placed the ads, collected the money, and set up a unbelievable worksheet that was very easy to plot from. So, thank you to everybody. It
069was a great success. Great. Thank you, Mosaki, for starting that. Okay, that's all we have under our um non-resolution topics. Uh dates to remember tomorrow, April 23rd at 5:00 p.m. there'll be a special board of education meeting. It'll be the East and Summit Bosey's budget and board vote. That will be in the high school community room. Uh will be uh open up. It will be the vote and there will be no public. After that, it will be a very short meeting. Our next board of ed meeting will be on May 7th, executive session at 5:30 with public starting at 7 p.m. It will be the public hearing on a proposed budget and the board of education business meeting. and this will be here in the high school auditorium at 700 p.m. That's all we have
070this evening. Um, thank you everyone for attending our board meeting. I'm really sorry to interrupt you. Will there be the candidates more than one person for our board? Oh yeah. Um, PTA. Yeah, the PTAs do that. So, we'll reach out to I know they do it when there's two cand before closing. We have two and they're running for the same position. We have three candidates who turned in petitions by yesterday's deadline. Uh two are running against one another for Mrs. Flora who will not be returning next year and then Mr. Claring will be running unopposed and I will be coordinating. I'll reach out to the high school PTSA. They usually uh assist. They they run the meet the candidates. The board does not. Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you. And you and I meant
071to uh mention that. Uh so most likely there will be candidate because there's going to be two people running for one for one spot so far voters I believe is the one that been holding it in the past. So more information coming out again. Thank you. Okay. Um with that can I get a motion for this? Can I get a second? All those in favor?