001Thank you for joining us. Would you please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge 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. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. My name is Dr. Robert Kravis, superintendent of schools. This is my 315th day in Jericho and I'm so excited. This is my first budget hearing. Thank you, Mr. Manuel. Um, so you know, just a little brief synopsis of what I have seen and what I'm looking to do and what we're do. I I'm really excited about being here. I'm excited about working with some great people and I'm excited about our new budget that's coming in. You know, this district has a lot of
002positive things in my entire career. I have never witnessed so many great things happening here. a lot of great students, a lot of great faculty members, parents and all working together for one thing and that's the success of every children that all the children here and I will like to thank the board of education who when I first got here was a mutual number one treat and we start started by setting our goals now we're working on our policies so working together we have seen I have seen just an amazing growth from them from me and I'm excited to continue my career here and I'm excited to work with people um like Dr. Sherman, Mr. Manuel, Mos, and of course our two board members tonight, Mr. Sam Bman, board president, and M Cron member of
003the board. So without further ado, Mr. Man. Thank you, Dr. Kravitz. Um, everyone should have received the budget newsletter at home along with uh the 6-day notice which is the uh budget notice and both have a lot of information but specifically on the budget notice the expenditures are increasing by 2.83% uh to a total of about $148 million. The tax levy uh that would support that is increasing by 1.83 83% to a total of 121 million uh which is lower than our uh cap and definitely lower than most districts caps um across Nassau County and Suffach County. Reason being we did um we are uh benefiting from additional building aid and building aid is actually deduction off uh off the cap. Uh so the additional money there reduces the tax cap. Uh so instead of
004a typical 2.5 or 3% tax levy cap for Jericho, ours is going to be just under two at 1.84%. Additionally, so that would be proposition one on the ballot for the voters to approve. Additionally, we have two uh other propositions. One is to expend about $4.7 million out of our current uh capital reserve, which are funds that are already saved for this purpose. Uh take 4.7 out of that. We're going to be doing some uh windows districtwide, uh paving districtwide, bathrooms, districtwide, masonry districtwide. So, a lot of projects associated with that, 4.7 million. And in the general fund budget, um, we also budget 1.275 million on an annual basis to that we add to that and we're able to do some more of the projects. Proposition three is to establish a new capital reserve. This
005will be capital reserve six. Uh, and to put in simple terms what capital reserve is, it's similar to your home. So when people set up an account in their homes and they save money for future capital projects, whether it's a boiler or windows in your home, uh that's what the board and the district has been doing over the past 10 years and we've done it pretty successfully. We've done a lot of work that way. Um, actually the controllers's office, New York State Controller has doing capital projects as one of the three areas to do when a district has a surplus and we've been primarily doing that over the last decade or so. Um, there's a lot more information on the website. obviously can't it all on the uh newsletter but on the website there is
006each of the four uh uh presentations that we did through January, February and March um there are YouTube videos showing the actual presentations uh the presentations go through the numbers but also go through the programs so you could see how the dollars are being spent with the programs that we're offering. Uh so there's a lot of information there. We also have the newsletter on the uh on there. Any required state forms uh that we have to send up to the state is also on the website. There is a voting section of the website that gives you actually the ballot is up there, the sample ballot. So you can see before you go to the booth, the voting booth exactly what you're going to be voting on ahead of time. Uh so we try to make
007it as easy as possible to uh get people informed uh in order when they come on the day of the vote, they actually know what they're voting for. So any questions on the school budget? Hearing none, I'm going to invite Angela, our director of the Jericho Public Library, just to talk a few minutes about the library budget, which is proposition number four. Thank you, Victor. You're welcome. Good evening everyone. Um, as Victor said, my name is Angela Sinclani and I'm the director of the Jericho Public Library. Uh, for the fiscal year 2627, the library board of trustees respectfully proposes a budget in the amount of 6,101282, which is about a 3.5% increase. and a tax levy increase of 2.15% uh with the uh tax levy amount being 5 million7121 181 and which is below the
008tax levy limit. Uh further budget information is available to view on our website at jerichol.org and copies can also be picked up at the library. Uh it's a privilege to serve the Jericho community and we invite you to come to the library and discover all of the wonderful programs and resources that are available to you. Thank you. Sure. What is it? Where's the stand on the current debate on whether or not charge fees that was discussed a year or two ago concept there hasn't been any decision made on that but um it is still something probably up for future discussion but at this point there's no decision on it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Angela. Uh, thank Dr. Kravitz, Dr. Sherman, all of the administration that helped u putting the budget together.
009Thank you, Mr. Pearlman, Citron, and the rest of the board of education for supporting our efforts. And uh, I think that's a wrap. Thank you very much, everyone.