April 21, 2026 Board of Education Meeting

Item 1.5, recommended action to fall for the education

The president's report. So good evening, everyone. I'd like to start my president's report by saying what an incredibly busy time it is for us to meet, their families, our teachers, our staff, our administrators, and trustees. As

end activities, this pace seems to only increase. So I wanna take a moment and pause and thank my fellow trustees for their service and dedication to students. And I wanna thank our administration for your continued work for our students and our community. Tonight, the superintendent will recommend three building leadership appointments to the board. You will hear more about the district's thinking and the overall process during the superintendent's report. So I wanna take a moment to share with the public the board's role in collaborating on these important hiring decisions. I also wanna share some of the board's reflections on the process and ways to improve it. First and foremost, the board recognizes the importance of selecting building leaders who reflect a deep commitment to student success and align with the board and district's vision for our schools. In keeping with our commitment to centering students, community engagement, and transparency, we will be reviewing board policies on hiring and retention and working collaboratively with the district to implement practices in support of those commitments. This spring, the board plans to establish an ad hoc committee charged with articulating a shared vision for hiring voting leaders and key administrators. We will develop clear policies and avenues of process for the benefit of future leadership candidates, future board members, the community, and most importantly, our students.

We look forward to working with the district on this initiative,

and we will report back to the community on this work always with the best interest of our students at the forefront of all of our efforts. I want to wish everyone a happy spring as we enter what is the home stretch of our school year and remind everyone to check district and building level calendars and look out for events and dates on principals weekly messages as well as we approach our spring concerts, ir I'm to own. Moving into that. Item 2.2, the first hearing of the public. If you'd like to adjust the board, we ask you to approach the podium,

state your name and address,

superintendent to say to all the parents out there, there was a time when in the evenings there were roundtables. 10 to 20 members of each committee, marking communications, technology, members of the community who are experts will welcome.

As well as a dozen other things I've done for being an advocate. I was not invited on but I do have a copy of who was and one to three parents were invited on to each day. So I just wanna say that every parent deserves to be on those committees, welcome to those committees, and they should be in the evenings, not during the day. The second thing is equity. Every kid in the school district

many camaraderie, how many teams, various school districts, everyone was accepted into colleges. Even my son was referred initially. He took me to Regeneron and submitted his science research report. Friday night, the people who went to the the the CTA is advertising this whole competition, the programming. Woo hoo. We've been asking what's going on for fifteen years. You didn't want. They were all in my house livid that they missed that opportunity of of doing these kinds of things. These kids missed out. And despite what you're learning about college admissions, speak to your top 20% degree, a fond relation is horrible these sentences.

Are the enemy. They're a population enemy. We're a population problem. We don't have a population problem. We have an underpopulation problem. Ask our country. Ask the Chinese. Ask Europe. And so in those textbooks, which you still use, they view children you're in business children as a threat to

Board from the SHAG abstract website which is the entertainment union and it is basically a list actors, Bryan Healy, reading a book and intersliced with cartoon animations of the book pages.

I find this odd at best.

Shocking at worst. There is no causing of the videos for the children to be able to ask questions, to interact, to discuss the language. There's no engagement. There's and any, you know, educational value that you think this type of content has is lost without any interaction and it is disguised as literacy. For brain breaks, my child, at least once a day but sometimes twice is showing what can only be described as low quality, high stimulation videos, titles such as dance puppy dance, moose jub, ravioli, rigatoni, and a host

that things might be changing. I did

Thank you. Good evening everyone. Even to some familiar faces and some new faces who are here with us in person tonight and everyone who's watching at home. We have a robust agenda to follow but I did want to take just a couple of minutes to share some of the wonderful events, many, many, many that have occurred since the last time we had a chance to to share this kind of information in a in a public meeting. Beginning with

Oh, Nancy. That's okay. She's

The setup didn't work.

Beginning with there we go. Alright. The

last time we were gonna have a chance to to share what a wonderful experience it was to attend the CET musical. Happened for the first time at the high school auditorium. And since then, we've had a chance to see the complete arc now of the musical performances and program throughout the district. Last month, I think it was the twenty first, I had a chance to attend the PVC musical, Eagle Ford Junior. And as always, I'm just wowed by, particularly at the age of those students, what our our students are able to accomplish in terms of their ability to work together, their performance. It was stunning, joyful, colorful, musical, just a wonderful evening. So thank you to Cristina and Sally Barnes for their outstanding direction again this year, and congratulations to all of our students who were a part of that. Really just a terrific, terrific event every year. And then this past weekend, I had a chance to attend the culmination of our musical experiencing spring of the fantastics here at CHHS. Again, great credit to Jonathan Kaplan and the entire cast and crew there. Obviously, our lighting is sound done completely by our students,

one I the

future, be able to watch students on stage with the CDT musical now transcend all the way through the the high school. So thank you to everyone who's involved in these. It was also noteworthy for me as a not a a theater expert to it was noteworthy how much better some of the technical aspects of these shows were with the new auditorium. So thank you again to our community for their terrific support there. Congratulations to everyone involved in that entire series of musical performances this spring. Also, I had a chance last week, I want to put Anna, Anamika, Sarah, and Neil to attend the Take Back the Night event. This is the tenth annual event here at Croton. I think the fifth one I had the opportunity to attend. And as I said to the folks in attendance that evening, to me this is among the most powerful, if not the most powerful event that occurs in our school district on an annual annual basis. Basis. Tremendous credit to our student activism club leaders and Kara Tracy. It was also powerful and poignant to see some of our students from the class of 2016 who were the leaders in bringing this event to our community come back and speak about that impact and really have a good chance to experience the legacy that they've left here in the district. So thank you to everyone who was involved in that terrific and powerful event. Shifting gears, one of the commitments that we made to the community over the past few months is to be regularly in communication providing updates about universal kindergarten. Obviously, as a function of the state budget process, which we were discussing earlier, legislature passed their fifth budget extender today. So we continue to monitor that closely and to provide

just a brief further update. I'm happy to turn it over to Assistant Superintendent of UPS Regents McCall. Good evening.

At this time UPK enroll continues to follow the established process outlined on the district's FAQ page. In recent years, the lottery has typically taken place in the spring and it is anticipated to occur late April or May for the upcoming school year. More broadly, districts like ours continue to navigate uncertainty related to UPK funding levels and timing at the state budget. Final program capacity and the number of available seats are dependent on the New York State budget, which is typically finalized this month. Please be assured that several advocacy organizations, including the State School Board Association, are actively working to ensure that state leaders understand the impact that delays in the budget can have on both school district planning and family decision making. We also recognize the very real pressures families are feeling right now, especially those who are putting down deposits, losing potential preschool options, or trying to budget for childcare without a confirmed placement. We are continuing to monitor this timing closely. We encourage families to continue checking the UPK webpage for the most up to date information and any announcements regarding timelines and placement notification.

Thank you. Thanks Rachel. I want to publicly thank you and Lauren Carroll for your continued leadership and facilitation of that program. And

negotiation. That education doesn't seem to be an area of disagreement at this moment, but hasn't been, I think, from the beginning. And so that's why we continue to be optimistic and confident in our leaders and that they've heard advocacy from this board, from this community, from others in terms of moving us forward during this time.

We hear more, we will certainly promise. Shift. Not that one.

Shifting gears again to the topic of technology in our schools. Again, one of the ongoing conversations that have been a part of the system for a good deal of time now. So, you know, the board had the opportunity to spend some time with doctor Moskowitz in public during her budget presentation last month on this topic. And one of the things that we think makes sense is to ask her to come back for the May 7 meeting to provide a more wide ranging update answer questions on both technology used broadly, artificial intelligence, and any other topics that the board are interested in hearing and engaging more around. I look forward to that opportunity. We're beginning to put together some information on that. It's also an opportunity for us to give another update on the cell phone policy enactment within our district. As we know, this was new for all districts beginning this school year as part of the requirement from the state. So as we talked about when the policy was developed, that this is this is being made and tested by all districts everywhere. And so it's been an interesting dynamic this year to to hear from other superintendents, from other high school principals, particularly about how this is working or improving or not working in in various places throughout the region. So we'll make sure that we provide an update on that as well for the public on May 7. So we look forward to those conversations. And finally, I wanted to share some information for our community on our PVC principal search process. So as the board knows, as the community knows, one of the things that we've spent a great deal of time on and that we're very proud of is our our faculty, our teacher hiring process had

a chance to present that actually recent months ago at a national conference in Nashville. But we haven't spent as much time, to Ana's point earlier, talking publicly about leadership search processes. And we talked about succession planning and certainly the value of that. We engage in an external search. We thought this would be a nice moment in addition to the communication we sent at the end of last week to talk a little bit about how we got to where we are, which is this wonderfully talented individual who's gonna be recommended shortly for appointment as the principal. So just to speak briefly about the process, this occurs over the course of weeks and months, beginning with a position advertisement. Then in late February, we review the 62 applicants for this position, me meaning the district office team, and then work through all the information provided all by all 62 of those folks, do some kind of informal background reference, checking on all of them. And through that, we're able to get that group from 62 down to about 24, 25. That was the work of the entire district office team. We then engage in a similar process to what we do for faculty hiring, which is to send an email to those 24, 25 folks saying, here's our vision map. We would like you to share with us your reflections on what that means to you and how you can provide leadership to the vision map, in this case have PVC, through a two or three minute video and ask them to submit that to us. That's been something that we've incorporated as part of our faculty hiring process for the past three or four years and continues to be a really powerful point in the process for us to feel like we have a more personal connection with candidates before we get to Chase.

We then as a district office team met with the most promising candidates in person for some initial interviews. That's always an interesting part of the process as well because as you know, we bring different perspectives to this business, technology, personal services, curriculum. And so it's a rare moment when all of us look at each other and say, that person's cut off. And that's what happened in this case. We had an opportunity to meet with about a dozen candidates in person. Through that process, we're able to to lean the the group down to five of the most promising promising folks at that point, we called them semi finalists and brought them to PVC for about three hours of experience Friday, several Fridays ago to meet with upwards of 40 members members of the PVC community, representing parents, students, faculty members, staff members, administrators, board of education members, and then we're able to glean feedback from that process. That in particular is always a really important point in any process where we go into it thinking that we have a favorite or two and but we're always informed really power fully by the feedback of the folks who are gonna be working directly with this leader. And so that really enabled us to to winnow our our field to one person. Okay. Let's start with this. We then asked to to come back into district office and to facilitate an entry plan conversation with members of the faculty and staff from PDC and around the district that I think we I think it was informative for her, but also was informative for us in terms of learning more about PVC and also about her as a leader and as a facilitator. Then at that point, after final reference checking,

we asked Ms. Harmon to meet with the entire Board of Education. There was extensive discussion there. And so now after all of those steps in the process, we arrive at hopefully the wonderful conclusion that we have this evening. So again, to Ana's point earlier, when you have this many transitions in leadership, it's an opportunity for us to have conversations about clarity, about purpose, about division, about philosophy related to a topic that's incredibly important to the system. And I just want to mention that I'm incredibly proud to be part of a district that has these sorts of public facing conversations. There aren't a lot of boards and administrators that talk about hiring, for example, in this way, in this public facing way that the community is about to see over the next few months. And so I'm deeply proud of that.

Middle school building principal, middle school principal tenure area at the Pierre and Cortlandt Middle School at a salary of $190,000 Miss Kramer is appointed to a four year probationary term as a middle school building principal commencing on 07/01/2026 and probationary term ending on 06/30/2030. Miss Hearn has professional certification as a school affiliated leader. So who second. Almond question?

If I could. Again, just to follow-up on the comments I made just a minute ago. It's a rare event for someone, particularly in a leadership process, to be so impressive the entire arc of the process. From the first moment that, mainly, we had a chance to meet with you, as you left that room, all of us looked at each other and said, we think that's probably the next principle of PBC. And throughout the entire process, you continue to validate that thinking with your thoughtfulness, your intelligence, your energy, your student centered orientation, your your laser focus on teaching and learning. But aside from the things that I would say, I I wanna take just a minute to share some of the things that the folks you met with from PVC had to say. We had a chance to share this with our our community earlier, but I just wanna read some of these comments because I think they say it better better than than I I do. From some of our parents, comprehensive and interesting experience, clear leader, speaks with honesty and passion that will connect with parents and students, has a really great perspective on what school is and what needs to be. From the faculty and staff, in balance in the importance of data, willingness to push back on challenges to ensure that she's focused on what is best for students, extremely genuine, personable, and charismatic, great attitude, enthusiastic, personable, humorous, provided thoughtful responses. She will help push our thinking, and most importantly, from the students. She was very excited to be here and believes that all students should be both physically and emotionally safe. She really understands the struggles of middle school students and ideas to help. I would feel really comfortable talking to her.

Those were those are powerful words that that you've earned and we look forward to on the approval of board working with you on behalf of the students and staff at PCC. So we are thrilled on behalf of the entire administrative team to recommend mailing it.

All in favor?

Yes, if I could. Yes. So we've spoken extensively about how you achieve longevity in the work of a school system. And in my belief, one of the ways that you do that is by identifying high quality leadership talent from within the system, helping to give those folks an opportunity to grow, and then by positioning them to contribute their leadership in broader and more significant ways over the course of time. And to me, is a prime example. She's an architect and a leader of the work that's happened there over the past with me, four and a half years. But for folks who have that kind of history over the past twenty six years at CHHS, I think has performed almost every role you can perform at CHHS, teacher, department chair, curriculum coordinator, dean of students, assistant principal. And I think one of the things that makes her particularly unique aside from her thoughtfulness and deep intelligence and understanding of student development and curriculum and teaching and learning here is she's someone who combines both the ability to develop phenomenal, deep, meaningful relationships with students and families and is also someone who understands the system and curriculum and how to lead all of that. And I think without question, Erica is the right leader at the right time at this moment for allowing her to gain experience in this role of interim but more importantly allowing for our students to experience cohesiveness in the work that's been happening there over the past few years. So again we are incredibly thrilled to be recommending Erica to this position and look forward on the board's approval to work with you in this this new role.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Yes. Thank you. Yeah. So I think the term teacher leader is one that is regularly used and perhaps overused in education. But I think for you, John, it's an incredibly apt term. You are and have been a leader among the faculty innumerable in ways. A mentor, a supporter, a coach, a curriculum coordinator, a phenomenal educator, dynamic leader, someone that whenever we have ideas, we wanna think things through and say, who are the faculty? Should we be engaging in conversations around how to make this better? You're getting to the top of the list every single time. So again, for that concept of succession planning and how you build longevity and continued growth

and like report later on it. But where do you know where you stand in terms of electing the two ex officio candidates for next year? When do you finalize our process? Process

is currently sent so. Perfect. That's great. Thank you. Thank you.

It's very exciting that we're

moving

into item 2.5 for reports,

we would start with advocacy. Sure. Alright. Advocacy as we've been hearing and I'm sure we'll hear more as we discuss the budget that we we have had a fifth budget extender filed. They expect that the legislators will be back in session tomorrow to file a sixth budget extender with the hope that perhaps next week we will find a decent movement. As Niall mentioned earlier, it's not generally the education parts of the budget currently that are causing some of these issues and the ongoing negotiations. But as is, we are all still waiting. So we have LHGC and NYSSBA and actually a coalition of other advocacy groups including ASBO have been continuing to advocate to our legislature to try to help them understand the uncertainty that causes school districts when our budgets are this lean. We wanna continue to make sure that, you know, we're we're pushing to get a budget and and in the future, get more budgets on time. So aside from that, we had an LEGC meeting today where we were reviewing some of the bills that are currently being going through the legislature and looking at those to see there's support, where where we might want to put some support behind those. I also do wanna note that everyone should have received a email recently from LHGC about the petition that we recently submitted to the Public Service Commission asking the state to ensure that electric utilities are prepared with the necessary infrastructure planning in place before the bus mandates are implemented. So the advocacy committee when we have our next meeting which we need to schedule, we will be looking to prepare a letter of support for that PSC petition filing for the board to consider at our next meeting. Unless you said that directly impacts our district. Absolutely. Absolutely. Also in March and some of the advocacy that that LAGC has taken out, there was a letter sent to commissioner Rosa to consider some amendments to UPK class sizes to help standardize things between

SED and the Office of Early Childhood Learning. Yes.

So help, you know, be able to support districts as we move forward to implement a full UPK throughout the state to be able to

adjust some of those class sizes so that it makes it easier for for districts.

There was also a letter of support sent for the senate bill for the affordable clean energy act, particularly part c of that legislation that addresses how pilots for renewable energy projects are treated under the property tax catalog. All of that information can be found on the UPK website. So I encourage everybody to look up. And as we continue to hear more about the budget, we will keep it all updated.

And that's it for advocacy. Thank you so much.

Committee met on April 9 and went through the internal audit and the risk assessment. I'll I'll go through it again. It's it's it's noteworthy. On the internal audit,

was really the main main key points. And so it'd be on the agenda for acceptance later on.

Thank you. Board development.

The Board development committee has not met since the since the, well, since the last time we reported, but there are some things that are sort of upcoming because we're now approaching the time of year where we're heading to the finish line. So one of the things after we schedule our next meeting, which you'll be hearing from us on is our board self evaluation as we take an opportunity to look at the work that we've done in terms of achieving our goals, our norms and practices, and our procedures, especially as they inform sort of what we want next year to look like and how we want to make sure that we are providing sort of information for continuity for trustees who serve in the future. So that's sort of like the main goal I think for now, between now and the end of the year, including wrapping up some of our formalizing formalizing of of our our committee processes and procedures that we put in place this year, but have yet to sort of fully document. That's the top of mind. I think as well just, you know, I don't know if this would be appropriate place to share it because it's sort of our collective responsibility but we will also begin sort of working on the end of the year superintendent evaluation process. This is an annual part of the board's responsibility and so we'll have more information to share with trustees on the timeline and what everyone will need to do to participate in that in the coming

days and weeks. That's all. I just want to add, I just quickly kind of googled the timeline from last year, or not googled, but I searched our records and it technically

starts at the beginning

on that and get it up to the full board by the next meeting.

Communications. Alright. So communications at our last meeting, we were working on updating the preamble for hearing of public to clarify information. So I have shared that with the full board. If anyone has any feedback or information on that, please share that with me and I will communicate it with the full board. So we'd like to get that finalized and start implementing that into our agenda as we move forward. We also discussed the survey that we've been working on. Thank you to the trustees who provided us feedback. We've made some adjustments based on some of that feedback and have worked on pushing that timing back towards the end of the year given that we're in a bit still budget season and that we wanted to be focusing on budget communications. So we are also continuing to work on updates to the OE section of the website. So again,

please share any feedback

that you have

on parental rights and negotiation trends. There's some good information there and those slides are also available so let's take a look at that. And lastly, the

RSVP visits. Okay.

Okay. I think for me just one quick update which is the

CET Physical Education Department. Miss Leslie is going to be running a bike radio for our CET students to celebrate the celebrate our welcoming bikes for our CET kids and hopefully soon the completion and purchase of a place to store them all. So the bike radio right now is scheduled for I have it on my calendar. May 17.

May 17 is at the summit. Yeah. It's

it it's so it's currently not on the calendar. But I'll tell you. One second. I'm sorry. And the reason I'm mentioning it here is because I assert this committee not to build a bicycle pedestrian committee and that is they are actually going to be coming out in support along with a number of other community organizations to help make that a very special and fun day for all of our students. It's It's the sixteenth. Thank you. Which is actually Saturday. Right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess I need to actually be looking have to be looking at the right month. That's why it's not there. I'm sleeping in April. Yes. It's from 9AM to November, and there'll be more information coming out on that. In terms of other things, I'm not formally the liaison to PVC PT, but I did have an opportunity to attend the meeting last night. And among the things that are on deck are, of course, all the wonderful end of year celebrations, especially sort of like pre graduation and graduation celebrations for the eighth graders. So just a big note of thanks to our PTZPT for all their fundraising throughout a the

this is my last season,

it's gonna make me a little little bit bit sad. Sad. Other upcoming event is the PVC PTA will be hosting for for the PVC students as well as for our fourth graders who will be rock even rising fourth graders. Friday night strikes, is one of their signature fun events where you get to come to school after hours and do engage in all sorts of fun activities teachers, with parent volunteers. That is on Friday, May 8, beginning at 05:30 for our younger cohort of grades four, five, and six. And then I believe beginning at 07:30 for our seventh and eighth graders. So you know, I just remember it's all day. Just seven? No. It's great. No. No. It's No. I at

No.

Time, It's so they are gonna be included as well. That may have been, like, breaking news within the last twenty four hours where even last night's meeting possibly John. So I'll I'll double check that though now just in case somehow I misunderstood what that's what they talked about.

Thank you again, Ana. Happy to speak briefly about some elements of the budget and then turn it over to Denise for some of the financial updates. I want to say again, as I say every year that we view the budget process as a reflection, of course of a function of finances of dollars and cents but it's also an opportunity to display vision And I again want to thank the leadership team, the board, the entire faculty and staff, and our parents community, which is really a reflection of an ongoing year's worth of conversations. And to to extend the budget roadmap metaphor, we're now kind of rounding the final return, the final corner in a process that begins in a public facing way in January, begins in an internal, more formal way in November, but really is an entire year's worth of work. And it occurs Formal. Formal and informal way in conversations with parents and with students and faculty. But we ask, wouldn't it be great if we could I'm here. Do the father place. And wouldn't wouldn't it be advantageous for our students if we could offer Sure. All of that is based around the vision map and those priorities that I think have become so well known to our community and to our system. And so that continues to be our guiding document and great gratitude to Denise as we have those

I that is think

that we're having about how we use the budget to advance the student experience. Obviously, we talked about this is a different kind of budgetary environment than we've seen, at least in in the the time that I've been here. But we're not as a system talking about adding faculty or staff. Right? So the question then becomes how do you add to the student experience without adding any members of the team in order to facilitate that. So again, great credit to our creative administrators and teachers and faculty and parents for coming up with various ways for us to be able to genuinely and sincerely say to the community that this budget adds to the experience our students have in our system K-twelve. It reflects our vision and background. Increasing opportunities for students to engage in rigorous coursework at the high school that align with their interests including two new AP courses, one in personal finance with business, the other in psychology, a project lead the way course with principles of engineering, new electives in theater and modern journalism. All of those are being done without adding to the faculty and staff at time. Continuing access to the seven interdisciplinary courses and nine new enrollment courses that have been a part of the experience, we believe help our students to stand out among other students in a region where there are so many high performing students taking such a robust course selection. Those sorts of things in our view and based on feedback we've shared from the colleges allow our students to have a different narrative and different story as they apply to college after they need CHUFSD. Full implementation for the second year of our K-twelve instructional coaching model designed to be fully collaborative based on peer to peer feedback with coaches who spend time continuing as teachers and then spend time also coaching

using their rooms as model classrooms as well as engaging with great professional learning in the classrooms of others and continuing to invest in modernizing our classroom spaces across the district. Beyond that, as we talked about, again, aligning our vision and values as it relates to hands on learning, authentic learning, and use of technology. So as we've discussed, a significant reduction in spending on educational technology software by something like 33% in that area while continuing to increase our investment in robust hands on learning, including learning resources that support early literacy and CET, adding extra curricular clubs, and continuing the Tiger Tuesday model and the elective model at PVC that we think have been successful first year then And And

launched tomorrow we'll in advance of the budget hearing on May 7. So we ask folks to devote us about four minutes and fifteen seconds long but does I think a good job of summarizing the entire process and look forward to continuing engagement and questions from our community as we get closer to the budget point itself. I'm happy now to turn it over to our outstanding assistant superintendent for business, Denise, to give us some facts and figures. So

let's take a look at how we arrived here. This is our very rigorous presentation schedule and tonight will be a culmination of these discussions and presentations all leading to the public budget hearing on May 7 and our vote on May 19. So overview, this is Now we'll talk a little bit about the how and the why behind the figures and talk about some of our internal and external budget drivers. So from the revenue perspective, we're looking at an anticipated increase in state aid which we'll talk a little bit more about as we move on. And also increased revenue due to our special ed in district placement. So we have students coming from other districts to our special education programs and paying the district tuition for those placements. So that has increased significantly due to the work of our Assistant Superintendent Regis Paul. And this is the year in which we needed it. Thank you. From the expense budget side, you'll see increases in contractual obligations, increase in benefit costs, TRS, health, FICA, which is social security, the portion that the district has to pay. We have some decrease in our debt service which is also welcome. And we'll see significant property and casualty in insurance increases this year due to just the market in general but also due to our increase in capital assets due to the construction that we've done over the past three years. So as negotiations continue in Albany, we are now on our fifth budget extender with another one probably to follow tomorrow. Some of the items on the table are looking to pause the bus electrification incentive mandate. Also some insurance, some non related auto insurance caps that they're looking to implement, some issues around the New York State Employee Retirement System and Tier V members. But thankfully none of these seem to impact our state aid at this point. We are a whole harmless district right now, which means that the whole harmless districts will receive, they're saying 1% increase to Foundation Aid which is equivalent to $52,000

for us. Really not significant. We are tossing our fingers and hoping for 2%. There's been a little talk about that. Transportation aid is up by $54,000 Transportation aid is an expense based aid. So as our costs increase, our aid also increases. Though our transportation aid factor decreased this year ever so slightly. Another big movement was private excess cost aid. That is aid that is used to offset tuition and related services costs for our students with special needs who are in a private placement. And then also building aid. So these are not the executive budgets numbers as far as building aid because they have us still based on last year. Progress of made a the project.

Is

within the allowable tax levy of 2.19% and will generate approximately $995,000 to our budget. That will offset our budget to budget increase by half. Only half. So the levy, even though it's our biggest revenue source, it's really only covering half of our increase. So while the levy remains within the allowable limit, each of our taxing jurisdictions and community members will experience this differently. So as you can see from the chart, it illustrates the projections and the rates for both Cortlandt and Yorktown. As you can see, Yorktown is increasing by 14.1%. We we have about 139 parcels in Yorktown as opposed to three plus thousand in Portland. So this is almost entirely a function of the change in equalization rate for Yorktown. Town. So Yorktown's equalization rate went down and their assessments went up. It was kind of like a double whammy.

When the

rate, when the equalization rate goes down, the share that that community contributes goes up. So they've had a little bit of a double whammy this year, but as we've seen in the years, there's been huge spikes down, huge spikes up. Okay. Now that we've looked at the biggest portions of our revenue, we'll take a look at the overall picture. So payments in lieu of taxes, that is a pilot that we have in the village, which increases every year by approximately 3%. County sales tax remaining flat, interest earnings also flat, we projected a slight decrease due to the current market conditions. Other revenue is up about $244,000 That is related to our special education placements within the district. And we have state aid bringing in an additional 325,000 As you know, if you look, the budget is 62,762,808. We are required by law to have a balanced budget. So to balance the budget, we are designating reserves and the fund balance to offset that. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later. So we're designating 200 from our employee retirement reserve,

So as you can see, we maintain strong reserves. We're required by law also to utilize those reserves which we do every year. Capital reserve, the top three lines, that's our largest reserve and that is used to offset the cost of facility and capital improvements. Thus far we have utilized those reserves to bring forth to the community a tax neutral neutral capital project. So we funded that portion through the capital reserve at 2,500,000. We've also upgraded our kitchens at PVC, at CET. We updated our phone system, we've done district wide drainage projects. So those are very, very valuable reserves. They can also be utilized for projects that are not able, like site related projects. And that when we use those reserves, we don't need to borrow. So it's they're a huge asset to the district. The other reserve I'd like to point out is the repair reserves. So I'll talk a little bit more about this later because it's on the ballot as a proposition. They established this a number of years ago and it has really served the district well. So there are a number of columns here on the reserve. So we have last year's balance at $6.30, and then we have the appropriated to the 2627 budget, which is what we just spoke about, those appropriations. So those are being brought out and reduced from the prior year balance. But the repairs are it it says it's at 3 we expect it'll be at 300,000 in June and that is assuming that the proposition passed and the money will be designated to that reserve. So it's not like we're adding another three

rates have gone up with ERS and because we feel that that fund is substantially funded, remember we have a only a portion of our employees that are

using or from taking in students from out of the district. I know that it's come up in the past. The community members have said, you know, are we doing this to the detriment of our students? And I just wanted you to speak to the process because I know it's so thorough and it actually puts our students in high priority regarding all aspects of that. Yes, thank you. Our specialized programs are at a ratio in which there is about 40% of our students and that other 60%, those are big hits seats. These are quality programs that are both therapeutic and specialized in nature, so it is a program that other students can benefit from. So a lot of districts reach out to us and refer students to us for our specialized programs. And out of the total number of packets, let's say I get about 30 packets a year, about two students may be accepted to participate and attend our programs. But our quality of our teaching and our support in those programs is so high. Our children here, our tigers, are benefiting from those programs and that the addition of out of district students is not, you know, contaminating the program or taking resources from our students.

We look at the implications, class size, and so forth. Thank you. Okay, so this is one look at the budget which looks at it kind of like department by department. So the first section is really total general support which is really like the guts and administration portion of the budget. And that is up about 5.6% primarily due to the increased insurance costs that we're seeing. There are also some salaries in there. So this is the whole department. Operations, maintenance, BOCES, all of our BOCES fees are in there, capital, administration, etcetera. And then you can see that the bulk of our expenses are in teaching and learning, is the the instructional section which is up 2.55%. Then we had transportation which is up 2.16% and then employee benefits, debt service and fringe benefits. So that accounts for about 29 or 30% of our budget. This is another look. So this is the same budget but with a different look. This looks at it by object. So as you can see, the bulk of our budget is in salaries and benefits. It's 75% of our budget is in salaries and benefits. It's people. It's our staff and that is up 3.38%. Then we have capital equipment and outlay which is up $529,000 And that is, I will say that that is a shift. So again, is a culmination of all of our budget presentations. There was one shift there. We had an opportunity to capitalize on E Rate funding. So E Rate funding is help supporting increased infrastructure for our network which provides access, which provides safety and security, and will ensure longevity of our systems. So they provide 40% of all of our expenses. They will offset. So we increase that amount to cover that E Rate project next year. And also there is a maintenance vehicle in there as well. Contractual supplies, OC services is a slight

And then debt service and principal is down.

And that's just another look at our budget.

So here is the three part budget. This is required this is by law that we provide not as beautiful as this one but we are required by law to provide a required budget and this is the administrative portion that covers approximately 11.78% of our district cost and it funds our core mission. It's administration, it's central processing, it's legal capital, BOCES expenditures, supervision costs, etcetera.

This is a new way of presenting it. I think. And I have to say as a visual person,

it's very helpful to see actually just the way that you've done it. It's kinda neat just to see. So thank you. Yes.

There's a lot of data there. Yeah. And it also gives a different look. You can slice the budget many different ways. This is our program component, which is about 70%, which includes all of our teaching and learning expenses and

And on our ballot, we will have a few propositions that I'd like to discuss. The first is the vehicle proposition. This is to ensure that we have safe and adequate vehicles to support our student transport needs. We are looking at one sixty six passenger diesel bus, one twenty to 30 passenger smaller vehicle, and then one hybrid SUV. The total cost is estimated at about $380,000 These costs will be funded through current year appropriations. So through the

technology. So we have had some reliability issues which we are documenting. And another issue is that because of the cost of the vehicles, we've slowed down our replacement schedule significantly. So we our fleet is much leaner than it's ever been before. And we've had two of our vehicles have been at the dealer to try to resolve some mechanical issues for a considerable amount of time. We have one vehicle that's been out almost an entire year being serviced. And we have a great rapport with our provider and they are the most advanced in the country with electric vehicles and they are still running into issues with school buses. There are a lot of requirements under especially New York State DMV that these buses have to adhere to and it was like the two never met before. You know, the manufacturer and DMV kind of clashed. So we're trying to figure these things out. We have a lot of requirements on all of our buses and we think that it's not like slapping on the sign or a stop arm camera. They're a little bit more intense. So we've had some struggles. So we feel that based on the fact that we are so down vehicles that we have an opportunity for the next year or two to build up our fleet a little bit and put a little pause on our plan. Aside from that, probably the biggest factor is we are at about max at our facility. And even with all of our

I think you've done a good job explaining. I was shifting through these papers because I remember Joe Bernardi came in and I was trying to find the dates of February 26 because of course this is our culminating budget meeting but I think Joe gave like a very good overview of our transportation department as to just what the realities are in terms of repair times and vehicles off the road. I think that's important context for people who are thinking that it's like you can just buy another EV and it's done because that's unfortunately not the reality of where we are right now. And that's a tough thing to to say and acknowledge if we're you know, but but it's also just sort of like the reality. Like you did a very good job of explaining the why of how we went about a vehicle proposition the way it is. Just to add on to another point,

the thing that stuck up to me the most that Joe said was the sheer temperature inside the buses and a and a winter as harsh as ours, where they weren't able to heat sufficiently for the drivers or for students

who sometimes have to endure forty five minute rides on the buses,

that seems to

about this legislation now that's been introduced, right, about the did you talk about that already? Delay to delay. To delay the mandate, but then also, I mean, again, it's like, you know, just also like, exemptions for I this was that for me because I just remember, you know, where we live and how close we are to the formerly operational nuclear power plant. It's like these are, you know, these are realities in terms of, like, needs to evacuate things like that that people and communities are facing in terms of in terms of EPPs.

Established to and I would give credit to Omar who brought this to the table and didn't let it go until we implemented it. The repair reserve is used to pay for non recurring capital improvements or equipment. So emergency or needed repairs. We established this in 2022. Thus far, we have utilized it. Dollars 100,000 of it to repair the PVC elevator. Dollars 185,000 for repairs to our high school elevator and then another $65,000 for our PVC steam boiler. So we are really utilizing this fund and right now it's almost complete except for the interest that we've earned on it. So we are asking brokers to approve an increase to that $300,000 And again, there is zero tax impact on that because we are proposing that we implemented on the twenty five-twenty six budget from our fund balance

in the twenty five-twenty six school year.

Just to add complexities to what you're talking about, when these were utilized, they were utilized in an emergency. Situation. It was an ADA issue where we had students in the building and we needed to have it repaired in an emergency. Most of the that we had an emergency meeting for. There are many restrictions around reserves. This one in particular, it has to be approved by the voters and then we have to have a public budget hearing, a public hearing if we're going to utilize the reserves. So that we did and it's been a

the Croton Library Levy. So I just wanted to point out that we have no jurisdiction over the Croton Free Library. It is just on our ballot just because of the way the organization

that the Croton Free Library is funded by the school district and or the village, which is actually not the case. So the the fact that that we administer their budget is just it's up to, like, a function. Right? Long to go New York No, no, no. That we finished the meeting. Sorry. The share of our power. Yeah. And that, you know, that is the extent that it's just it's just for that operational efficiency of getting people to the polls on the same day for something that is happening in our same village, right?

Voter information. Oops, see. So here's some of our voter information. Please look the deadline to register. It's May 14. Also, we have the opportunity the

application. Okay. So if an individual completed an application and submitted it to the district clerk, if it's received by May 12, Denise will mail out a ballot to that individual. If it is not received by May 18, then they will have to come in and pick up their ballot. I

just like to add to to feedback on to Anamika's point. I just checked with Superintendent Walker.

Visit our website. The polls are open from six to nine at high school and we'll have also our ten year celebration and art show. And stay connected through social media or budget.questionschustee.org. If you have any questions, you can reach out to me directly or on Facebook, Instagram,

and

twenty six-twenty seven superintendent's budget for the Croton-Harmon School District recommended action be recalled by the Board of Education hereby adopts the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven superintendent's budget for the Croton-Harmon School District in the amount of $62,762,808 So moved. Second. Second. Oh, go ahead, Megan. That was over. That's here. Here. Yep.

And

that person recommended below is Richard Kreps from the Carmel Central School District. For a term of 07/01/2026 to 06/30/2029.

So moved.

I will say that I moved it to the table because it's part of our process to move it. I will be voting no on this because I don't think that there's I I I I'm uncomfortable with the idea of qualifying someone's behavior to one person versus another person in statements that were on the record the organization sent shared with them, so I can't vote yes. I'll

also just say that I have previously voted no with respect to Mr. Krebs for the concerns that were brought to us by the community

revenue and cash management and risk assessment update as previously recommended by the district's audit committee and whereas RS Abrams and Co LLP has prepared the internal audit focus area report. Now therefore be it resolved that the Board of Education of Croton-Harmon Union School District hereby accepts the internal audit focus area report.

So moved.

Second. Final question. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Item 3.6, the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven property tax report card recommended action be resolved. The Board of Education hereby approves the twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven property tax report card as presented. So moved. Second. Other question? The

contract, recommended action be it resolved with the Board of of education Education hereby awards the gas supply services contract to NRG Business Marketing LLC for November 2026 through April 2027. So moved. Second. All in question? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Opposed? Opposed? Opposed? Opposed?

Opposed?

The of education is

board

appoints Alexandra Palmaier at a 1.0 FTE English teacher, English tenure area at the Croton-Harmon High School at a salary of $114,691 MA plus 30, step 13. Miss Paul Matiere is appointed to a four year probationary term as an English teacher commencing on 08/26/2026 and probationary term ending on 08/20/2030 in the tenure area of English. Miss Paul. Paul Matiar has professional certification in English language arts, grades seven through 12.

So moved.

Second. Second. On the question? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Item 4.5, instructional personnel, leave of absence recommended action to be resolved if the Board of Education hereby approves the instructional personnel leave of absence of Bianca Pizzuti, elementary teacher, Carrie E. Tomkins Elementary School, effective 12/15/2025 with a return date of 04/06/2026, and extends Ms. Pizzuti's probationary term in the ten year area of elementary education from 08/27/2028 to 11/18/2028. So moved. Second. On the question? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. Item 4.6, instruction personnel recommendation leave replacement amendment. Recommended action be to resolve the Board of Education hereby approves the instructional personnel leave replacement amendments as presented.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. Item 4.7 instructional personnel resignation. Recommended action be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby accept the instructional personnel resignation of Gina Fitzsimmons, nurse, to ask board meeting. Their And both these certainly are lost in their name. Game. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Motion Aye. Carries. Item 1.8, the signed letter of agreement with the Croton Teachers Association recommended action be resolved before Board of Education hereby approves the signed letter of agreement between the Croton Herman Union Free School District and the Croton Teachers Association as presented. So moved. Second. Final question.

Presented. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Moving into our donations. Item 5.1, recommended action, the assault of the Board of Education gratefully accept a donation of $250 from Agnes Zavarias as a contribution to the Christos Zavarias scholarship at Croton- Herman High School. This award is

Moving into item six, the consent agenda. Item 6.1, approval of the consent agenda. Recommended action be resolved before the education hereby

platforms on being responsive to the public. I just want to say, I'm going to publicly ask once again that I get an answer as to how the Superintendent's Community Committee picked its parents that that be share

why unlike in the past, academics are not in superintendent's reports. It's only about events and type births and place. You have parents who are absolutely upnourished about screens. Carrie Bianchi is telling

I'd like to know more importantly

why do we have two principals in high school?

This is a new occurrence that happened only over the last couple of years. I happen to love all of them but I can assure you

They were laughing at what's going on in our high school. They asked if it was a joke. Why are people doing projects? Why are they going on class trips? Why are they doing their homework? They didn't understand the lack of instructional time. In AP Bio, our kids are staring at carrots and water for double periods. Okay? None of what goes on in IEP buying other schools happens in our school districts. Where is the money? Where are the resources? Lastly, ideology. It's gotta stop. The ideology about college night was absurdity.

It was one little statement. We all know that kids can go anywhere from any school and it's the right fit to spend our resources and time

doing that for professional film today and then that evening and without a lack of understanding. I don't understand what's going on here. Expectations of different students, their needs and colleges are all different bias. You can't give a blanket statement.

Million dollars. This is a hard way to learn stuff. It's really a hard way to learn stuff. But it's on the backs of those members of the board who were enthusiastic for this, but they were being pushed by this community. So the community can't just blame you. They're gonna blame themselves. But I wanna thank you with the administration again. I can't do on this subject. You asked some questions now. You have all the answers two months ago. You gotta go back and look at that and educate yourself so you're able to talk to anybody about it, electrification, buses. But I'll talk about that right now is how not to do something.

Store. This store applied for a change of use within the structure of the store that's in Harmon. Applied for it in May. The village proceeded to lose the application, rediscovered the application when somebody presented a date stamp on to in October. The entire village knew nothing about this, and then

just the technology work session and I think you invited us, Ana, to all get back to you

and administration with questions. To get back to board officers that we would then forward to the administration the same way that we do agenda questions every Monday where the entire board is then CC'd on the compilation of those questions so as trustees we're all aware of what we're asking the administration and then the administration in turn responds to the board.

Well I think that sounds great. This is something that came up during, as I think Superintendent Walker mentioned, it came up during our technology budget presentation and I think looking at it like the lens of the budget was sort of like one way of looking at it. Just appreciate that we're able to move, that we're to get this on the schedule and get to sort of talk about it and have an understanding of what the district actually is planning to implement and where we're heading. So it'll be interesting to be able to talk about all those things, both in terms of technology and AI, which has been a big topic at our policy committee meetings and obviously the committee work that's been going on this year. And

so I appreciate that. Thank you for getting on the agenda for us.

I wanna add on that point that would be it'd be helpful to go through more than just presentation on technology itself. I think with with the board what I'm asking for is the board member, I'm hearing from the community that has been coming and talking about technology for the last two months at this point, at least, is a better understanding of how technology supports construction programs, how technology aligns with the curriculum, and how it advances the district's education goals. I mean, I think those are core issues that keep up coming up with parents, trying to understand how technology is in the classroom. I think we could present that in

I want I'm happy to aim for this Friday. Or can we do Monday morning? Do have a trustee who's abroad right now. Right? Well, I was just gonna add the caveat that I believe trustee Samuels isn't actually returning until April 5 and I will May 5. May 5. I'm sorry, May 5. And I will certainly reach her via all of my means possible to alert her to this, but hopefully, we don't have her doing board work on her

her lead. So there might be some trickle down.

So what are you We're saying Monday on April

So our next Board of Education meeting is Thursday, May 7, at which point we will, as we've just discussed, be discussing technology. We will be entering into executive session. I'll move on to item 7.4 at which

we will after which we will close the meeting.

We will not be reporting that obviously. So we will be entering into executive session to discuss the steps including a confidential student matter regarding a particular student. I'll move to that shortly after which we will exit executive session and adjourn the meeting off records. So I wanna thank everybody who's watched this, who's