Sorry.

What's your title?

Okay.

We are here to have a discussion on the Syracuse Board of Education, our school district.

Budget for this coming year.

I want to welcome Pamela Odom, our superintendent of schools and fellow Heneger graduate.

I want to I want to welcome Mike Pincheco, our chief operating officer, Robert DeFloral, Deputy Superintendent.

So we're here going to discuss our our budget for the coming year.

And what are our goals for the coming year with our students?

And uh we can just have a general discussion.

I I'm the chair of this committee.

Today, Councilor Martinave.

I am with Common Council President, Rita Paniagua, Port District Counselor, Patrona Jones Rouser, and Counselor at Large, Joel Majok.

So if you would like to start, Pam.

But our presentation.

Absolutely.

Okay.

The budget is focused on our strategic plan and our goals.

We will continue to focus on literacy and numeracy for all of our students.

Obviously, our CTE pathways we'll continue to focus on, and the budget will represent that as well, and also our attendance goals.

So I'm going to turn it over to Chief Pachenko.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you very much, everyone, for having us this morning.

The first thing I'm going to talk about is going through our budget.

I'm going to talk about the uh community input, the state budget release and state aid, our revenue and expenses.

I want to share with you an analysis of our revenue over the last several years, and then provide you with opportunity to ask the superintendent myself any questions.

As you know, we are all waiting the governor and the legislature to do a final approval of next year's budget.

So we put this budget together based upon what the uh governor's preliminary budget plans were, um, and we based all our decisions off of that.

Um, if you go to the next page, talked about community input.

Um, we did community outreach, we did forms, uh, we sent out postcards, social media posts.

Um, we had a couple of proposed budget uh public hearings.

Uh the superintendent also met with the student cabinet and also the parent council.

And what we also did, we had an online um big project called the balancing act.

And what this did was it allowed the community to voice their input on how they see the district expending their funds.

Um, and we had uh 1,376 um page views on that, and the result of that was the top three wait weighted areas were literacy, numeracy, and before and after school programming.

Um, and as the superintendent mentioned at the start, um, the first two literacy and numeracy are key areas that we are focusing on this year, so it is consistent with what the community um has asked us to do.

We start looking at the uh state budget.

Um, this is based on the current legislative proposal.

Again, we do not have final figures, um, but we'll come to the common council with our uh overall spending limit.

Should anything change, then we would reduce our uh uh use of fund balance, but our spending limit will not be increasing um once it's approved by the common council.

So there's a 39.3 billion dollar education budget, which fully funds the current foundation aid formula.

This is an increase of 1.6 billion dollars, which is 4.3% over the 25-26 year, and there's almost a $300 million increase in foundation aid, um, which is about a three percent increase over last year's budget.

One of the areas that we've been talking about with the governor's office and the legislator is foundation aid.

Um the Rockefeller Institute did a study on the Foundation Aid formula, um, and they made a new number of recommendations about a year and a half ago.

Uh last year, uh a few minor low-hanging fruit things were adjusted on the foundation aid formula, but there are many other things that we feel need to be adjusted.

Um, and we've made those recommendations numerous times, and we're gonna continue to do that.

We feel that the foundation aid formula is not fair to uh students in Syracuse, uh specifically the way they do the wealth index, um, the way they do uh special education per pupil waiting, ENL waiting.

Um those need to be adjusted because they really do not make any sense.

So hopefully, um, if not this year, um, in the coming years that we'll really spend some more time making those adjustments again within the governor's executive budget.

Again, within the governor's executive budget, um, they're gonna fully fund the existing formulas for building aid, transportation aid, special services aid, and instructional materials aid.

Um, we continue to have the community schools and contract for excellent set asides.

These are areas where the district is required to spend funding in our our state aid in these certain categories.

Um it does limit our ability to be flexible with those dollars.

So that is something else that we've had discussions with them about.

Um evidence-based math instruction, high impact tutoring, and universal pre-kindergarten.

The uh governor has proposed to increase funding for pre-K students, um, and we're going to hopefully see what those final dollars are pretty soon, so we can leverage those to try to increase some of our pre-K programming throughout the community.

So within that $16.2 million state aid that the district's going to be receiving, $12.9 of that is going to go toward the foundation aid.

$1.5 million goes into transportation aid, and $1.8 is in all other aids.

This is really excess cost aid in that area.

And as you see, their transportation aid is increased by $1.5 million.

Um a lot of this is due to the number of homeless students that we have.

Um we have over 2,000 students that are counted as homeless students, and we have to provide transportation to them.

Um and many of them are in shelters or homes or hotels, motels outside of the district area, and we have to go out there and get them and bring them to school every day and back.

So is that is that um with the homelessness?

Is that with the families or are these kids that are separated from uh from uh families or is it both?

It's it's a combination of all of it.

They could be a student that's living on the couch at his friend's house, it could be a whole family that is homeless.

Um it could be somebody that's just living with a bunch of relatives at the time, technically they're homeless.

Um, so we have about two thousand of those students right now.

Do we know specifically in terms of the entire family?

Because I know that situation where a child may not be fit to live with that family, but not necessarily that a family is homeless, right?

Do we know how many of those children are strictly homeless with their with their families?

We do.

Okay.

Um and literally once you are um identified as homeless, it's kind of puts you in a category that's known as McKinney Bento.

And we are obligated and and we understand of making sure that we provide um a consistent school structured environment for that student.

Um and I believe it's up to uh 50 miles away from the district.

So right now we could be transporting kids as far as Cortland, you know, um, we could be transporting kids, you know, um back and forth to school because that is what not just our obligation is, but what we need to do.

What's the cost of that?

Do we know the exact number?

I can't give you the exact number, um, counselor, but I we can research that and provide that to you.

It is very difficult to to pick a date and time because it it fluctuates frequently.

Because I I do know that the cost of transportation is is a lot, right?

I'm wondering if it makes sense to if they are living in places like Courtland as a child as an as opposed to entire family.

The regulations uh require us to if the child wants to remain in the school district up to 50 miles that we have to provide that transportation.

Okay.

There's no um there's no way around that.

That's what the state regulations require us to do.

So even if there's a family member that that lives in a uh Courtland county, they can't they they can't move it.

There's there's no accommodation instead of consistently if the family selects that they can, but typically they choose to remain uh uh in a consistent location, which is our school district.

And they try to keep the schooling consistent for the student because depending on if you're McKinney Vento, you could be hopping, you know, from place to place to place.

School might be the only place where you're having some consistency.

Thank you.

So when we look at the school district's revenue, we're looking at using a total of 24.5 million dollars of our fund balance.

Um when we first went to our proposed budget, it was about 30 million dollars.

Um, and the superintendent and his her cabinet and her team with assistance with assistant superintendents looked back and made an additional reductions of 5.5 million dollars to reduce that down.

This is a committed fund balance of $2 million that we're setting aside that we've set aside for the STEAM high school previously, and $1 million for the Delaware Montessori phase in.

So uh of our unassigned fund balance, we're going to be using 21 and a half million dollars this coming year.

When we looked at our revenue, our assumptions were that there would be no change to the tax levy, tax rate, there's no change in our sales tax collection.

We're assuming flat funding and our federal revenue.

Um we're hopeful that again that the governor at least has this keeps the 16.2 million dollars in the budget, and we um there's a decrease of 1.25 million in miscellaneous revenue in terms of the number of students we're getting from the outside for the STEAM high school and some lower interest on earnings and interfund funding.

Now I I know with with federal government and federal funding that there was a stipulation uh from the federal government that if any organization is involved in uh DEI work that somehow that they had to implement some form of restructuring or at least adjustment.

Did that affect the district at all?

Our board was very um you know strong on this along with us.

We did not change our DEI program.

We still have our diversity equity and belonging team.

Um, and I I'm very appreciative to the board because they said no, we're gonna stay steadfast and we're gonna keep our diversity, equity, and belonging team, and so that that's what we decided to do in our district.

So it didn't and it didn't affect any funding.

Right.

Okay.

Not at this time, none of our federal funding have been affected by anything from um Washington regarding DEI.

Okay.

So when we look at our our total budget, our our adopted revenue, um, there's a sixteen point two million dollar uh increase in state aid, which is a 3.1 percent change.

Um we looked at property taxes as being flat.

We're looking at the fund balance that committed, we reduced that down, and then we increased our assigned fund balance and then all other.

So you'll see that our adopted revenue is $634.1 million dollars, which is a 14.2 increase, which is a 2.3 increase in revenue.

Okay.

Please keep in mind the CPI is about 3.3 percent.

Um last time I looked, so we are below even what the CPI increase is.

When we talk about our expenses, um, there's a lot of thought that goes into how uh we're going to expend our funds.

Um a few things that I want to mention to you as we want to continue to establish a culture of learning and high expectations, increase student proficiency and literacy and numeracy, improve belonging for all, engage our families and the community effectively and efficiently, utilize our resources and recruit highly effective, diverse staff and provide incentives to retain them.

The other things we had to keep in mind is the STEAM high school is going phasing into a 10th grade.

We're going to continue the Delaware Montessori phase in.

A few years ago we received ARPA money and we implemented a number of initiatives based upon those ARPA funds.

Um we strongly feel that a lot of those issues that came from that period of time that have continued to uh impact our students and our schools.

So we want to continue some of those initiatives.

Uh we have CSI and receivership schools.

Um those are schools that need additional support.

They're they're on a list from the state of schools that need improvement.

Or on the business yeah so far.

We have 13 schools, uh, four schools that are in receivership and nine schools that are CSI.

Um we are committed to working with those low performing schools, and unfortunately, it's the same names of schools that you've seen over and over and over.

So we are definitely working towards making sure we provide those low low performing schools with the resources that they need.

How many of them are um like elementary level?

Um I can give you the names.

Seymour Bellevue, Cleary, and Roberts, so three of the four, Clary's a middle school.

Roberts K8, yeah.

Yep.

So in term of metrics, how how do you how does a school get into a risk into a pathway of receivership?

What's what's the score?

So the state looks at the progress of ELA and math, you know, what's a percentage?

Um it is basically based on each school is a little different, and so you have to you know get the projections from the state and what they call this something that they call metrics.

So you have to look at your ELA and math scores, your attendance, you might have a behavioral, um, a behavioral goal.

So they give you all of these metrics and over a period of time, which is uh about three years, you have to make uh gains or targets.

And so if you make those gains and you work out a plan, which is called a school comprehensive plan, if you're making your gains along the way and making the gains that the state has laid out for you, and each school is different, then that gives you an opportunity to get off of receivership.

But right now we have four schools that are in receivership and we have nine schools that are CSI, and if we don't do something with these schools right now in three years, they could be new receivership schools.

And Superintendent, and thank you so much for your work.

And you said earlier that there is somewhat of consistency of of the schools that are underperforming, right?

Quote unquote based on state uh state requirements.

State metrics, yeah.

So as a district, when we see that happening over and over and uh over the time, and there's a level of consistency that what's what's what what is the strategy to sort of diffuse that?

So you might um have heard we are right now, uh it's we've been in the news a little bit about our elevator 315 plan, and that's what we're trying to do in order to help our low performing schools.

We're trying to um really put an emphasis looking at ELA math, science, uh special ed, EL to really provide our students with a personalized learning experience to where we're looking at the individual students and coming up with an individualized plan for each kid in order to move the needle.

Um our students that may come into a classroom, uh they may have varied, you know, reading skills or math skills, so just giving kids a one-size-fits-all plan doesn't work, which is why we're trying to focus on individualizing the students um overall academic and behavioral plan in order to move the needle.

Um couple other uh budget development considerations.

We're right sizing our resources.

This is uh looking at our our buildings, our staff um throughout either insane schools, district wide, um, as well as uh non-staff expenditures and looking at how to uh right size and reduce those.

And as I mentioned in the beginning, our our budget was $30 million uh gap, and we were able to do some of those right sizing initiatives and bring down uh another $5.5 million dollars from that.

Excuse me, and then special education.

Um the number of special education students uh continues to increase.

Um we are seeing more children coming to school at the pre-K, kindergarten, first grade level, um needing special education services.

So the number of our students with special education needs um has been increasing.

Let me just ask um based on that information alone, what is the process of uh lead testing um your correlation with the county or physician on lead testing for those younger students because at a certain age they're they don't test anymore?

So are they past that?

Because I think it's I don't know if it's three or five.

Uh I'm not really sure, but your question is specifically, but the um school district doesn't mandate lead testing.

We did do a um testing of all our pre-K students.

Any anyone that was willing to sign up for that, we tested over 500 students, yeah, uh pre-K students.

Yeah, no, not saying as a mandate, but I'm just wondering is it being offered, like you just said it's not mandated, but you do it and it's offered every year, or was it just like a specific time that there was concern?

Yeah, we're no, there wasn't concerns.

It was we just wanted to evaluate where we were.

So we piloted this program with the county to test all three and four-year-olds in our school district.

And that pilot ended and it didn't.

It did, it did, and we we were reviewing the data now.

Um we we have to have some communication, which we don't have in terms of legalities with the county and the school district sharing information.

That's something that we're working on, so we can really analyze those results.

What we did identify uh well, the 500 was five students had elevated levels of lead out of the 500 and some odd students.

Yeah, but that yeah, state level is different from apparently different from what so there's probably more, but because of there's like a few number difference in what the state requires as a highly high level.

So well, when we test the blood levels, and I don't want to carry on too much longer about this, but the what the blood levels is just is either elevated or not.

Um if they were if they met a threshold, yeah, then that then they would have the blood drawn.

And those students were we did identify five students that were not previously identified.

So in that case it did help, but um there's that's all I'll say about that.

So Dr.

DeFlore with with that with with how many of those students with elevated blood level are in the special education section?

Do we know I don't have that data and I wouldn't share that openly as well, but we can't discuss that.

I mean and and and I'm asking that, and it the sense I understand the sensitivity of it.

Yes.

There is a larger conversation around the the harm of lead and the its impact on education, right?

And and you know, again, I understand the sensitivity of it, that but that may be a case that need to be made to help galvanize resources around supporting those kids because they are going to school, and that that burden is being left to school to figure out knowing that there is a health impact that need that need a larger intervention.

Yes, which is the state and and every everybody so it probably worth looking into it and making that argument eventually to the state and other partners.

That would just be a a one-time pilot, but that it is a consistent program that should be pushed on some level.

Yes.

Thank you.

So when we look at our adopted budget, our expenses, um our salaries and wages are going up $13.3 million, which is a 4.6% increase, and our benefits are going up $6.6 million, which is a 5.9% increase.

That's really the the bulk of the school district's uh spending.

Um 65 to 70 percent of our spending um is on.

65 percent of our spending is on salaries and benefits.

Um and as you know, benefits is increasing.

Um our projections for benefits this coming year that will increase 8%, and the projections for the year after that will be 12%.

So these are some stressors that the district's gonna be facing in the future.

Um transportation went up 2.3 million dollars.

Again, I touched base on that.

Charter school tuition, two and a half million dollars.

Again, the school district has no control over how that is being spent.

So forty-six point one million dollars of our funding next year will go directly to charter schools.

Okay.

So when you look at the next slide in terms of our five-year forecast, um, we did a projection of what we're going to be looking like in the next five years.

If you see the red line, those are our expenditures.

The green line is our revenue, and each year there is that gap in between.

That yellow line is our fund balance.

And as you see each year, as we could have to meet that gap, our fund balance is going down, where in five years we will not have any fund balance remaining other than the four percent mandated set aside.

Um this is taking some uh revenue assumptions into account as well.

This is with a state aid increase of three percent, uh $500,000 yearly increase on property tax and tax levy, um, no additional federal revenue, and us building up the enrollment of county students and our and our steam school, as well as us reducing 25 FTE a year and a reduction on contract services or other goods and services of a million dollars.

So again, um we we have a gap.

We're gonna continue to have a gap.

Um, and even if we do certain things to address that gap, um, it's still not gonna go away.

So we are um feeling the fiscal pressures at the moment.

What I wanted to share with you here um is is an analysis of the school districts um revenue aside from the city.

Um at this point in time, about nine percent of our entire revenue comes from the city of Syracuse.

Okay.

Eighty-six percent comes from the state.

Um that nine percent is at the lowest level of any school district in the state.

There are over 700 school districts, and our local contribution is lower than all of them.

Okay.

If you look back.

What's the what's the what's the difference?

Well, it all depends on different municipalities, different um districts.

You know, we compare ourselves to the big five.

Um, you know, I always lament the fact that Rochester has two thousand more students than us.

Okay, and they have a one point one billion dollar budget.

And the question is why?

Well, they get a lot more money from their local taxes and their local resources and the community into their schools.

So if Syracuse is a nine percent, what is Rochester?

Uh I'll have to get I'll look that number up and get that too.

Okay.

So and then and we are uh uh superintendent, we are what 21,000 student or 20,000?

Right now, including Cree K, we're right around 19.

Nine.

Right around 99.

So that would put Rochester at tw by twenty-one?

So which is not uh that's actually a good somewhat good comparison, right?

I I believe it's a good comparison.

Yeah.

Um they have about 2,500 more students than us, and they have a half a billion dollar budget that's that's greater than ours.

Um but again, um, I think that we've very fiscally responsible and we're very efficient and effective with the resources um that we do have.

Um but what I wanted to point out on this analysis, because I know the common counselor is coming go, and and you may not know what has happened over the last 10 years, but over the last 10 years, the tax levy revenue of the school district has increased three million dollars, while the revenue for the city of Syracuse has increased 27.5 million dollars.

Okay.

The the school tax rate per 1,000 at the school district level has decreased $2.56, while the city has increased theirs $4.20.

Anybody from the uh budget that as to why because my my understanding is as the city budget increase, or at least if when the when when we raise taxes, part of that should be going to the district.

But it's not.

Okay, why not?

Who who can um anybody from the budget director?

Evan, Evan.

Evan, Evan.

He missed the question though.

But as as you can see from this analysis, it it hasn't.

Um the plan is to keep the school district flat funded again this year, which will be the third year in a row.

Um, and prior to that in 2223, we received $500,000 more.

That's it.

So the um school tax rate has decreased 15%.

Decreased, while the city tax rate has increased 45%.

Okay.

So 90% of the revenue that's been received has gone to the city, and 10% has gone to the school district of additional revenue over these years.

In addition, going back, I think to 2019 school year, there was the the CS compact where the city committed a million and a half dollars toward the the say yes compact that would go to the community foundation.

In turn, it would work with the county on $13 million of federal funds as an in-kind match to provide social services and supports to our students in our schools.

One point the city was having it funding issues, and the school district kicked in 500,000 of that 1.5 million dollars.

A couple years later, the school district kicked in a million dollars, and then the city was doing the 500.

A few years later, after that, the school district now has picked up the whole 1.5 million dollars that the city had committed to this numerous years ago.

So now that's another expense on our side.

So even though we're up $3.1 million, $1.5 million is now covering expense that used to be on the city side of the ledger.

Um and it's continued to be that way.

I want before we go, or you got something to at least I want to I want to hear from our side as to why as as we increase taxes over time, and we that's part of it that is supposed to be committed to city school district, and is and it's not good morning, counselors.

Evan loving budget director.

So I was taking a look at this.

Um yes, over the years, as you can see from the chart, um the amount that goes to the school district has remained relatively flat.

You can also see that even as it's remained flat, it still exceeds the amount of the tax levy that goes to the city.

Even after the changes, the city's still only collecting roughly $62 million compared to $68 million for the school district.

And I think that should include funding for the school district.

So what about the one it seemed like that $1.5 million that we were supposed to take responsibility and we eventually push it back to the district?

Is that is that would that be part of that conversation, Evan?

I I think everything needs to be part of that conversation.

We need to take a holistic look at our funding both the city and the school district and see what path we want to chart for the future.

Rather than taking this as a year over year, we need to look at it as a multi-year, you know, we're we're gonna be doing this every year.

We need to take a long-term view and figure out what works for funding both the city and the school district.

I think that also needs to take BS looking at both the revenue and the expense side of both our budgets, both the school district and this and the city have IT departments.

We have budget departments.

So are there ways that we can both distribute revenue in a way that's effective and also find efficiencies in a way that is effective?

I would like to also add that the mayor did share I have an opportunity to meet with her monthly.

She's committed to this work and she is putting together a fiscal committee that she's going to ask that we are part of so we can look at um these um issues and how the cities is spending their money and also include us on how they could support us as well.

One last thing I'll note is you know, uh, I know they there was reference made to the percentage of the budget.

As I mentioned, the amount has not changed, but as these budgets have increased, the percentage is going down.

And so that's that's where you when you see those reductions, the the amount of money is staying roughly the same.

But as the overall budgets are increasing, and as the overall tax base is increasing, those percentages are going down.

So just for a point of clarity.

Thanks.

I just I you know I I I raised their point to say that, you know, here in our city, one of the most expensive department in our city is is is this in the sector of public safety, right?

And when we spend most of our money in that area, it's it's also important to also make sure that anything that is concerning our children should also be raised to that same level.

That's why I I think I think this I appreciate the mayor looking at that.

I appreciate you guys bringing this to our attention, and that that that should be an important conversation.

Anything that affects children should should really be elevated to that same level.

And we completely understand the stresses that the city has and the other departments, right?

The police, the fire, the DPW, we completely understand that.

Um we need to be looked at as a part of that as well.

Right?

If your police department, your fire department had a two million dollar budget gap, you would be saying, okay, what can we do?

Right?

Well, the school district has a 24 million dollar budget gap.

And the question is, okay, well, what can we do?

Right.

So I'm just trying to um show the the historical context of how we got to this situation.

When the school district is continually level funded, yet we have increases and we have other expenditures as well.

Um, you know, we get to this certain point.

So if you look at the next chart, you'll see um if you go to page 17, um, that's where you look at the differences of how the district funding and out of the total tax levy has changed over the last 10 years.

And 10 years ago, two-thirds of the tax levy was going to the schools.

Now it's about a 50-50 split because it's kept us level.

If you go to the next slide, and I want to point this out, if you look at this cumulatively, okay, over the last 10 years, all right, the school district has received a total of 21.7 million dollars.

And the city tax levy increase has generated 104 million dollars for the city.

Okay, but that only takes into account the tax levy.

There are pilot agreements, and then now you have the SU MOU, which was another $5.5 million, and now it's $7.5 million of revenue.

So when we do these pilot agreements, the ones who get hurt by these pilot agreements are the school districts.

Because the municipalities, the the county or the city, they they keep that revenue of six million dollars, and they say, well, this is not tax levy money, so none of this should go to the school district.

So you you have to take that money into account.

So when you take the tax levy increases and the pilot agreements and the agreements with Syracuse University, it's almost 200 million dollars more of revenue that the city has generated, and the school district has only received 21 million dollars of that additional revenue.

And I know that the agreement with Syracuse University is up, and and that's a whole different story because they have a billion dollars worth of property and they're giving the school district two million dollars.

They're paying athletes.

Two athletes probably make two million dollars.

So that that's the whole story that I'm trying to show is that when these agreements are made, the school district should be part of those agreements.

If you make an agreement with Syracuse University, you make a pilot agreement, then it shouldn't be the school district that's eating that break.

It should be an equal distribution across the board.

And that happens with SIDA and OSAIDA and all these agreements that are made.

It's always the school districts that don't get their fair share.

Any other any other non-tangible financial commitment that Syracuse University has for the district beside the two million dollars?

No, nothing.

We do have partnerships though with SCU.

Um we have various partnerships, you know, for students and things of that nature.

Um, but I I do understand where Chief Pichenko is coming from.

And what are those partnerships?

Is that scholarships?

Is that what is that?

Uh we have various partnerships, like where kids will go um and have opportunities to go explore the campus, you know, we'll have um opportunities for our students to, you know, part of say yes.

So we do have you know partnerships with with SU.

Um so I just want to share that information.

Share that information.

They're part of say yes, and there are student scholarships that they include within the say yes round.

Counselor Jones Roger had a question.

Yeah, um I just was gonna go back to our page 2202, but um I know you added on state New York State uh lottery aid, um, but it didn't specify um cannabis sales tax.

Is that included in any of it?

Do we do we know what portion is received?

I do not know how they calculate cannabis sales tax and the state aid.

I do not.

So uh Mike, I want to go over some of the issues we've discussed.

Homeless students in the city of Syracuse covers 50 miles, including Cortland, Courtland, suburban schools, Preble, Homer, you go north of here, southeast or here, they do not have they do not have the resources that this city gets.

Those outside school district, and there are students there that come to Syracuse.

We don't get reimbursed by Courtland, we don't get reimbursed by Watertown or East or South, whatever direction.

These kids come here, and we don't get a cent back.

We have to use our tax dollars, which is good.

Now we're helping these kids, and they're willing to come to Syracuse, even kids in suburban school districts, come to Syracuse, come to our Steam schools.

That says a lot about our program.

So if people want to piss on our school district, go ahead.

But there's people outside of our city look forward to getting a good education.

And I wanted to point that out.

And I'm sorry if I raised my voice and I apologize to that because um that means a lot to me because we're not getting our resources.

He's a Hanegar High School graduate.

And I am a Hennegarker proud Hedeker graduate.

Just wanted to correct that.

And I know something about, you know, growing up in our city schools, you know, with a learning disability, and uh, you know, we didn't have the resources, and you know how many kids then would get a report card and look at a failing grade, and you know how demeaning it was, and they would say the kid, well, he's got to report the fifth grade once or twice because he failed the master with no resources, and I say, Thank God that we live now in a much much better school district that where kids are inclusive, which is so important.

And I say, thank God that we live now in a much much better school district that where kids are inclusive, which is so important.

So let me ask you something real quick.

So, in that same slide that he's talking about, uh the 1.8 million all other aids.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

What are the all other aids?

Uh yes.

Let me pull that up.

So that's uh excess cost aid, that's uh additional aid we get for students that need additional support and services.

I'm sorry, I mean that's for additional support and services that we're providing to certain students.

Um excess cost aid, they this where we get additional aid where student needs um that special need or across the board any student.

It could be various needs.

Various needs, okay.

I was gonna ask similar to that uh response.

Um the high impact tutoring.

Um is that at every grade level, or is there like do you consider like if if you already see a child in kindergarten, you know, that's falling behind.

Do they qualify for high impact tutoring, or is that a specific grade that they are now really really in need?

Not that not that they're not.

I believe you're talking about what was pointed out in the governor's budget.

Um that's funding that the governor has set aside for high impact tutoring, but that has not been released or the details associated with uh whether we're gonna get those funds and how much and how this funds should be allocated.

Okay.

And I do appreciate um the conversation early on about refocusing on how the special needs um uh students uh are receiving their resources and the lag that they're experiencing with um getting to where they need to get to.

Um I have dealt with several individuals who um what is it called?

The uh can't think of the the name of it right now, but they receive a certain type of um study degree um where they get help.

IEP IEV, yeah.

And um, and just to get into IEP apparently is uh a tedious process.

Um so is that a part of that relook um to adjust how those students are getting uh addressed.

So um that's why we're looking to go to a more personalized learning approach.

So um not all of our students are gonna qualify for an IEP, but they might still need some additional tutorial services.

So But is the the what you were talking early on, I think it was more on the initial even getting into some of these programs.

You like you said, not uh not everybody qualifies, but the process to even get to qualification is so tedious that I think that's why we need to go to a more personalized learning approach, which is what we're doing, because that will help us to pay attention to an individualized learning plan for all of our students.

Okay, yeah.

So I want to go to page seven.

I have a question about interfunding.

Um what is that?

I'm sorry, page seven.

Interfund, yeah.

Under under the adopted expenses.

Is that page 14?

Looking at it page seven over here.

Um under 2026 to 2027 adopted expenses?

Yes.

Um those that we reduced those were funds that we're using for some of our capital projects.

Um over the last year, we um put uh put an emphasis on improving our schools.

We did new windows, we've done roof projects, we've done parking projects.

Um, so we, you know, the the air conditioning units that we put in under our buildings.

Um that's that's a decrease uh in that area because we were able to expend a good amount of those funds this past year on improving our schools.

Is that is that in DSBC?

This is this is additional, yes.

These are these are other schools that are not part of JSCB.

Remember, JSCB is only going to be 10 schools over the next 10 years.

Um, you know, so there's another 20 schools that also need continuous um upgrades and needs, you know, new boilers and new roofs, new windows.

Um, so that's where that there's decrease because we spent a lot of time on that over the last three years.

So, Mike, I want to go over our revenue.

Uh lower interests, lower rates of return.

And I want to know with the transportation aid.

I mean, a lot of this is caused by rising gas prices.

We have terrorists, we have building supplies.

And can you explain to us how that's gonna affect the rising costs?

And we go uh Yeah, that I mean supplies and materials are going to increase uh uh tremendously.

Um, going back to the JSCB project, we have 400 million dollars over the next 10 years.

Um but that 400 originally was 300 million dollars, and we you know there was legislated in 2019, I believe it was, and we're able to get that another hundred million dollars um thanks to our legislature to get us up to four hundred million dollars, knowing that though that cost is gonna continue to increase.

Um that's the same thing with transportation.

Um right now we have a transportation contract, right?

And we're set, but those those costs are gonna start to increase.

Um, you know, the uh electric bus mandate.

We don't know where that's gonna go in in a couple of years from now.

Um, and that's gonna be a cost.

Our utilities at this point in time are two million dollars above our current budget.

Um there's nothing we can do about that.

Right?

We have to heat the schools, we have to put the lights on.

Right.

Um, so these are things that are hitting us, and like I mentioned with health care, right?

There's an eight percent increase next year, it'll be twelve percent the following year after that.

So we are feeling um a lot of fiscal stresses um that are beyond our control.

Um, you know, we spend 45 million dollars just giving back to the charter school, right?

We can't be giving 20 million dollars, right?

So these are these are expenses that we're we just we're stuck with, right?

We have to transport our kids, we have to heat our buildings.

Um, you know, we have to make sure our facilities are you know the best that they can be.

Um so that that's what we're trying to do with the limited resources that we have.

And we also have after school activities.

Neighborhood groups come into your schools.

So they're there sometimes like nine or maybe ten o'clock.

So you gotta keep the light on, you gotta get the heat on.

So all these other activities.

And yeah, it does it does eat into the budget though.

But I was uh interested in your earlier statement.

You were talking about pilot programs, and I was not aware how really these pilot programs hurt our school district because it's less tax revenue.

Am I correct?

Yes, that goes into it could go funneled into our school district.

Correct.

There's no there's no so when you when you do a pilot, you give somebody say a uh 60 percent break, right?

And so that you're only gonna pay 60 percent and 40 percent they don't have to pay.

Well, that 40 percent is not part of the tax levy anymore.

Yeah, so the school district gets none of that.

So really the municipalities are the ones who continue to receive the revenue, and it's the school systems that take the hit of that 40 percent break.

I think that it has been discussed before, and I I re-employed that you re brought up that pilot programs, pilot and lower taxes affects our school district, affects our students.

And I thank you for bringing it to our time.

Do you have a sense of of how many students in the in the charter schools that we are actually paying for?

I believe it was about two thousand.

Give me a second, I might be able to pull that up.

There is a little bit of a I'm sorry, that we we I always love to put out there that we own don't just pay for charter schools, we also pay for students who attend private schools or that live in the city school district.

Okay, so that's books and travel, correct?

Correct.

Is it books travel and lunch or books of travel?

Uh it's supplies and materials, uh I think the technology aid and the transportation.

And there's two thousand four hundred students in the charter schools, about twenty four hundred.

That doesn't include the private schools that uh patronists.

No.

Are those many?

I do not know the number of those that are private.

So we do we pay full full tuition or what do we pay?

No, we just pay for the transportation.

Transportation, supplies and materials and technology.

They get their they get their share of those.

So if students are in the charter school and they decide to come back to the district.

What's that once how do that looks out?

We're starting to see students coming back from the charter school for our steam high school.

Um they're coming back for some of our other pathways that we're offering in many of our other high schools.

And so that's nice.

Um but you know that brings up the conversation too about the steam high school.

We love our students coming back to us from the charter schools, and that you know, um, you know, kind of it's like a catch 22 situation because even right now we're trying to make sure that we get it's a regional STEAM high school, and so we want to make sure that we are getting students outside the district.

150 students are supposed to be from the district, and a hundred and a hundred students is supposed to be from outside.

6040, right?

The percentage.

6040 is actually a 6040.

But um, we are still working with the um districts outside of the Syracuse City School District because they are supposed to help us with revenue when they bring the revenue in coming from outside the district, and so that is still a work in progress that we're still trying to push to make sure that we're getting those students, which could help the cost of of um.

So speaking of of steam school and the revenue, I see here that there's 750,000 increase partially of SAT.

Is that am I reading that correctly, Chief?

Uh yes.

So that that's we're we are not receiving all of the students that we projected.

So that affects our revenue.

Okay.

So that each of the uh students that come from outside the district, we would receive revenue for those kids to offset the cost of them at the Steam School.

So you know, if they're not coming, then we're not receiving that revenue.

So our projections had to be decreased.

So are those seats kept open in case we have students or then a week field of ourselves?

We're filling them.

Okay, because we do have many of our own students within the district that want to go.

I know, yeah.

So if the students aren't going to use those seats outside the district, we're gonna fill them with our own students.

So with each year, hopefully, we'll get the 40 percent we need from the county, so that then you can have your your math right.

So when when what's what's the formula here?

Because w when Steam School was established, it was a collaborative effort between the state, the county, and the district, the city, right?

So through that commitment and that conversation, what is the knowing that this new high school was added, what is an overtime commitment of state funding to to this specific school, considering that they they played heavy in creating it?

So they're offsetting some of the cost of the students coming from outside the school district, it'll be about $22,000 or so next year per kid that they would provide to offset that cost.

And so that's why you see that decrease because we're not receiving all of that in terms of the STEAM school itself.

Um they're going to provide us with VSAID to offset the cost of leasing the building.

Um so that was calculated back when we started to uh look at the space in the building.

So the state is contributing the lease aid to offset some of the cost of the lease.

Um, but the district is still on the hook for the difference between what the actual cost was for the building um and on either the bonding that was done by the county to secure the funding for it.

So the lease is not included in any of the state aids that you that is in the budget.

That's a different money.

It it's it's within some of our state aid projected of lease aid that we'll have to turn around and pay the county.

Okay.

Okay, so we're gonna have to pay the county for the lease of the building and the bonding of the funding for the construction and the work of the building.

What is the um there's a small breakdown of professional services?

Yeah, so professional services, um, it includes some of our contracts with the charter schools with the transportation, um, you know, uh some of those other things that we're doing that are those those fixed costs that I talked about, the uh the the contract, the lease payment for the the STEAM school.

So that all falls in that wherever we have those types of things.

Um what about like uh after school programming?

Are we paying any outside um entities to come and um run those, or is it based on just the school?

We're paying uh partnerships like the Y, Red House, Westcott.

Now that falls under the professional services.

Uh yes, but a lot of that is actually covered under various grants.

Okay, so we leverage probably a half a dozen various grants um that we receive, but also some of these agencies, they also are eligible for grants that they they are awarded, and then they partner with us with their funding.

Okay.

Uh superintendent, has the how how is the attendance because we know um has been an somewhat an issue over the years.

How is it now?

So this is a really um kind of a bright star for us.

If you look at our attendance, we've done a whole intendance campaign over the past couple of years, Rise and Thrive, and now this is Rise and Thrive 2.0.

Um, if you look across the board, all of our schools have improved in their chronic abs absenteeism.

We are doing many things from incentives to making sure we work directly with schools.

Um we had an attendance road show to where our actual um central office uh support went down and worked closely with schools to make sure that they were looking at each student's individual attendance and making sure that we're coming up with a plan.

So all of that work, you know, I give kudos to the Office of Family Engagement, Student Support, TLNG, OIT, and our particular um uh school district because they work collaboratively collaboratively together.

We are doing a lot of cross-functional teamwork, and now we see that it's paying off because those schools, every school has decreased in their chronic absenteism rates, and so we're shouting out about that because overall the campaign's been in existence for about two years, and we're actually seeing it pay off.

Do we know the how would do we know the number?

We can definitely send you school by school what that um looks like.

We have weekly reports, okay.

And just like you get a um your daughter's report on ELA testing of one, two, three, four, that's how the state looks at it now.

And so we're seeing a lot more schools that were in the red moving up to yellow and to green, and if you're at the top, you're at like blue.

And so um that tells us that we're moving in the right direction.

Why we appreciate go ahead, counselor?

Sorry.

When when those um collaborations between those departments per schools, um, because I know in the beginning uh it was said that uh though the students that had the highest rates of absenteeism were those younger educational um early childhood learners.

Is does that stand?

Was that um it it is it varies?

I know kindergarten is uh still we're putting some efforts into that because you know, when you have a baby, yeah, when your baby's home and your baby's sick, you just have a tendency to want to you know hold on.

But what we're doing is we've been um through the campaign trying to you know give our parents and get them to understand that one day, two days, three days, that's three days of lost instruction.

Yeah and just helping it.

My question is oh um after uh probably a much in-depth uh look at everything.

Was it solely that group or or was it uh we definitely had to pay attention to that group, but it was a little sporadic across the board.

Okay, yeah.

Sorry if I wasn't getting there quick enough, sorry about that.

So I really want to thank you, but I just want to close by saying I have Tourette syndrome, had it my whole life, and and many of the children in school district have Tourette's, and I want to commend you because the children, you know, they have learning disabilities, they do have outbreaks, they're stereotype, but thank you for having the programs there to help children with Tourette syndrome.

And with this, I want to thank my colleagues for being here.

We had great questions.

Thank you for being here.

And uh we're going to conclude this meeting.

Thank you for the invitation.

Thank you.