Restaurants recycle shells to improve marine environment

From page 1 marine environment as they filter water through their feeding mechanisms. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of seawater per day, making shellfish Mother Nature’s most valuable marine cleansers. Studies indicate that by expanding shellfish populations in local harbors we can improve water quality for generations to come. While this program helps the environment, it also helps restauranteurs toward achieving compliance requirements with the New York State Food Donation and Scraps Recycling Law while also reducing waste carting expenses.

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Engineers will include considerations for New York State reimbursement to the district.

Representing H2M, Megan Ballato and Kevin Medler said that all health and safety-related projects would be “state reimbursable.”

The H2M employees attended the board’s meeting but did not directly comment in response to Ostrick’s inquiry. Dr. Rogers announced that they responded they believe his statement on NYS reimbursement is accurate but will need to check with resources “for a more definitive answer.”

“Typically what’s NOT reimbursable are projects unrelated to a district’s instructional space or non instructional spaces within an instructional building. If the project is in an instructional school building and the item is part of the infrastructure of an instructional building my understanding is that it would be ‘State Aid-able,’ he explained.

Allocations of surplus and reserves

Trustee Ostrick also asked about the percentage of the district’s budget that have been transferred into capital projects accounts historically. He said 15% of the district budget is generally allocated towards capital before any transfers.

“I think we’ve identified $23 million for non-bonded capital projects we want to try to tackle over the period of time related to Enhanced Visual Inspection (EVI) reporting. Within the 15% for capital budgeted every year, how long is the $23 million projected to stretch – one, two, three, four years or longer? What part of the capital budget is already accounted for and what portion is allocated for any discretionary funding such as this?” he asked.

Dr. Rogers said the way Syosset Schools has approached its transfers into the capital budget begins with reviewing any operating surplus at the end of the district’s fiscal year (June).

“It’s easier to describe this in hindsight than it is to describe it moving forward since we have not settled on decisions on some items. With our last round of facilities investments we knew there was a lot of roofing work that needed to be done in our district. We identified the roofs that were in the worst shape of all, so they became the highest priorities as we started to work through a multi-year use of the transfers to capital to attack the roofs and other projects around the district. Some of the surplus money gets plowed back to the subsequent budget years, to try and reduce the local tax rate, while the remaining amount is either put into reserves or put into transfers into capi- tal. We are using the surplus at the end of a fiscal year to pay for that next fiscal year’s capital budget,” Dr. Rogers said.

In this scenario the capital budgeting is often constrained by the closing of the books each fiscal year, with surplus reflecting “how much money is freed up at the end of the year.” The other constraint facing schools would be the availability of the funds to do projects, depending on prioritization of other projects and feasibility to allocate the amounts needed.

Dr. Rogers also noted supply chain realities, as there could be half a year or more lead time for large building system equipment to be manufactured.

With plenty of questions following Dr. Rogers’ presentation, School Board Trustee Lynn Abramson remembered discussing the district’s debt being retired, and turning it over into new debt. She asked about that possibility for Syosset CSD with the majority of the proposed projects.

Bond anticipation notes planned

The opportunity for Syosset to retire its old debt, and with the $10 million for Stillwell now presenting “a debt roll-off” the amount of debt Syosset can retire would be similar to payments the district would have been saddled with.

Dr. Rogers told the board, “Certainly we’d take advantage of that roll-off to blunt the impact of whatever new debt we will incur with construction to come. When I framed it in the context of the last facilities’ bond I said it was like having two kids, four years apart – when one graduates from college you will stop paying their tuition payment, but the other one just became a freshman, so there is a new tuition but the budget you maintain keeps reflecting the same amount carried – as such, we would take advantage of the debt roll-off the same way with (the district) borrowing and replacing its debt.”

He shared that while borrowing will almost certainly occur, the goal of not taking on heavy financing up front was clear. He commented on the school district taking out just enough for the payments imminent through Bond Anticipation Notes (BANs). This represents a step-by-step, small amount financing plan ahead for the district.

Once Syosset CSD has gathered enough from its BANs, the financing of the facilities upgrades would be rolled into a 20-year bond. This outline, according to Superintendent Rogers, minimizes the amount of money being borrowed and minimizes the amount of interest that will need to be paid “at any given time.”

He added that BANs will help Syosset CSD stay within New York State rules that are in effect for bond processing.