SARANAC LAKE — A majority of its member school districts passed the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton Board of Cooperative Educational Services administrative budget on Monday and reelected three board members.

Meanwhile, FEH BOCES District Superintendent Dale Breault Jr. said this year’s budget process was more transparent than ever thanks to changes made after hearing negative feedback from school officials last year. Amid new criticism, he also defended the way the administrative budget was built.

“The C in BOCES stands for cooperative, the S in BOCES stands for services, and if we’re not providing a valuable service, then we need to modify that,” Breault said.

FEH BOCES supports 10 public school districts in the North Country — Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, Tupper Lake, Long Lake, Malone, St. Regis Falls, Salmon River, Brushton-Moira, Chateaugay and Raquette Lake — and its fiscal year mirrors the fiscal year of those districts, starting on July 1.

As proposed, the $34,001,536 BOCES budget consists of three components:

1) The administrative budget, $3,156,770, covers the cost for personnel management and leadership.

2) The capital budget, $412,062, covers the cost to rent and maintain spaces for programs.

3) The program budget, $30,432,704, covers the cost to run programs, including personnel and supplies, and changes throughout the school year as districts choose to buy various services.

The administrative budget is the only component that member school districts officially vote to approve. This year, two of the 10 school boards voted against it: Malone and Lake Placid. Since a majority voted yes, the administrative budget was approved.

The Lake Placid Central School District Board of Education voted against the BOCES administrative budget last year as well, after which, Breault said he visited the school district and met with LPCSD Superintendent Timothy Seymour.

“I then restructured how we do our budgeting internally significantly this year and created three new superintendent budget committees,” Breault said.

There was a committee each that went through the administrative budget, non-instructional program budget and instructional program budget.

Seymour was on the admin budget committee.

“That was a direct result of what happened last year, and I would like to say that that brought a whole new level of transparency into that process,” Breault said.

Breault has offered to attend Lake Placid school board meetings to answer any questions about the BOCES budget, but he said he hasn’t received an invitation.

“But the offer stands,” he added.

During discussion of the administrative budget prior to voting on Monday, some Lake Placid school officials remained critical of BOCES.

Board member John Hopkinson said he has “major issues” with the organization’s structure and leadership and there are “no realistic checks and balances” in the budget process. He also said he would like to see BOCES “rethink, reevaluate and come back with a lean organization and a tight budget that somewhat comports with all the things the school districts have to do to get their budgets approved by their communities.”

When it comes to formulating the BOCES budgets, Breault said they are following the statutes.

“There’s no hidden agenda. There’s no tricks up our sleeve. We’re following the letter of the law in how we build these budgets,” he said. “I think our admin budget is probably as lean as it really could be at this time.”

When hearing negative feedback from districts, Breault gets the feeling that there’s a misunderstanding among some school board members who think there’s no transparency at BOCES or that the BOCES board rubber stamps things.

“I can tell you, we have some hearty debates around the BOCES board table sometimes on various topics, and I think it’s not fair to say that they’re there just as a rubber stamp,” Breault said. “I’m very proud of the service that the BOCES board members provide to the BOCES, and I think they’re very engaged.”

On Monday, Seymour said that the “hardest part” for LPCSD in the BOCES administrative budget is paying for retiree benefits.

“The goal of the BOCES is to progressively roll more of those legacy costs into the admin budget,” Seymour said. “We’re essentially paying for the retiree benefits of staff whose programs we’d never buy into anyways, but the second they retire, we buy into those. In a perfect world, the true cost of an employee would be built into the program cost for the districts that utilize the service.”

The largest part of the administrative budget — about 70% — goes to paying supplemental retirement costs, mostly health insurance for retired BOCES employees, according to Breault.

“BOCES doesn’t choose to structure it this way,” he said. “BOCES is following the statute.”

Currently, only about two-thirds of the retiree expenses are in the administrative budget, yet Breault said the New York State Comptroller’s Office wants 100% of the retiree expenses to be there, not in the program budget.

“So we have to head in that direction,” he said. “Even if our districts did vote no on the admin budget, the statute does say the districts are still obligated to cover all of those retiree expenses.”

The administrative budget includes a portion of the salaries and benefits for administrators that are involved with activities that impact the overall operation of BOCES, plus board of education expenses, regional needs assessment and planning, central support for operations, a portion of the organization’s liability insurance, and travel, supplies and other costs to run the district superintendent’s office.

School districts Monday also reelected three BOCES board members: Dennis Egan of Brushton-Moira; Courtney Leonard of Chateaugay; and Richard Retrosi of Saranac Lake. The other board members are Elizabeth Forsell of Raquette Lake, Nicole Dumont of Malone, Jordan Lauzon of Salmon River, Peter Lynch of Lake Placid and Donald Whitmore III of Tupper Lake. There is one vacant board seat.

FEH BOCES offers instruction, instructional support and operational services and runs two schools, the Adirondack Educational Center in Saranac Lake and North Franklin Educational Center in Malone, plus some satellite classrooms.

“I want to stress that our core service of career and technical education is stronger than ever,” said Jess Collier, FEH BOCES public information specialist.

There are 639 students currently enrolled in FEH BOCES programs: 530 in career and technical education, 85 in the Virtual Torch Academy and 67 in alternative education.

Career and technical education programs at the schools and classrooms include automotive technology, building trades, cosmetology, culinary arts, early childhood education, electrical trades, health occupations and natural resource science. BOCES also offers one-year New Vision programs, which give seniors a chance to explore career options within the fields of education, health care and government and law.

To learn more about the FEH BOCES programs and 2024-25 budget, visit online at www.fehb.org.