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so that's a difference of over 200 students between those two classes that's a big difference uh We've as I mentioned this enrollment has been declining for some time it has gone through effectively our elementary schools and has gone through effectively our middle school and is now pretty much just starting to hit the high school so overall enrollment at the high school will come down from roughly 2000 to um you know something in the Norway neighborhood of 1400 to 1500 students in the next basically three or four years so that's a big change for enrollment at the high school but we've already seen big change enrollment at the middle school and at the elementary schools in fact it's a relief at the middle school because we had far too many students for what that school could school could reasonably handle did we make it work certainly but too many I think a lot of people when they have these conversations about declining enrollment they assume that because we had the space before that it was adequate space and that isn't necessarily the case one thing that in light of the conversation that we just had relative to the referendum that I would like to make board is aware is that the enrollment at the elementary level will decline slightly over the next five years but not by much and we're at a comfortable level in terms of enrollment in our schools and things fluctuate kids come into homes especially you know neighbors have a tendency to turn them over and within a period of time based on when those houses were originally built and those Cycles you know are like on the order of something like 20 to 30 years or a generation and then new developments come into town too which create other demands and so we have some flexibility in terms of our elementary enrollment right now but and so we can afford to handle some new students depending on where they they show up but it never they never show up in exactly the right spot you can never really anticipate and everybody always says well you should be able to predict that I was like ah our predictions don't work that well they work pretty well yeah at a macro level in terms of overall enrollment but once you're getting into neighborhoods it's pretty hard to to anticipate I think the key takeaway here is that we can expect to see enrollments at our elementary schools that range between roughly speaking and round numbers 350 to 400 students and that's right in terms of the functional and programmatic capacity of each of our elementary schools long story short six elementary schools is right about the right number that we should be operating for the foreseeable future in Batavia and this point drives that home now average class sizes are also in here by the way with our declining enrollments much to my chagrin in terms of my conversations I have with my colleagues we should be using what I like to call Natural attrition with staff so that it's proportional to our enrollments and that hasn't necessarily been happening and for good reason I mean there's better support the needs of students we absolutely need more people uh but the the massive benefit here for us is the upside is is that average class sizes have been declining in recent years now next year they're going to go up slightly in all likelihood on average if you look at all class sizes K8 they'll tick upward but not by much um and again these are average that's not to say there aren't class size issues there's class size issues abound depending on how old students are and what neighborhood they live in we're going to continue to have class size issues and that will not go away but in recent years our our student to staff ratio has has never been better than it ever has it's the historical um accomplishment in terms of that ratio so it's not likely that we'll continue to have perfect average class sizes it will fluctuate from your year depending on how kids move through the system but it's we can expect next year that'll be very similar to what we've been accustomed to in the last five years I think that's something that's important to highlight I know when I was review reviewing the survey data that we got back some of the survey data was saying that we have too big of class sizes and I think we should point out the fact that they've been steadily declining they're below our targets and you know there are anomalies that occur in the district occasionally but overall we are well below what our targets are the key word is average class sizes right yeah I mean and so there are anomalies and that happens and that's part of it's not all business but yes it's not a universal problem that we have and it is a problem that in other districts so I think it's important to point that out that's a good point Chris other questions or comments on the enrollment report so is your kind of statement from before if you can go to the one that shows the green um the bar chart it's a bar chart that's it yeah thank you math so um you know it it kind of keeps going down on this projected average but I guess what I'm kind of hearing you saying is you know at some point it's going to kind of start to level out and what you're seeing is from an elementary school level that that's kind of starting to bottom out a bit as of now because obviously it's birth rates right and as I say every year when I give this report we're just not manufacturing as many as we used to and I just had to throw that out there thank you because it was funny the first time it was funny every time uh but yes the enrollment will stabilize it roughly speaking at the elementary and middle school levels but will continue to decline at the high school level in particular because those classes are that much smaller and they're matriculating through now I will also add to that that it appears that birth rates in Kane County which is what I use in terms of anticipating the number of kindergartners that are going to show up five years from now they've gone up slightly so far this year and so we may have seen the bottom of birth rates well for sure and things fluctuate of course but that is a Bellwether for the number of students that will show up in five years from now um the next item on our agenda is the newly named annual comprehensive oh no I'm sorry the five-year Financial forecast we already talked about this but I was so excited by the name change that I wanted to talk about it again sorry five-year Financial forecasts so each year we do a five-year Financial forecast that looks at the previous five years and the future five years of the school's finances as predicated as I mentioned earlier on that student enrollment report and tries to anticipate what's happening based off of the past and so as Yogi Bear would say you know that only works until it doesn't and uh so but overall our financial projections certainly do help us manage things and of course as you get further out those projections become weaker and weaker because it's tough to tell what's going to happen five years from now especially from an economics this uh this forecast is built with the um on the recommendation of our resource responsibility advisory Council and so we we talk with our stakeholders to help us build some of these forecasts and it happens to include a realtor so here's some ideas as to what's happening with the housing market in town those sorts of things medical insurance we're assuming that we continue the trend that's the big if here is that assumption if we can continue this trend at a three percent annual average and that we essentially max out uh costs for our staff for the next couple of years relative to CPI and then um also trying to control our costs and purchase services you'd scroll down a little bit Holly to the graph right here this is moving forward so the current fiscal year that we're in or we are in as of now is on the left the blue bar represents our Revenue the green bar represents our expenditures and the yellow line represents fund balance um luckily in this fiscal year the revenue bar stands just slightly proud over the greens that means we have a balanced budget although it's closed uh it was likely to be a slightly better next year and in the coming years but you can see that yellow line starts to taper downward and it doesn't taper downward all that much it almost looks level but in that last year 2028 the green bar stands above the blue and that represents a one million dollar deficit I don't anticipate that will happen but it requires us prudently managing our finances in particular natural attrition because of compounding interest so that we can stick keep the numbers where they are so that we aren't taking more um we're taking you know a relative to our Revenue we're not spending more than we take in this also assumes that we are increasing our capital projects allocation annually by 15 percent that was something that was important to the rack committee knowing what the state of our facilities and what needs to be done even with the referendum we still need to do more in terms of maintaining our schools and the costs associated with that and even this year we did increase those allocations by 15 percent but School construction inflation is 30 so we're not even keeping up with inflation unfortunately right now and so that is going to be a continual challenge for us this does include 15 in 2028 but you can see that it switches in the other direction hopefully if we keep a close eye on things we'll be able to manage things in the right direction but it's going to take active management and it can't be complacent we're going to have to be very careful about who we hire how much we pay them and make sure we're getting a good bang for the buck when it comes to delivering outcomes for students so that we can keep a balanced budget the moment that we aren't able to keep a balanced budget that Moody's or s p rating will change and when we borrow money as you would if you were a homeowner with a mortgage or a car payment those sorts of things you know it's like a credit rating and those costs increase so if if we don't keep the the rating that we have we can expect to pay more interest in the principle that we borrow over time which gets very expensive when you're borrowing money for 20 years so um I think overall the financial outlook for the school district is stable despite what's happening in the economy right now is quite challenging through costs in fact looking at inflation and supply chain issues there's a strong likelihood we're going to be talking with you next month about increasing lunch prices for our for meals for students unfortunately um and we're looking at Transportation costs increase and and everything and everything anything and everything that you can think of and so um I believe that we can continue to manage that if we're careful and we're prudent but we're going to have to be uh keeping an eye on everything is there an has a projection been run on like referendum or no referendum and how that may impact this we only look at the operating funds here okay so that happens outside the scope of this except for what it may do to the maintenance since we're still committing that it put money in from a that 15 maintenance to support the kind of unreferendum stuff that's why this stays relatively stable okay yeah whether or not the referendum passes or fails the capital projects money is allocated it's allocated in here yeah I would like to point out that probably even going to be more difficult to increase it more than 15 so if it fails we're probably going to be even in a more dire situation because we're pretty much maxing the amount that we can put into that we are fun what we can get done in the effects of the long-term and ability to kind of defray some of those costs with some significant improvements in the children's in the in the schools with Gathering larger projects together to to to effectively stall some of the work we have to do because we can take care of it with referendum money which allows us to be more kind of judicious and and but but exactly with what we spend the capital projects money on when we were not triaging all the time and if we have to triage and we take on a big project that means no other maintenance is getting done because we're potentially yeah it's been all of our money on those as has been discussed there are and is in the documentation there are things that are expensive between 2023 and 2028 that can just obliterate that Capital Improvement budget for that year which like a roof project right you could have to do could mean you don't do the doors and the security stuff you need to do in another building especially if it involves trailers and moving students yeah yes other questions on that all right we'll move on to the action items tonight we have two items left under our action uh the first one is the award of the 2023 summer project bids I'd like to invite Mark Anderson to speak on those uh thank you board um you have seen this report already if you remember last month um we talked about this but last month was for the letter of intents if you remember the bids came in about uh five hours before the board meeting that night so because of Supply um change we needed to kind of get the ball rolling a little bit tonight's meeting is about actually approving the bids um so lamp who's our construction manager went through with all the different contractors there's 12 trade packages um so that's why it's an attachment not just one lump sum money so if you look at the attachment um the other question was is how did this come in budget um with those all together it came within budget but specifically in trades some are higher some were lower so kind of all equaled out and the one feedback I did get from talking to lamp is we went out at the right time if we would have waited another month we would not have been in budget just I mean they're doing this a lot um so the timing was good um it always can be earlier we're trying to push sooner and sooner but there's a lot of factors that go into that um so another reminder for once I don't know this is about the summer of 23 project and it's JB Nelson Alice Gustafson new um entrances main office nurse's office things like that and then also Rotolo serving line so all of those packages were bid together and that's what you're we'll be voting on tonight of approval of the bids and there's two things attached to that there is a recommendation from lamp and also the bid tab questions no okay and I would entertain a motion that we award the 2023 summer project vids as listed in appendix a so moved second moved by Meadows second by Locke all in favor aye any opposed all right that takes care of that thank you Mark uh next item on our agenda is the adoption of the 2022 attacks Levy I'm going to hand that over to Tony thank you last month we held a what's called a truth in taxation hearing which is a public hearing which is not something we're accustomed to here in Batavia and the reason why we did that is because what we have before you here this evening is a proposal to increase the tax levy by more than five percent and the reason why that is the case is because of inflation and new construction as you board well as the board well knows we are subject to the tax cap the p-tel law the property tax extension limit limitation so I can't remember the exact acronym but something along those lines the county is tax capped and that means that taxing bodies can extend more than five percent or CPI in the prior year in terms of taxes whichever is less since inflation last year for CPI is seven percent or maxed out at five but given the likelihood for new construction and capturing that in the levy we're asking for 5.9 percent which in all likelihood will only collect 5.6 um however uh the average the the median value home which we estimate to be yeah we'll likely see a 4.6 increase in their tax bills um which is about 308 dollars next year so that if everything averages out that's what the average taxpayer would see so to recap we held the truth and Taxation public hearing last month uh and we would adopt this Levy here tonight of at 5.9 percent more than last year we don't expect to receive 5.9 percent we expect to receive 5.6 which translates to 4.6 for the million value home or if your property tax assessment increased by the same rate as eav did in in town in the in the school district been talking about the levy for um a few months now does anybody have any questions before we vote all right then I would entertain a motion that the board adopt the 2022 tax levy as presented second moved by kellberg second by Meadows all in favor any opposed all right that was our last action item because we have already approved our new superintendent contract so I'm going to go next to Administration I have the pleasure of going first because I think I have the message that every one of you is going to say so I get to say it first and that would be we're super excited to have all met Tom tonight I guess he seems okay and um we're we can't wait to welcome him officially I he really doesn't start until July I'm not going anywhere here for six more months and I have a lot to do so um and the second thing would be hope everybody has a safe and stays healthy over our um winter break I hope you have some fun too she really did steal all of her Thunder didn't she just covered it all Chris you want to start tonight are we going to do also get me the updates too okay have any two for can we do can we do committee updates first just so that we don't I mean I don't mind if you do both unless somebody wants to I I have I have longer comments so why do all that many updates I would prefer to do my comments at the end that way okay um but I can do my committee update now sure okay so rack um three things that came out of that meeting is we are working on our goal and transparency so if you have any ideas on how we could be more transparent please let us know um also we are committed to creating a systemic and periodic way to review our programs and to figure out how we're spending our money and we want to focus on the return on our investment and how they are align with District goals and make sure that we're doing that on a periodic basis and making sure we're always reviewing our programs so that programs aren't just lingering um and ineffective and then lastly and this was a reminder I got reminded during the meeting is that we do have an intranet and if you are an employee you can look up all of the agendas and meeting minutes to find out what happened on the various meetings so um I found that informative and a shot that I would share that with you so if you don't remember that and you're an employee check it out thanks Chris okay the insurance committee did meet I attended many meetings over the last month but I did was not able to make that one Tony debriefed me but rather than me have summarized what he said Tony will provide an update to the board certainly um we are we heard an update on open enrollment and where we are with our plan we're about to start a new plan here in January 1st uh we are talking about other mental health support offerings that we might be able to offer in the future and um initially we're talking about them in the long term and we've decided that we're going to prioritize them as best we can for the short and so I'm hoping that we have some other opportunities to consider maybe next month or the month following to the board in terms of offering better mental health support to our employees and lastly we're working on like rack we're working on our goals and objectives for the upcoming year to two years Sony just make the announcement for anyone with a senior graduating senior this year that scholarships will open on January 9th the first day Baptist after winter break so you can go to bataviafoundation.org and get information on scholarships there you go all right uh cacted me unfortunately I was not there but the focus was our subject area um and then in December there's not going to be a CAC meeting because uh cact members will be meeting with those subject area leadership teams so I I know we've got some members joining and lots of activity there and I'll be excited in January to find out um the progress that we okay not meet it's a the group does not meet every month so next one but congratulations to the group on the kind of bids today and moving forward on that that's a very exciting persons thanks Craig uh Kristen do you have like the um comments I'll let you go first okay um here we go it is amazing how quickly time goes by I recently realized I've been volunteering in Batavia schools for 13 academic years time is precious and I will try not to take up too much too much of yours for three main reasons I have decided not to run run for a third term it was a difficult decision but one I believe is best for my family the school district and the community my first and primary reason is my family I have a junior and a senior who are athletes and will soon be off to college I want to make sure I have the time to help them transition to the next phase of their lives additionally my wife and I will soon be empty nesters and we need to decide what that means to us I don't want to commit to serve the community for four more years if I don't know what the needs of my family will be during the this time of transition my second reason is for the district I am at the end of my second term while I don't necessarily believe in codified term limits I do believe in self-imposed ones I believe my seat would be better served with fresh eyes and our community will be better served when more folks have this experience my hope is my seat will be filled with somebody who is just as passionate and not nearly as exhausted as I am whoever you are please know I will be happy to provide any assistance I can with your new role finally my third reason is I believe this is what is in the best interest of the community as some of you may know I helped start a charity called the Batavia Community diversity initiative the summer following George Floyd's murder during that time we have during that time we have built a small but strong organization committed to creating a sense of belonging for all members of our community Through Justice Equity diversity and inclusion we recently were selected by the Chicago metropolitan Agency for planning to join their first cohort for their Community Alliance for regional equity we are one of 12 organizations selected in the 12 County Chicago metropolitan area area to help create more Equitable and inclusive communities this opportunity includes a ten thousand dollar honorarium for bcdi to continue the great work we have already started we believe this opportunity will directly benefit Batavia while also amplifying our voices and concern to Regional leaders my goal is to continue the work we started and to use what I've learned as a school board member to increase equity and opportunity in all corners of our community hopefully many of you will join me in this journey if you are interested in what we do please check us out at Batavia cdi.org have a great holiday season and I can't wait to get back to work in January go Bulldogs thanks Chris it's amazing congratulations and getting that Grant so that's thanks you said that you were under consideration I didn't know there was money involved that's amazing do good stuff with it congratulations that's great thanks very proud yeah yeah uh so I want to begin how I usually begin my comments by thanking everybody who's in attendance this evening everybody who spoke uh you all had a chance to leave and you're still here so that's very impressive um you actually if you stayed got to see what the majority of the work you do going through student enrollment projections and the finances and that's the day-to-day work we do so I am appreciative that you're here to be a part of that process and I just want to say to the Greater Community everybody who responded to the survey who sends us emails that stops us at the coffee shop and shares their opinion and engage Community incentives to read is vital to a functioning democracy so I appreciate everybody who's engaging out there and paying attention thank you and um I just want to say thank you to all my colleagues you know it's that time of year it's the end of 2022 we're going to be doing our New Year's Reflections and so I want to say thank everybody on the on the board everybody on the staff everybody has Senior Management I appreciate all of you the hard work you do um and of course I want to welcome Mr Kim his family it was a pleasure to meet his wife Megan and see his young children here today I'm very proud of our process that we engaged in I will say that you know a lot of good people want to be part of this District it was very exciting to be part of that process and I'm very excited to work with Mr Kim to move us forward but I'd also want to say that there will be time for this later on but I do want to recognize Dr Hitchens I believe you began your career in Batavia in 1994 as a math teacher you're a Dean you were a princess no let's say it right now so I just want to let the queen know that even though she's not retired yet until June she's energized and engaged and she has work to do so I know Lisa loves it when we talk about her so well I hired her and then I'll point out one last thing I don't pull my phone out during uh the sessions but I was going through our website which we have a lot of information on there and I saw a program that I was not aware of I just want to bring to light if you go to our website there's so much information there but we have a program called certificates of excellent program at Batavia High School and um it was started by Paige Buttle who was our college and career counselor and basically the way I understand it is members of our community can nominate staff members teachers counselors campus members basically anybody that works in the high school for a recommendation of accommodation and uh on our Twitter website I looked I saw Mr Beckman Mr rollerson if I mispronounce your names I apologize Miss marks mayella Hernandez were all recognized and I just find like this is really great you know our teachers are working hard but it's what I love it when the community recognizes that and I know it's a certificate but you know people need to hear that when they're doing a good job we need to recognize those people so I bring this up for two reasons there if you go to the website you can have a link to nominate someone if you're interested but also to drive you to that website because you know part of our survey was people didn't know where to get information and there's a lot of great detail on our website basically almost any question that you would want to ask you could find on that website and if you have a hard time finding it that's when you can reach out to us and we'll help direct you in that direction and to close I'd just like this wish everybody a happy holidays there's a lot of bugs going out there I'm still fighting a bug so everyone be safe be healthy and again I look forward to the work ahead in 2023 thank you thank you oh now you got me here um the link for the uh certificates of Excellence no just go to the website.net apparently it was not a trick question you go I should have it like this we should be transparent that's the web there you go so anyways I wasn't trying to I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas happy holidays whatever just enjoy being with your family take some time to relax enjoy hopefully a healthy happy holiday season um thank you to everybody who filled out the survey very interesting reading so some things to think about so and I'm going to read my financial report of over the holidays thank you that's it thank you Greg uh just gonna say that I um I hope everybody who has a little bit of time to get a break kind of uses it as a moment to kind of rest and recharge and visit spend time with friends and family um that's what my family will be doing and and it's um it's something I know that's kind of everybody uses at a moment to kind of get re-energized for the your own work everybody has to do at 2023 which I feel very confident it's going to be a very exciting and interesting year and so the only other thing I was going to add is a while I have a kid that is in the senior in the throes of trying to figure out where he might go to school and how we're all going to pay for it and all that other stuff um that it was kind of refreshing particularly as my son is a senior to kind of see the Kaleidoscope concerts and all the stuff that occurred over the past number of weeks if you had not had chance to see those please go see I think one of The Shining examples of kind of how the district can be good stewards with the money frankly is befact in my personal opinion I mean it is a preeminent location it's well managed and there's actual student impact about what happens there and you should really see what it does and how those kids kind of transcend themselves when they all work together toward kind of a common element and with that everybody enjoy the holiday thank you thanks Craig I just want to take a moment after having this um the most important work that that board does is to hire the superintendent and I just wanted to take a moment to thank the two of whom are not here but the other six people that do this job with me um there is not a group of more thoughtful and careful and caring and passionate people that I could be on this journey with and I just wanted to say um thank you guys you um you make me really proud to serve this community and the community should be very proud of all of you for doing the work that you're doing and with the integrity and energy that you bring to it so I just want to say thank you to that we have no other items on our agenda tonight so I would entertain a motion to adjour [Music] thank you all so much for coming tonight and being here to welcome
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remember that we still maintained all of our labor at the end of 2020 even though students were not in school and we were not serving any meals so it was very expected that that 1.4 million dollar loss would occur um we we obviously had enough fund balance from prior years to be able to weather that 1.4 million dollar decrease note in 2021 we're starting to go back to normal operations except we had the universal breakfast free breakfast and lunch so we're ramping that up more and more meals are being served to students in 21 and then you can see the impact in 2022 where we're full in school the whole year and all the meals everyone got used to the fact that oh good I get to go and have breakfast might as well have it for free and so all of those uh transactions increased accordingly this is yes just quick thought I I know that you said we didn't have any students on campus but we continue to have our staff which was what we committed to do that was 2020.
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that was 2020. didn't we though have places where we did have lunches and we had some of our staff serve that was that 2020 that was 2020 we did where we had curbside but not to the same level okay okay and individuals had to come and drive up and pick them up and all that so we did have some transactions though you're correct okay thanks [Music] this shows the Food Service Revenue Trend again you can see where 2020 was very limited 2021 you can see where we're ramping up on Revenue due to the universal free lunch and then 2022 again you can see the amount of Revenue increasing substantially so you would predict next year would not look as high as this and that's the reason why we've always been including 2019 we believe that we will be more comparable to our activity in 2019.
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okay thank you I did however receive some good news today for many of our our free introduced lunch students so the Department of Education just sent out a press release indicating that those that are free and reduced so those that are reduced will now be considered free and we will be able to feed all of them without the extra 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch and those will all be reimbursed To Us by the state of Arizona so that's good good news for our families here's our meal counts again you can see the total reimbursable meals 5.3 million in 2022 almost 2 million more than in 2021 and 2021 was still significant we do expect us to go down to that 3.5 million dollar number like we were in 2019 in the current year and again this is just a graphical representation of the same meal trend and finally so if there's if there's no questions about the nutrition services or the Food Services fund I'll move on to the next fund that we wanted to share with you okay so I wanted to talk about the employee benefit trust this is notable as well because there's a couple of action items actually three action items for you at the end of the meeting this evening related to the employee benefit Trust so first I wanted to share the revenue and expense and you can see if we can go back if we go down let's see if I can show my cursor here yeah there's my cursor can you see my cursor I don't know if you can see it or not yeah you can see it so along this row you can see that at the end of 2019 the fund was in a um the start of 2019 the fund was in a negative position negative three million dollars and then fortunately because the change in that position we were able to gain by 5 million dollars in that 2019 school year we were able to turn that around to have a fun balance of 1.9 million dollars note in 2020 again making conservative estimates about premium increases Etc the fund balance increased to 11.1 and then in 2021 17.1 and in the current year 19.5 a couple of or in the 2022 year at the reporting Year we're talking about the 2022 school year this reporting year so remember that in 2022 we did make a small increase in premiums one percent but we committed to two premium holidays during 2022 where we actually gave that money back to our employees by um by just saying well you don't have to pay it because we're just going to take two pay periods less to put in our employee benefit trust so the change in that position you can see 2.4 million dollars the 2.4 million dollars would have been closer to 5 million had we not done those premium holidays recall that even in the current year fiscal 2023 you also awarded another premium holiday in October which we have taken care of as well again trying to manage that fund balance but making sure that we're increasing premiums appropriately to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the employee benefit trust which is why for one of those agenda items we are requesting that you um approve the changes to the exhibits regarding that risk Corridor how much money should we have available to us in the employee benefit trust so I think I shared this with many of you that agent Dutch over and I went to an ameriban conference this past fall they were sharing all the pharmaceutical drugs that the costs were skyrocketing and even in some cases just one patient with one serious illness let's just use hemophilia as an example that one patient could cost the fund as much as two and a half million dollars we have four of that we can draw down the 10 million dollars very quickly so the request later on when you approve the action item would be to increase the the lowest Reserve from 3 million up to seven and then the operating Reserve from about 8 million up to about 12.
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um also recommending that as we move through time we had this one-time occurrence called the covid-19 pandemic so we were able to increase fund balance that will probably never happen again so we're trying to make recommendations to you that would be judicious and make sure that as we are monitoring our claims and the changes in the pharmaceutical environment that we have the resources available to us so that was one statement regarding this net position at end of year are there any questions on that before I move on to the next comment okay then I also wanted to point out this negative twenty thousand two hundred and thirty six dollars that's reflected on our fund statement so if you recall last spring in collaboration with our Wells Fargo investment representative we brought to you the governing board a plan on how we can improve our investment earnings in the employee benefit trust knowing that we have some substantial reserves so note right next to it that we only earn fifty dollars in investment earnings in during the 2021 school year even with having uh 11 million dollars of reserves available so that was what precipitated our desire to give you an investment policy have you approved that and then do a proposal on investments so between we started in March April time frame and this is so March April of 22 to June 30 22.
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during that time we went ahead and bought Investments that were at say one and a half percent and we were going to hold it for three months or six months the maximum that we held was like nine months well during that time I mean a month later the Federal Reserve met and all of a sudden now it's two and a half percent so the gasby again governmental accounting standard board Standards Board requires us to present the market value of any Investments we hold at June 30.
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so if we purchased an investment for one and a half percent and now the market is going to pay two and a half percent that reflects an unrealized loss and that's what that twenty thousand dollars is but once we once they mature and we get it back it's no it's then becomes a realized gain so just because of the requirements we we had to post a negative but I wanted to make sure that in this audience I was sharing with all of you this is going to be out there on financial statements and that you're not thinking well Bonnie you told us that these were safe Investments and we lost twenty thousand dollars well I wanted to share that to date our realized gains are just under 40 000 and our realized plus unrealized gains are approaching ninety thousand so it turned over very very quickly this was a moment in time in which we were hit with the timing because June 30 was the time in which we had to capture that value any questions on that okay great okay so the other point I wanted to make about the employee benefit trust so during this time we so during 2021 we had the money placed in in and we now know in trust with U.S bank and when I saw the 50 dollars of investment earnings my reaction was oh my gosh we need to do something about that at that point in time we went ahead and engaged with Wells Fargo we have all of our other Banking and Wells Fargo maybe we should put all of this all this money into Wells Fargo keep the accounting simplified Etc so as we were withdrawing money from U.S bank and placing them into Wells Fargo we were informed by U.S Bank that they needed to know what the successor trustee was going to be and at that point in time I went okay I'm a little confused by that why can't we just operate a self-insured fund within Gilbert Public Schools the simple answer is we cannot because state law requires us to have a trust in play with a self-insured medical Fund in the state of Arizona if we are a school district so at that point in time in working with legal counsel I asked well what what what's the circumstance here what should we do so we were prior to with U.S Bank they were our Trustee of the monies held in the Mar in the money market but we still were very much operating by ourselves so we were we were getting our own financial statements we received banking statements from U.S Bank we were actually transacting outside of our Ledger during 2022 we moved all the transaction into our general ledger we can see what's happening regularly so before we had what is called a Viba trust it's called a voluntary employee benefit Association so under Aviva trust which is and more of an informal trust you have to have a bank trustee hold your cash so the next question was okay well do I have to go back and send it back which I mean when you look at minus twenty thousand dollars you'd look and say well why wouldn't you go back because at least they gained fifty dollars but no again that was an unrealized loss and as I said we're still doing quite well um to date um but at that point in time we really had made so many uh so many improvements to our financial reporting at that we already had an investment policy that we had shared with you and then we had already had a a reserving policy that we did a couple of years ago and so when I'm talking to Legal I said well what's what's my option and at that point in time they said well it's very simple to convert your Viba trust into a formal employee benefit Trust so at that point in time we worked and the documents are in the action item later on in this this evening's presentation and that formal benefit trust document requires five trustees one of which is employee one of which is a governing board member and then three at large community members so the second agenda item associated with this so approving the employee benefit trust agreement the trust agreement and then approving the trustees would be the second agenda item so those are the three items that will come to your attention at the end of the meeting during the action items and I'll give you an opportunity to ask any other additional questions regarding those later but I thought this was the appropriate time to present some of the details Mrs betz I might be jumping ahead of myself until the next until your next presentation but it's my understanding we are either the only one left or there's one other school district in the state that's Aviva trust and um I don't I don't know if we're the only one left with Aviva trust in the state of Arizona but I do know that we are the only one left for Siegel Consulting who is our consultant yeah I know that for sure so there might be another one I'm not quite sure right I think one thing that I wanted to ask and just have you clarify is we still have our money in a bank yes in Wells Fargo yes but what what happened what occurred was that their Wells Fargo did not offer the same Trust type of relationship that's correct so the history of the Viba trust has been um up and down over the last six years it's the last 10 years probably because we had a JP Morgan Chase initially as our trustee and then in 2016 when Mr wollaber was here they went out for bid at that point in time they moved it into U.S bank and all of these Banks seem to be getting rid of their trust arm and that was the case of Wells Fargo as well so our option was to stay at U.S bank which we haven't seen much benefit with them being our having our money in their trust or to convert to a formal employee benefit trust where we can have still see have oversight our money's still in a bank but we have more options as far as how we're going to invest it which is in a conservative manner but just not just sitting there earning fifty dollars for a year yeah and that's that's correct it also doesn't change how we operate so um Sean and I have talked about this Mr McIntosh and I've talked about this at length and we still are meeting with the employee benefit trust committee that will not change that group will still make recommendations regarding premiums for the subsequent year any plan design changes and any of that even recommending whether we do a premium holiday or not in the future the only difference is those recommendations would go through a formal trust Board of these five members and then they will you know agree to that recommendation and they would be the ones who would formally make the recommendation to the governing board the other important note is that the governing board appoints the trustees which is why that second agenda item is there for you to formally appoint the trustees the other thing is from my from my standpoint this because we now have all the activity in our general ledger it's much easier for Jackie and I to see what's happening on a month-to-month basis so I can tell you today because we just received the statement um Monday yesterday that we're still in a positive trend and our claims are still as we would have expected them and so we are able to see it monthly because we're actually creating the financial statements ourselves and all the transactions are recorded in our general ledger I I did want to comment that one of the things that's really important to me is that we still have that employee committee that meets monthly to go over the claims and benefits and make sure that we're in a strong position because I think it's very important for our employees to have input because that's that's very much affects their what they're paying for their benefits agreed and plus the fund balance has been contributed by employees and their dependent coverages so it's important that they still have an active voice totally agree yes thank you you bet may I make a comment on that I think that one of the things that we talked about is that if we go to this that we're going to be able to do a lot more education with the actual Insurance trust committee that's made up of employees in which they can learn more as opposed to every meeting being just a financial statement and you know whatever but where we're going to actually be able to do some some education education so that they have a firmer understanding of what the what the trust is about and I think that's a very positive way to do it I wanted to share too that the same employee benefit trust committee we did have the discussion with them we vetted the idea what were their concerns and at the end they were all very supportive of going forward and they were also very supportive of the reserving policy recommendation as well any other comments I would just have one other question so if we do have investment income how do you expect that to impact our employees so um so so we don't have the Reserves to make money that's not the goal but we didn't want to lose ground either but there are expenses associated with running our employee benefit trust so it's very possible that the the earnings on investments could pay for those administrative expenses which in the future will be limited if any premium increases for our employees so there are there are some some opportunities there for sure okay Michelle then two are in place so great okay thank you so um the bond fund we spend a lot of time on bond spend but I really wanted to point out uh this interesting little thing so in 2022 we had Revenue other miscellaneous revenue of four hundred and twelve thousand dollars that represents interest earnings on the 50 million dollars or so that was held in our bond fund as you know we're spending money quite fast and later on you have a request to approve the bond resolution for a sale probably February early March of our final 18 million dollars but I wanted to point out that there's a transfer out immediately of the 412 thousand dollars because in order for us to be able to use the interest earnings in our bond fund we have to have voter approval for that and I don't know this for sure and I was planning on introducing Mr K wood later but Mr caywood is in the back um he's here representing Gus Rosenfeld who's who's created the bond resolution on our behalf but Brandon maybe you can share do you know if we are to get voter approval for to spend the interest earnings is it its own question in the bond pamphlet or can it be incorporated into the bond request you'd have to come up to the microphone please we have to hear you talk for the record sorry and I'm putting that I'm still putting you on the spot I'm so sorry but I need you to repeat the question again so the in order for us I know that we have to have voter approval in order for us to be able to spend interest revenues in the bond fund we have to have voter approval so does that happen in its own separate question or is incorporated within the bond request in that one question it's it's Incorporated in its own request so yeah so it's uh and the pamphlet's pretty you know large and Broad but yeah it's it's the inherent in there okay good so and so in here historically we have not requested to be able to spend the interest earnings but know that that 412 000 of Interest earnings goes immediately Into The Debt Service fund which offsets the taxpayer amount that goes towards servicing the debt so in addition I wanted to point out the issuance of school Improvement bonds so this this has contributed to that 54 million dollars we we sold 50 million dollars worth of bonds in February um we are we spent you can see above under the project expense you can see that in 2022 we spent nearly 30 million 25 million and 21 14 and 20 in about 20 and 19.
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so you can see that we're really spending the the monies quickly but it still left a fund balance that contributed about 20 million dollars to that 54 million dollar net position I talked about earlier you can see that we don't we didn't have a bond sale every year in 2020 if you remember that was the year in which we shut down for three the last three months of the school year um and it was in November of 19 of that same year in which we had the 2019 authorization in which the taxpayer approved our 100 million dollar Bond request and so then we have been actively selling bonds since then uh mostly because we needed it where you can see we're going through the spend fairly quickly but also that the interest rates the last time we did a bond sale which was February of 2022 The all-in Tick the total interest cost was about 1.7 percent the year prior in 2021 it was 0.71 so in order to take it take advantage of these great rates we did it also was a a perfect storm we needed the dollars we were able to spend it quickly and we were able to get the bond proceeds at a very inexpensive cost on behalf of our taxpayer any questions on that okay so other items to note almost through outstanding Geo bonds and assess value so note that our outstanding projected principle at the end of this year is 152 million note that we have reflected here the 18 million dollar sale down from 162 million at the end of 21 and then our primary assist valuation continues to go down go up I mean and the good news is that our Geo debt to assess value ratio continues to go down so from 6.6 percent down to 5.9 percent so we're being judicious about our tax rate as well compensated absences we always have shared this with you all these are the value of our sick leave and vacation leave depending upon which employee you are whether you're a 12 month or a nine month or a 10 month whatever the case may be and you can see where we did grow in that compensated absences so we have a future liability of about 13.3 million dollars from 12.4 million dollars a year ago part of doing business also remember that the compensated absence concept is a positive one in this environment where we really want to keep our teachers and our employees in front of our students so this is an incentive for them to to stay in the classroom or or feeding our students in nutrition services or driving our buses to get our kids to school every day finally Arizona State Retirement so we've shared this in the past as well wanting to make sure it was clear to all of you that right now the Arizona State Retirement presumption is that the interest rate that they're earning on their Investments is on average seven percent so you can see that this 225.3 million dollars is our proportionate share of the liability again it's not our liability it's Arizona State retirement's liability we are just required to post that to our financial statements but note that if that interest rate could be increased to eight percent it would decrease our proportionate share by over by over a hundred million dollars that's amazing just by increasing eight percent and then a one percent decrease conversely would increase our proportionate share by over a hundred and thirty million so this interest rate has a huge impact and it's interesting um Ms matinin shared this this grid here at the bottom showing the Arizona State Retirement rate of return so in 2021 the rate of return is was 25.1 percent so um so due to that rate of return that was the last rate of return published in the current year they actually for the first time in many years decreased the Arizona State Retirement contribution but now because the earnings were only 1.21 percent they actually have already said that the Arizona State Retirement contribution rate will increase 424.
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so just so you're prepared when we get into the development of the 24 budget we will be sharing that additional cost associated with that contribution rate so the other reason why we really wanted to present this information so this is just um showing our contribution rate and our our total GPS contributions in history so we don't know what it is in the current year which is 2023 but you can see over time our contributions continue to grow this is reflective of the positive environment being able to provide pay increases stipends all that one-time stipends Etc so it's because of this 25 million dollars that has led to our contribution proportionate contribution going up over time but this also shows that in 2023 it wasn't in 22 it was 12.4 for the current fiscal year it's 12.17 but again directly related to that 1.21 increase at Arizona State Retirement they're making a recommendation to raise the contribution rate up again and though not to the same 2022 level so it's still not a bad story the other reason why we wanted to share more information about Arizona State Retirement is that we do have a request on the action item again for you to approve the um a pre-contribution of Arizona State Retirement contributions to the Arizona State Retirement Trust back in the spring of 2022 the legislature passed a law that allowed School District to pre-school districts to prepay their Arizona State Retirement contributions the specific action item requests up to 25 million dollars which is about our current contribution from 2022 so at that point in time then what happens is that we would make that contribution we would be we have the flexibility to use it with as little as 60 days notice and we can't ever pull it out so if we put it in we can't ever pull it out we would just decrease so instead of 12.29 say in 2024 we would say well we only want to charge 10 and that would start drawing down that prepaid balance so the reason for that recommendation is that we do have a significant amount of one-time money with the 54 million dollars in that position increase as well as the cash that's on hand this would give us an opportunity to use one-time money that could grow if we leave it in maintenance operations we are not we we earn interest but we're not able to spend it it doesn't increase our budget capacity and in this way if we had the flexibility of having it in Arizona State Retirement as a prepay we have an ability to decide one when we need to use it we could weather another down significant downturn in the economy we could weather it spread it out maybe for a year or two instead of having to hit it in one year because we have this money held in reserves at Arizona State Retirement and finally um it also will be invested with the same pooled money in Arizona State Retirement so again sharing this annual Arizona State Retirement rate of return so note that generally speaking they've never had a negative I looked back 10 years and they've never had a negative annual rate but even in 21 the 25 percent growth was was really significant so so there is a risk um 20 million dollars or 25 million dollars up to 25 million dollars would be invested with Arizona State Retirement it's a it's a good risk if we kept it in our m o fund we would not be earning interest on it and you could make a case that we would actually lose spending power because of the inflation rate in today so that's the final recommendation on the action items later on today yes I just wanted to clarify so when we're talking about prepaid that's the district prepaying their share of the Employee Retirement that's correct okay thank you the district paying their share and in fact when Ms Batten and I spoke about this we we decided that we're going to even make it cleaner and just have it prepaid out of Maintenance and operations and depending upon the approval on the consent regarding the Community School Department of Economic Security Grant any monies that are not used up with these stipends supporting employees that work for Community School that money we will designate as part of that prepay as well okay thank you so um that's it and you've asked a lot of questions ongoing so but if there's any further questions I'm very happy to answer them [Music] so this was for the action item with several action items you've addressed but um specifically uh you just covered uh sorry eight one one two and three okay and then also oh and the five that's why I was gonna say eight and oh six as well because the right the acceptance of the FY 2022 annual comprehensive financial report that's basically what you were just going through yeah you actually did you pretty much touched on all of this tonight so all the action items so we might revisit it no problems to ask any further questions but are there anything anything else right now I just want to make a comment I appreciate the work that's gone into this to it is a lot of financial information but it it is definitely a good review for all of us as we move forward to make those other decisions tonight so thank you thank you to you you smattening your department yeah I really wanted to thank Ms Matton and her staff because actually Jackie in particular because she is the the front line person I'm getting all the audited all the audit requests completed and getting all the work done so and with the new regulation regarding the cell towers and the rental income that was quite a heavy lift thank you seeing no further questions at this point great we appreciate it thank you thank you we will now move to the consent agenda items 7.01 um board members is there a motion for the approval of consent agenda items I moved to approve the consent agenda items is presented thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second second thank you Dr Santa Cruz it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items as presented all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that passes by zero that will take us to the action items which we're just discussing um and let's start with 8.01 revision of EBT reserving policy exhibits Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board member as presented in the presentation just a moment ago Ms betz talked about some of the changes not necessarily to the policies but to the exhibits as it pertains to the reserves and increasing those areas and Miss betz will answer any questions related to that so miss bet specifically this EBT reserving policy exhibits this is to just tell us what the reserve value is currently as well as then there was a change to the minimum the recommendations for a minimum and a operating numbers is that correct right so this is exhibit um EA so this is relevant to the ibnr so part of our reserving policy indicates that we shall always have the ibnr the incurban that reported fully funded within our our financials every month and so this happens annually we have the calculation done every year actually as part of our audited financials we need that Actuarial calculation and so it will change every year the other the other thing is I wanted to make sure that all of you were always prepared that we would always bring at least exhibit EA back to you annually at this at this time once it's once the new value is calculated then the second the second exhibit is it there can we put the exhibit EB up and this one is that risk Corridor or that is the management of the reserves pretty much so increasing them um the low uh changing the minimum Reserve um from four up to I think it says seven I think it says seven if it doesn't the operating Reserve is 12 million um if I can make a change there it really should reflect the the four million was the is the ibnr and it should reflect 7 million so if we could change the action item to reflect that the minimum Reserve is to be 7 million and then the medium or operating Reserve is to be 12 million I apologize for that error is that is that the 7 million as opposed to the four million one hundred correct okay yep under the the low below Reserve or the minimum Reserve so basically what it's saying is is that not only will we fully fund the ibnr but on top of that we will have seven million dollars in reserve up to 12 million dollars operating in those ranges so do we need to change the formula or it says minimum Reserve equals one times the ibnr calculation should it be yes it should yes five or so there are two or what is yes it basically should say the minimum Reserve shall be seven million dollars shall be seven million dollars yes okay so you'll just scratch out that formula I will fix that um if we can reflect that in the minutes apologize Ms Wilson that's what I shared with you in the board report was seven million and 12 million yes so sorry so this is this is a policy though that will come back to us again this is just the exhibits the policy did not change okay these are the associated exhibits okay so we won't have a second read or through the committee this is just as part of our this is an exhibit which we're just bringing yeah which doesn't even technically need approval but we but because it's wrapped up into everything we're doing we wanted to make sure that the board put their eyes on it and all agreed to what we're doing and you took this to the insurance the insurance board the trust yes and we also we also took it to the audit and EBT investment committee and shared it with them too then I think you can confirm that Mr Parker yeah we did we discussed it in the audit committee and concurred okay okay so board members so that we may have a discussion any further discussion can I have a motion on the revision of the EBT reserving policy exhibits EA and EB as explained by Miss Betts tonight would that be appropriate yes I move that we we uh approve the revision of the EBT reserving policy exhibits which would mean that there would be a change from 4 million I can't see it right now to 7 million and it will be reflected in the minutes by Miss by Mrs at Wilson all right that's been moved is there a second second thank you miss you jetty and thank you Mr Parker it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion Madam president just a clarification so are we taking action on only item 8.1 or is it 8.2 inclusive this is just 8.1 but there were two exhibits each exhibits there yes thank you Dr Santa Cruz for that so this is just 8.01 but has been that we're going to be voting on And discussing right now is there any further discussion then I just have a comment to make that I appreciate that you brought this to us as an as a a vote even though it's a policy because it is so um very important you mean even though it's an exhibit even though it's an exhibit I'm sorry did I not a policy I'm sorry yeah I apologize for that that's good wow and and it is a a big change in the amount of money that we're going to be needing to reserve so I think it's good that we are involved as board members to understand that so can you explain how you came up to came to those numbers again you might have already mentioned this but how did you come to the 7 to 12 million so um upon discussion with both the the employee benefit trust committee as well as the audit committee audit and EBT investment committee the question was what should it be and so um then we met actually with the employee benefit trust committee and Ms Siegel from I mean Miss Khaleesi from Siegel was there along with our representative from ameriben so I had asked Miss Khaleesi earlier if she would give us a recommendation regarding what those reserves should be so she went back to her Actuarial analyst team and asked them to do what she called a stochastic calculation looking at all of our spend over the last four to five years and the result of that was that minimum of seven million dollars up to 12 million dollars to give us that 95 percent confidence level so that was one piece of information in addition the representative from ameriben who has been our a consultant for medical funds for for over 20 years said that she has some clients that actually have a reserving policy that calls for six months of claims activity so our claim activity is right at two million dollars a month so 2 million times 6 million would be that 12 million at the high end and so the two pieces of information were very consistent and so that's how we arrived at those two levels okay thank you could I just ask that not now because tomorrow starts our Christmas vacation but at a later date could you just with the correction send this exhibit out to us oh you bet we'll divorce it away it'll be there tonight yeah okay we'll send it so that we have the correct language thank you yep all right board members seen no further discussion on this revision of EBT reserving policy exhibits I will call for a vote all those in favor of the revision of EBT reserving policy exhibits as presented by Mr Jetty in in the motion please vote by saying aye aye if there's any opposed with nay okay past five zero thank you that will take us to 8.02 establishment of a formal employee benefit Trust Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members action item 8.02 established from a formal employee benefit trust EBT the district May pursuit of ARS section 15-382 in section 15-387 provide for self-insured and or Insurance programs if it deemed such action to be in the best interests of his employees under this program The District district and or employees will contribute Monies to a trust fund to be held for the benefit of the employees in accordance with a trust agreement foreign and this is a copy of the trust agreement Miss betz would you like to put anything else into this or so we currently already are in a trust our employees already have invested in this this isn't changing that in any way correct this is just changing from the vbt Viba to this formal employee benefits trust okay that is correct okay board members may have a motion and then we can discuss this so moved thank you Dr Santa Cruz it's been moved is there a second thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved and seconded that we established the formal employee benefit Trust is there discussion I'd like to make a comment again okay I've been involved with this for a couple of months I think it it is where we've we've met and discussed and um I think there's been a lot of discussion pros and cons you know what what would happen if what would happen if that kind of thing I believe that that we all of our answers all up you know every question was answered um and I appreciated the process that we went through and I know there was a there was some nervousness about doing this but I think in the long run it is absolutely a huge benefit for our district Plus like as I asked the question about the other districts there's very few districts that do the EBT anymore and are going to this or have been doing this for quite some time and it would it makes Financial or financial sense and it also um I know that Mrs bet spent a lot of time with our attorneys trying to get everything in order exactly the way it should be so I'm just going to tell you I support it thank you I yes go ahead I was gonna say I I appreciate that you went to the various committees and got everyone's input and explained it to them because I think that's really important um as we move forward so thank you I guess my final question would just be misvets do you feel like this changes the risks of a trust you know and of what what the employees have been putting their benefit their money into before in any way by changing it to a formal employee benefit trust from the Viba so um when uh when I first engaged with a legal counsel the first thing they asked me is well do you ever the first thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to have a reserving policy and an investment policy and I was able to say well we already have that well that's good and I was able to send that to them so that they had the documents to create the formal trust so we were already moving in that direction but we're moving in that we've always been moving into a more conservative Direction so remember that the employee benefit trust is the fiduciary now for this for this trust so they are the ones who are held responsible for the financial sustainability of the money operationally we we in finance would still be doing what we're doing we'd still have all the Committees doing what we're doing we even went so far and I think you can share this too Mrs eugetti to ask the Consultants to sort of ask the American representative as well as the seagull consultant so tell us what it looks like when you have a trust member that goes Rogue so that we have an understanding of what happens and they both said normally what happens is you get a trust board member who is also a part of a an insurance company and they want to try to Direct business to the insurance company under those circumstances remember that you as a governing board can make a recommendation to remove an individual because the appointment is totally in your hands so the governing board at any point in time can remove or replace a trustee okay thank you I think what the thing one thing that I like about it is as you mentioned before you've been now moving this into the general ledger all along at this point and I feel like there's more transparency there's more uh I think just we understand better what's going on and so to me it's a it's a good thing to have that closer to closer to the decision makers as far as our board and um I'm saying the trustees you know and just have all of the different people involved with that so I see it as a benefit as well when I think what Mrs eugetti said earlier is an important note it gives us an opportunity to spend more time with our employee benefits trust committee on educating them so that they understand well shoot what's the plan design and what are the limits of how much we're covering and so they can focus on that to better help us educate all of our employees they can be ambassadors out into the school system great board members is there any further discussion or comments no okay CNN I will call for the vote all those in favor of the establishment of a formal employee benefit trust and EBT please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that passes five zero that takes us to 8.03 the appointment of employee benefit trust EBT trustees Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members we have before you has just discussed uh request for the appointment of employee benefit trust trustees based on the advice from legal counsel a formal employee benefit trust shall have a minimum of five trustees in which one shall be a GPS employee another trustee shall be a GPS governing board member and the three remaining trustees shall be community members at large all of these individuals have been contacted and have expressed their agreement to be appointed as trustees to the employee benefit trust those proposed trustee board members are as follows GPS employee Bonnie Betts which is a four-year term Community member Reed Carr three-year term Community member Mark wheach three-year term governing board member Sheila eugetti two-year term Community member Dr Charles Santa Cruz two-year term once appointed these individuals be asked to sign the attached trustee agreements thank you board members may have a motion so move thank you is there a second second it's been moved and seconded that we appoint the employee benefit trust EBT trustees as as just shared is there any discussion um I I do have a question on that when we have appointed someone um can they come up again for another term or is there a limit on terms or what what exactly is in mind for this so my understanding is that they can still be put up but they would have to be reaffirmed at a governing board meeting so um yes they don't they don't have to end at that point in time there's no term limits there's no term yeah no term limits right okay so it would again it's at the behest of the governing board okay I I would maybe at some future time like to see some turn some term limits as an opportunity for more input from other people I just think that's a a good idea but I want to go ahead and approve this tonight I don't want to have that be a a challenge so I just having my input thank you Mr Freeze is there anything further Madam president just as a matter of information I would to avoid any perception of any conflict I would vote present with an abstention thank you along those same lines is it okay for me to vote since I'm a I think since you're an official board member and you're representing I mean you're being on the committee as a board member right but I can see Dr Santa Cruz since he will be on the committee as a commit as just as Community member okay so again there was some outlining of of how the that that the board did have final say in how people were appointed and different things like that is there any more specifics on that that we should come up with or I I personally don't think that now you need to do I think I think we go into this and as we move through the process and and if we something might hit us a little bit differently that we might want to address okay it's fine with me okay if there's no further discussion then I will call for the vote all those in favor of the appointment of the employee benefit trust trustees as shared tonight please vote by saying aye aye and we know that Dr Santa Cruz is abstaining any opposed with nay thank you passes 4-0 now that takes us to 8.04 resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of school Improvement bonds Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members as Ms Betts pointed out earlier we are asking you to consider if deemed advisable to adopt resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of school Improvement bonds the district the amount of 18 million dollars I I will not read through the resolution because it's like many pages long but um you guys have been through this process before you understand what that encompasses thank you board members may have a motion I move that we approve a resolution authorizing the issue issuance and sale of school Improvement bonds thank you Miss Humphries is our second second thank you Mr Parker it's been moved and seconded board members is there any discussion I I think that um just a reminder that we've been able to do some wonderful things to for our schools to keep them in good condition and in looking nice as a you know a benefit for the community and that our voters have been very supportive on this and we appreciate that and moving forward with this sale I think it's important to just be a reminder that the does provide a lot for our district so appreciate that and I'll just add to that that we have we have spent it as we had prescribed in the original bond in the pamphlet when we went out for it because that's part of it is you spend spend it as you've agreed to so I think some Financial opportunities arose during that time too that really benefited the taxpayer as well as our students and our staff of the community and so we we were in positions to take advantage of that and um yeah I think it progressed a lot quicker than what we anticipated but I think in the long run we're saving everybody a little money in that process so I guess I would just ask Miss betz we'd still do have some monies left over for the rest of this year so why are we approving this final 18 million this is the final this is the final Bond sale from that 2019 why are we proving it right now tonight um so um so one of the things we wanted to um approve it as early as possible to give flexibility to our financial advisors and the underwriters to try to figure out the best time to sell the resources the uh the question that that they have asked me is well bunny when do you need the money and I said well based upon our plans we're still we're still in the midst of completing some of the projects over the summer we still have cameras that we're still installing we still have the audio visual refresh that's ongoing all of those items along with the operational needs so we in order for us to get through the summer we absolutely need the resources okay and this just gives you by us approving it tonight gives you the flexibility to go out when whenever it's the most advantageous right to yeah to our ours to the cell yeah so it's kind of funny so on the one hand I want to have high interest earnings in the employee benefit trust but I want to have really low interest when we're selling bonds so that's an interesting being in the middle that's kind of interesting okay thank you I appreciate that is there any further Dr Santa Cruz yes yes Madam president just in support of the commentary made by both Mrs Humphreys and yourself uh I think this is a judicious move because it certainly is consistent with the override pamphlet and the verbiage therein and it is as we have said all along an improvement in protection of the community's investment in its schools and Facilities so I would be very supportive of approving this item thank you is there anything further seeing no further discussion I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the resolution authorizing the issuance and sale of school Improvement bonds please vote by saying aye aye aye any opposed with nay thank you it's five zero that takes us to 8.05 prepayment of the Arizona State Retirement System asrs annual retirement contribution Dr McCord thank you madam president we're asking for your approval of this agenda item pursuant to Senate Bill 1082 and as Arizona revised Statute title 38 737 the Arizona State Retirement System has implemented an Innovative program for employee employers to voluntarily prepay future pension contribution obligations while maintaining future budget flexibility the contribution prepayment program CPP is a voluntary program available to asrs employers the CPP allows the school district to maintain budget flexibility by allowing employers to determine when to utilize a prepaid CPP balances possibly during future economic downturns when budgets are more restricted employers May deposit a lump sum payment in the asrs which is credited with actual asrs investment returns employers determine when in the future to utilize their prepaid contributions utilization occurs when an employer decides to offset their future contribution payments employers determine the length of time amortization period over which to utilize their prepaid contributions during the fiscal year 2023 Gilbert Public Schools is requesting to prepay up to 25 million of mno-funded future asrs contributions any pre-contributions made to the asrs trust pool will be invested pursuant to their investment policies and so there exists some risk to loss of principal below the nine-year history of the annual rate of return realized by asrs note that these have not been a single year there's not been a single year in which the Investments have not had some investment earning increases overall asrs outperforms more most comparable organizations throughout the nation and those rates were reflected in Mrs BET's presentation earlier thank you Dr McCord board members is there a motion so moved thank you miss you jetty is our second second thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved and seconded that we approved the prepayment of the Arizona State Retirement System annual retirement contribution is there any discussion well I guess I would like to ask Miss Fitz I have a couple questions so I guess for my part I've asked for the last year or so every time that you say there's a balance carry forward and it's been more significant this year in the last year or two specifically I think because of the Esser funds it's one-time funding but I'm but I've kept asking what would be the plan how do we spend it because I I want to be judicious I want to but I want to spend it in a way that benefits our students and staff I also want to address the needs that Esser was actually spent for you know to or given for to make sure that we had stability and address all the complications during covid I guess so all of those things have kind of been going through my mind so I guess I just want to um just to know what was your thought as you came to this how does this make how does this address I guess those questions that I've just asked or in your mind how is this the best way to spend this one-time funding that we have or to not spend it but to allocate so um I think because of the one-time nature of the budget balance carry forward in mno and we and we know it's one time because it's directly related to the Ester monies that we received and we spent them fast to build up that that Reserve balance so having an opportunity to pre-fund a future contribution which we know is going to exist allows us to use this this one-time money to spread out a future downturn in the economy so one of the requirements or um or reasons for offering the Esser monies was to maintain staff so if you think about it by prepaying the Arizona State Retirement contribution we are offering another year two three years of bridging a downturn where we wouldn't have to cut you know so many staff members in order to balance our budget we would be able to do it incrementally at the same time time have the advantage of having those monies invested where we actually receive some investment earnings giving it even greater value just doing a quick calculation I know that it was incredible that in 2021 Arizona State Retirement earned a 25 return but on our let's just say it was 20 million dollars that's what is that 4 million that's four million dollars of additional resources that would be credited back to um to Gilbert Public Schools so it just it just made sense I think to us in in finance to best to utilize that that balance and sharing it with leadership team too we all we all agree this is the best way for us to use that one-time money and make it last longer [Music] I think allocating those to uh this to the asrs is it frees up our ability to look at other funds differently and how they will directly impact students I also think that if you'll notice it says up to 25 million if things don't go well with AEL coming up here in March and let's say we have to give back 48 million dollars um we will forego this and and be able to utilize that money in different ways that's not how we want to utilize it but um it'll help mitigate us going forward at least getting through the rest of this school year so we have options when it comes to this um but I think as we can't predict the future um as we have changed leadership at the state level we can't predict necessarily where we'll end up in the next year or two so we have to in in a sense protect our students and our staff and this is one of those ways to be able to do that I think it was interesting we had a joint conversation with Paul Matson and a couple of his staff members at Arizona State Retirement he's the executive director of Arizona State Retirement and his comments were this was this occurrence of the pandemic was a once in a lifetime occurrence so it likely will not happen again but there are many school districts and employers throughout Arizona that have that are sitting on substantive amounts of um of fund balance one-time monies and actually Arizona State Retirement went in and advocated for this law to be passed for that very reason and they agreed to take on the responsibility of keeping school districts money accounted for and applying annual interest earnings to those monies as well so I felt very very positive personally after speaking with Mr Matson that this was well thought out and uh and when he expressed the flexibility of we can we can start using it 60 days from now I thought that that really made a big difference too on on the flexibility that we would be afforded into the future yeah Mr Parker just for the benefit of uh anyone who might not be familiar with asrs my understanding is that half the contributions that go come from the individual and the other half comes from the school district that's correct so and and we're talking about the 50 that the district puts in uh my understanding also is that currently that money that that we put in as a district we're going to have we're going to have to put it in eventually anyway for for those employees that's correct this enables us to actually draw interest on those funds and be able to use them appropriately so I think it's a great idea thank you anything further yeah I guess my one last question would be um just in how how would you say and I know I asked this regularly Dr McCord okay how would you how would you say that we have used the Esser to the funds that were given again to address um to address the teachers to address the student learning loss to address the other challenges of covid can you just give I'll give you like just something off the top of my head and one of the big ones I think there's there's been retention bonuses that have been handed out and the question well how does that help kids well it helps keep trained Professionals in the classroom and I think that's one of the biggest assets of this I think it's really difficult to say I bought this program or I bought this material that readily really helped out learning loss the best component to help out learning loss is having the very best people in front of our kids and so a good portion of that money has went towards our staff over the last couple years and so that's what that's how I kind of answer your question it's good and I know it's hard I think people look for direct things not just here but out there and I think that's why you're asking the question to say this money this program turned to this around well if it was that easy in education we'd all be millionaires could we come up with our own programs but it really is about that trained individual who cares about kids every single day up in front of them and we need the very best and so I think we've helped mitigate losing people to other places I've gone to different campuses we've had we were able to have the flex Subs cribing that was directly that was partly that was part of that yeah part of that we have Flex Subs at every one of our campuses multiple actually at some campuses and that really helps out with uh making sure those individuals are are paid well for being a flexible substitute and being able to be dispatched in other areas of the district if we run short on Subs because if we've learned anything over the last couple years is that finding quality substitutes is extremely difficult so this was our way of keeping them within our system keeping them busy on a daily basis and again they understand how things operate in Gilbert so it took a lot of the guesswork out for those people that show up for those kids when our employees can't be there that was another thing I think okay I I think we've done we have addressed it and we've used it we use it for supplies during covid we used it for um custodial systems don't don't freak it out that was deaths we were wiping off every day oh yeah we've done the summer sessions the intercessions we've we have a tutoring and that tutoring I think we really work to look and put money as as efficiently and effectively as we can to where it needs to and and this I think is still is another way to do that because basically it gives us flexibility so I like that you've come up with this plan that we don't just have the money sitting in our account not earning interest not with a not with it designated to do something for us this does something for our students because it helps our teachers and it will it helps a fund that we have to pay to have our teachers here and then it allows flexibility going forward to other funds just as you guys have all said just as has been mentioned okay great if there's anything further Dr Santa Cruz just a comment in complimenting what your last thought was sometimes the benefits that students derive from the fiscal responsibility held by the district is indirect it doesn't always create a linear path to the student but when you look at the full comprehensive View 60 percent of the budget in the instructional line is nothing to laugh at and all of these additional pieces only support that because we're not needing to spend from that 60 percent to try to keep quality programming and Personnel in front of those young people who so desperately and eagerly want what we have to offer thank you seeing no further discussion I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the prepayment of the Arizona State Retirement System asrs annual retirement contribution as explained tonight please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that passed five zero then 8.06 the acceptance of FY 2022 annual comprehensive financial report and that will require a roll call vote but Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members I won't expound any more on this that was uh the presentation that Miss betz went through I just will say that um this document there may be minor typographical edits but there won't be any material Financial edits that will be made so with your acceptance as a roll call uh we will move forward and get this transmitted I think it's by February 1st is that correct I'm sorry when is this due by February 1st is that correct um in order for us to be eligible for the financial excellence and financial reporting it's December 31st December yeah December 31st statutorily I think it has to be completed by February 28th March 31st a lot of dates are we going to get it by December 31st yes we're going to have it done by December and then we're going to win all the awards and we're going to win all the awards yes sir see you heard it here guaranteed it gets better every year thank you thank you Dr McCord is there a motion I'll move to accept the FY 2022 annual comprehensive financial report second thank you Mr Parker and thanks Mrs eugetti is there any discussion Madam president just again a comment I think the collaboration that has manifest and exists between our financial staff and our auditor the shields in particular uh has created some efficiencies within the financial structure of this District to make it a healthy vibrant financially solid place in which to do business and I would like to complement them for that collaborative effort and to thank Miss shields for her efforts in working with our staff in that regard and I wish them continued success in their financial Endeavors and keeping this District solvent and strong thank you Dr Santa Cruz is there anything further Shields you get Hazard pay when you come to Gilbert what are you good we're just checking all right so I will then see no further discussion I will call for the vote for the acceptance of the FY 2022 annual comprehensive financial report Miss Wilson will you do the roll call vote please all those oh you say it then right Dr Charles Santa Cruz hi Mr Bill Parker aye Ms Sheila eugetti I Miss Laurie wood I miss Jill Humphries aye album remembers voted I oh thank you Miss Wilson thank you all thank you that will conclude our action items for tonight um we will now go to 9.0 requests for future agenda items board members is there any requests as always please let myself Dr McCord or Miss Wilson know if there's anything for the future that will take us actually we'll now go to the superintendent's report Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members again thank you everybody for being here tonight tonight's almost over winter break has arrived and I want to acknowledge and thank our students teachers support staff administrators and families for a great semester of Education I'm genuinely grateful for our community and how they support the education of our students we are incredibly fortunate to live work and learn in Gilbert and East Mesa tonight is our last governing board meeting for Dr Charles Santa Cruz and Mr Bill Parker collectively collectively they have served students families and parents for 69 years Dr Santa Cruz for 46 years and Mr Parker for 23 years Mr Parker you have served on the governing board for the past year and a half you stepped up and went through the interview process to replace Mr Reed Carr you have been exceptional your military and education experience have been precious and I appreciate how you approach each situation with an open mind and an open heart Mr Parker thank you for your service not only to our country but the success of our students and public education Dr Santa Cruz you've served on the governing board for the past eight years you were a classroom teacher and assistant principal and a principal your last paid position in Gilbert Public Schools was that of the principal Gilbert High School I was an assistant principal for you back then during 1999 to 2001. I can't begin to tell you how much okay [Music] it's getting late I'm getting choked up sorry can't begin to tell you how much your leadership and mentorship meant to me then and means to me now thank you for Lending your skills to this board our students and our community for the past eight years those eight years were not necessarily all Grins and Giggles but having you as part of this governing board sure made things much easier you're a true gentleman who's extremely intelligent and most of all dedicated to education thank you Dr Santa Cruz I appreciate you and love you thanks Dr McCord we sure appreciate your service and I add that as well thank you for the years of service both of you in public education and Dr Santa Cruz especially here in Gilbert Public Schools appreciate you very much I would like to say thank you to Mr Parker um having served on this board for six years now I it's been a pleasure working with you the last couple of years I think that our board is um should be a model board if you look at board meetings around the country and around Arizona and some of the nonsense that goes on at them and we have never had that happen among ourselves um and I I you know I was a little nervous when he came on board because we'd had Mr Mr Carr but you've been you've been delightful and it's been delightful to sit by you and to get to know you Dr Santa Cruz I might get emotional too um I'll try not to but I think I've known you most of those 46 years maybe not the first year for you few years where you were in Tempe and I just want to say your expertise your caring and your dedication to the students of and the parents of Gilbert Public Schools is second to none and um I guess I'll still be serving with you on the insurance trust committee so you can't get rid of me that easily you know you thought you were going to get rid of me when you retired but it looks like we'll be working together so between the two of you I can't tell you how much I've appreciated having the cohesive board that we have had mutual respect all of us I would like to well I I also want to add a few words of thanks um both of you have worked very hard added some very great insights to our board um Dr Santa Cruz and I have served together these eight years and and when he came on the board it made a huge difference in that we could start focusing on kids instead of having a dysfunctional board so I very much appreciate his election to office and um you'll both be missed thank you very much for your work and I hope you hang those plaques proudly on your wall and and share some stories about Gilbert public schools and and still continue to be involved in um advocating for our Public Schools thanks but please don't share all the stories that's it okay well we will now have our board committee reports oh Dr Santa Cruz okay Dr Santa Cruz you know it's difficult for me to keep quiet but I do want to say that it has been my pleasure and a privilege to work with five board members actually six who care about what happens to young people and teachers and staff in this District and you for including Mr Carr V have been a pleasure to interact with it has been my privilege to be associated with so many fine Educators and staff members and it has been really worthwhile to listen to the perspectives that you bring to this District I said when I began my stent on the board that a governing board must Embrace consensus and Trust I think we have done that must nurture a culture of accountability and support the efforts of Educators staff and staff in preparing students for the world beyond our school doors I encourage you to continue in that effort I know you will thank you very much for your kindness and for your wonderful sentiments when uh I was appointed to the board unless you get a uh gave me a call all the board members were very gracious and call me and her comment was she questioned my sanity uh you remember that and I told her I was a retired Marine so she didn't have to worry about that but it has been a pleasurable experience and you know I don't have the silver tongue that that Dr Santa Cruz has but I I will say you know a great group of people in this District I alluded to that earlier the the staff here is Top Notch he's got a good superintendent and and I work for a lot of them uh it's probably the best one I've ever met well thank you and the board members here I couldn't have asked for uh better group of people to to bring me in to the fold and and help me out and the short time I've been here so I would just like to also express my appreciation to the staff The Faculty members in all the schools the students and the parents uh so thank you and have a great time [Music] anticlimatic but we will have a board committee reports now starting with me 10.01 Gilbert Education Foundation I just wanted to let our students know that the Gilbert Education Foundation student scholarships are open and they close March 6 2023 to find out more about them please go to g e f a z dot org and apply there's all different types of scholarships for all different situations of students so please uh please go ahead and apply that's my um that's my announcement from the Gilbert Education Foundation thank you um 10.02 city of Mesa liaison and legislative representative Miss Jill Humphries um I'll just share that the asba annual conference was last week also a new board member orientation and I was able to attend those and came away with some very good information and some good interactions thank you 10.03 town of Gilbert liaison director Santa Cruz nothing to report thank you finance and audit committee Mr Parker we have not met thank you 10.05 Insurance trust representative Mr jetty I think Mrs Betts stole my presentation tonight thank you that will take us to our 11.01 meeting dates Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members will kick off 2023 with a board meeting and organizational meeting on January 10th a policy committee meeting on January 24th and a board business meeting on January 31st those who are not going to be with us for that and welcome those who will join the board shortly we that takes us to adjournment um thank you again for being here board members and those who've attended with us who've helped us with our business tonight those who are watching online or what you're recorded we appreciate your your attendance as well um I will call for an adjournment then is there a motion I think Dr Santa Cruz and Mr Parker should do this excellent excellent uh I will move for a German second thank you it's been moved and seconded by Mr Parker and Dr Santa Cruz that we adjourn all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye aye thank you good night
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all right I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr Farrell okay I like to read a quick statement if I may Mr Roman Gino the New Jersey open Public's meeting law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have notice of and to attend the meaning of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of the sac the coastside public schools notice that this meeting to be published by having the date and time and place there were posted in the office of the borough clerk Borough Library for a Rec Department the office of the Board of Ed and the offices of school numbers 3456 and the high school on August 16 2022 and notice reported to the reporters of the record August 16 2022 this is an official meeting I'd like to take the attendance if I'm famous Roman Gina Mrs Abreu Mr capana yes Mrs Fredo Mr Garcia here Mr nadru Dr pantoliano here Mr Russo Mr Shelley here Mr terabakia here Mr yanuzzi here okay Mr Roman Gina okay thank you very much Mr Fano I would like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight just a couple of items I would like to go over before we look at the consent agenda um I would just like to take this opportunity to thank our administrators and our K-5 staff for taking part in our parent conferences as we do each year this year our conferences were held on December 6th 7th and 8th for all K-5 parents who were interested in attending and the reports that I got from our principals that it was well attended so again I want to thank our staff and our principals for organizing uh those conferences just a reminder to uh the board that we are going to continue the re-registration process that we started in the spring as a reminder this past spring we did a re-registration for students who were in grades 3 6 and 10 at the time and in January we're going to be sending letters out to parents who have students in grades two five and nine and they will go through the same process they will have to show proof of residency driver's license a number of items that would verify the fact that they're living at that particular address so that would be for Cliffside Park students only I want to make mention and thank Mr porfido our athletic director for running a great Awards night on December 13th uh at six o'clock in the high school gym uh we recognized all of our fall athletes who took part in our programs and this was the first year that we were able to have the awards in the high school gym and the gym looked great uh and Mr profito and all of the coaches did a great job and as I did in a text that I sent out I just brought a commend all of the students uh athlete that took part all of their recognitions and our coaches so that took part on on December 13th and as we do each year last couple of years our schedules have been a little bit off because of covid but in June we will have a similar night and we will recognize all of our students who play winter sports and spring Sports so more information about that will follow I want to thank our high school administration for housing a radiate orientation in November as we do each year we open it up to seventh and 8th grade students in Fairview and coastside park parents and students to come to the high school we had somewhere between 50 and 100 students and parents who came out for the orientation just to give them an overview of what programs are available at the High School academic athletic co-curricular so I want to thank Mr pinto and his staff for running that program I'd like to commend Lori Levine who's a guidance counselor at the high school and students actually Lori Levine held an instant College acceptance days at the high school we had 87 colleges who took part and they gave out eight hundred thousand dollars in scholarships to students at the high school so this has been something that we've been doing the last couple of years Mrs Levine one of our guidance counselors organizes it and I think it's a great opportunity for our students as far as getting scholarship monies and it's also a good opportunity for students who are interested in a particular school to get an instant acceptance so that took place in November and again thank you to our guidance department for taking part in that uh last board meeting I shared with the board uh the preliminary results for the New Jersey graduation proficiency assessment as I mentioned that was a test that was given last spring to our Juniors it was a preliminary test uh the results did not count it was the first time that the state administered such a test and I guess they were doing it so they could see what needs to be tweaked um or if they plan on um giving that test again this spring in fact uh is that scheduled for the spring in March so in March this year they will administer the test to all the current Juniors and more than likely this year's results will count although they haven't confirmed whether or not students will need it for graduation so that's something that uh we're waiting for information from the states okay so at this point any questions or comments from the board or the public uh if not then I would just like to take a couple of minutes to look at our consent agenda so you can follow along uh page two as we do each month we are approving um professional development for staff members I'm just reading it over as I'm speaking professional development for staff members you'll see that a lot of some workshops are still virtual although the majority of them now are in person so we have a number of Staff members going to conquer math which is a workshop we've been attending for a number of years for Staffing in grades K through 12 and then there's workshops on dyslexia and other topics that relate to the classroom so we're approving the reimbursement for gas and also for registration fees page three uh about the resolution which is second from the bottom Iman shahada who's been a substitute with us for a number of years we'll be filling in uh as a leave replacement in school number six for one of our special ed teachers who is going out on maternity leave and that will begin December 9th and end April 17th our parents again have been notified uh by letter by Mr Bogner page four uh about halfway down the page we are approving um the appointment of Catherine tamagong who is a Elementary music teacher she's been with us in September and she's just received her final notification from the state she was transferring her certification from New York to New Jersey so it has been received and we're reporting her as music teacher schools four and six ba step three uh next one down Joseph Aponte uh we're accepting his resignation he's been a high school business teacher with for us for a number of years and he'll be leaving uh effective January page five third resolution down uh we have a high school math teacher Suk Young Lim who has been with us since September but she has also submitted her resignation she'll be moving on to another District uh effective February 10th so just as a a note if a teacher does resign uh contractually they need to stay 60 days unless we make the decision to release them early so in both these cases both of these teachers as we look for Replacements are fulfilling their 60-day obligation uh very bottom of page five Dan Helm who's a science teacher in the High School uh were appointing as the high school Academic Decathlon advisor that position was held by Joe Aponte who's leaving so we needed to fill that co-curricular position uh Mr Helm who's been with us a number of years he's coordinator of the stem program at the high school we'll be taking over that position on Page Six uh last two appointments our part-time bus drivers who were increasing their hours so we're moving them from part-time to full-time positions I think they've already started that position yes Mr fan or no uh after the New Year third of January yes third gen okay page eight um second resolution down uh we are approving uh the updated safe return plan this is related to um safety regarding covid and uh as part of the ARP funding that we've received school districts every six months need to update their plans Cliffside has updated it as per guidelines it's posted to our website and that was uh to be submitted December 22nd and um I submitted that a couple of weeks ago and it has been posted to our website um next resolution is we're adjusting as per state guidelines um the travel reimbursement for professional workshops uh it is now 47 47 cents per mile uh for the 2022-23 school year uh next resolution is what I just spoke about we are proving the results of the spring 2020 field test administration of the New Jersey graduation proficiency proficiency assessment next couple of resolutions are just making note of uh confirming the outcome of bullying incidents uh that were investigated um in across the district um in a number of our schools and again the fact that it was investigated doesn't necessarily mean that it turns out that it's a confirmed investigation or confirmed incident but we are obligated if asked uh to investigate and we have a team in each school that takes care of that and if I skip over to page 10 we're approving as we do each month buildings and grounds a lot of those are activities that have taken place by advisors um Spring Dance karaoke Valentine band performance so on and so forth and we're just approving the use of the buildings and the grounds over to page 12 on the finance Mr alfano I don't know if you have anything a couple of quick items Mr Roman Gino um we started our early audit for 223 school year we completed successfully our Assa audit which is essentially an enrollment report that's due to the state we completed that with no findings and also what they call a Dr TRS report which triggers our state aid for special needs transportation we completed that report also with no findings and there are four resolutions at the back of this agenda uh specifically requesting approval for the land Associates our architect and engineering firm to submit the department of Ed applications and drawings for capital projects for our gym Lobby our rooftop project our masonry project at six school and our stair Tower projects at three School four school and six school we are hoping that these will be summer 2023 projects and we'll be going at the bid hopefully in March of 2023 I'll keep the board in the public uh posted it's pretty much it Mr one thing I didn't do while we're speaking about the consent agenda is I didn't call for any committee reports I don't know if there's anything as far as buildings and grounds the ongoing process of the 2000 uh summer of 2023 potential projects as everyone knows it's an extensive amount of paperwork that needs to go to the Department of Education over at the state so everything's moving along and some of our projects from the 2022 summer are pretty much closed out just some formalities have to be taken care of and that's pretty much it I I must say that for our buildings being the age they are and the Board of Education under your leadership is the Roman Junior we were able to do a lot of Capital Improvements to the last 10 years you know a lot of our buildings are in great shape but we're positive flow for this student administrators and teachers all good stuff okay anyone else any questions on the consent agenda before I ask for a motion to accept motion to accept my parents okay thank you both like to take emotion uh this is a brew is not here Mr capano yes yes Dr pantaliana yes Mr Shelley yes Mr vac yeah yes Mr yanizzi yes Mr Roman Gino's so moved okay any other comments questions other business okay then I just want to take this opportunity to wish uh everyone a restful and safe winter break our next meeting is uh January 25th correct yes okay uh thank you very much motion to close I'll make a motion okay thank you all okay if the board gets
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[Applause] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] all right let's pick it up for Eli Cole and Connor [Applause] they will have another song I believe right nope nope no not right now but maybe when when everybody leaves okay welcome everyone to our celebration our family to celebrate our a better grade foreign girls all of your teachers all of your parents our governing board our support staff our principal Mr Nathan our director of student services because we couldn't do it without every single person involved in our school our custodians for keeping our school clean and keeping our schools safe our parent rules for working so hard with each and every student to make sure all of our substitutes that are here daily all of our retired teachers and staff who we keep bringing back and we do not let them ride out into the sunset because we still need them so we truly truly appreciate every single one of you but right now I want to give an extra shot shout out to all of our students for all of your hard work [Applause] let's hear from our chair [Applause] [Music] s [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] everybody [Applause] okay now what I want you guys to help me do this side of the bleachers cheerleaders you're gonna help right you are going to say when we point to you you're gonna stay cold oh you're gonna sing Rock you're gonna say hey okay we need help with the A's look if we have all staff and parents and everybody in the chairs you're gonna be a ready all right let's try this girls if you can help them be cold you help me rock and all of you are gonna help with the aid okay ready wait till I point to you one two three [Music] [Applause] all right good job hear it stop you did it good job I want to thank all of you so much I have a very proud of all of you and everybody school what it means is that you grew so much in your academics and your learning we used to be a b school and you guys leveled up and raised us to that age school it's everything that you do it's a club that you're in the sports that you're in it's all the help that you do around this school and it's the academics it's the listening to your teachers the learning the asking the questions it's your teachers it's their heart their passion it's everything that they come and they do care every single day they're late nights they're shopping on the weekend most of it's for you everything they do for you they worry about you they dream about you they're driving they're thinking about you they care about you and they love you everybody in this school does and that's what makes us in a school an amazing awesome school we're very proud of you this was your doing and we celebrate you and do this give him a radical [Applause] [Music] as I think about the last couple years as we have this moment to reflect on how well we're doing as a school one word comes to mind to me and the word of sacrifice the sacrifices that each of you made as students during covid to wake up and come to school when we kept the school open and there wasn't a lot of schools that did that we knew that the payout and Benedict would be that you guys would continue to grow and learn at a higher rate than we could do on online schooling and our moderate of an a is a direct reflection of that when I think of our teachers and our prayer grows and our last drivers and our custodians and our Administration team and our school board the risks and sacrifices that meets up our teachers we unfortunately we ran new bracket during those coping times some of you are doing online schooling and in-person learning and the sacrifices I I saw it as it took control of you and all of us and those sacrifices and we kept telling you it's going to pay off we're going to see the results and we really appreciate you as an Administration team of trusting us and hanging in there and getting through all of that and doing the unbelievable things of our 74-page mitigation plan to keep us in school and listening to those weekly updates as we change those and going through that so we can focus on what's most important and that's educating our kids and so we really appreciate those sacrifices to our students especially our middle school so shout out to you guys for all the extra time on IXL and using a great program that has helped Force you ahead and make you academic Scholars if you are today so great job for all of you focusing stay focused then coming on test day and putting all that your teachers have taught you and all that you learned to work on that day so that we can get here and we really appreciate each and every student because it literally comes down to each to do participating in us meeting where we are today thank you [Applause] [Music] we're going to be passing out backpacks throughout the semester we're going to have VIP lunches we have benchmarks coming up and if you are showing those growth you will get ancients into those VIP lunches so just make it sure off um very proud to be able and we're excited for what's to come and we couldn't do what we do without you amazing folks I'm going to hand this back over all right let's give it up for Mrs Cuevas and Mr Nathan [Applause] they eat dream and sleep and think about you all the time too as we all do I would like to thank our governor board members and acknowledge them because we wouldn't be here if it weren't for our governing board the support they give us the ideas that we pose to them that they say yes go ahead it's a great thing when they approve anything that's going to increase student achievement when we talk about curriculum our new of ela curriculum our new math program we are going to have a celebration of learning and a curriculum update at our January board meeting and so we will be letting the board know how everybody's doing and how the curriculum is going and some of you will be able to Showcase your data binders so we are super excited about the data binders because we know when you're in charge of your own learning and your goals that's when you're going to make more improvements right because you have to do the hard work right okay like to introduce Mr ostervy our board president Mr Osterman we have our fourth fourth Mr Mitch ulery we have our newest board member Mrs Rita Maria we have Mr mcgibbon who stood by us through all our long-term also thank you Mr mcgiven we have Miss Kelly Allen [Applause] so thank you all every year I make ornaments for our governing board and for our teachers for all of our staff members and this year I made the ornament that says this is us and it has an a teachers you know that our Dean for the year is this is us and when we say this is who we are this is who we serve this is what we do this is the greatness that we have so I waited to the last minute to make sure that we were going to have that a and we did it and in the back it says Colts 2022 so teachers we will be bringing these around I have them for board members and our parent advisory parents who are here as well please make sure you come and get them we also have for you boys and girls on the way out every single one of you is getting a candy cane and we want to thank our um the Madera church for Their donation of all the candy canes when I said we need help what can we do and they say I am a proud Cult of an a school [Applause] [Music] so what I would like to do if you need to have are Ward members and some of our parents at the entry at the exit ways to hand out the candy canes to the kids on their way out please that would be great and then I will have them exit in a organized fashion okay girls let's stand up and let's do colts Rock a one more time and I think they have another cheater right yeah yeah okay you could do uh me and you [Music] these are beautiful and you know what these are not just for me they're for all of us because we've earned it all together so thank you boys and girls you are awesome [Music] hey guys in real quick we could do any of this without Mr Rico it's uh one of the best things that's ever happened in this school um you guys well let's give it up [Applause] [Music] and we are trying to you [Applause] [Music] ready [Applause] all right [Music] [Applause] all right and then we're gonna have one more we really like to show our our student Talent so there's no cop was the name of the band so here we go [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] and I just found out that our board members Mr ulery and Mr mcgibbon were drummers so I think you're gonna have to battle with them at our town our student talent show not today not today but we'll have a little drama okay be ready for the talent show [Music] all right so we're going to do one more time we're gonna do call Rock a we'll do it a few times put your leaders if you can help me please then what we are going to do is our middle schoolers will exit out this door Elementary we'll enter exit out of this store so we can give you your candy canes and we will come around with your ornaments today okay are we ready we are so proud of you ready here we go hey foreign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music]
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
you're alive hey everybody I'll take these glasses off hey kids great to see you that was my disguise uh how is everybody doing it's so great to see you I'm here with my brother Rick hello and my what are you who are you I'm your nephew Adam hello Rick's son nice to meet you yeah so yeah great to see everyone great to see everybody um so we didn't get to do do you like how I'm kind of rocking this thing to the side I'll cover my baldness it's a little harder to cover my baldness so uh so we didn't do the Christmas carols unfortunately this year it just didn't work out we uh we had a ice storm in our area and so people couldn't get around safely so unfortunately would have been nice but just weren't able to do it so yeah I'm sure you missed our voice beautiful voice we did have a lot of fun and we'll plan to do it next year it just didn't work out this year and we thought we might do the Christmas carols uh now but Christmas is over right so it's weird so we thought we'd do it New Year's doesn't have the same you don't have the same time yeah yeah so boy lots of comments hi everyone Hi everybody so let's see so uh cool news just to let you know I uh kind of as a follow-up I my last day at my job was yesterday so um I'm excited about what the new year is going to bring for all of us uh I'm gonna be able to post more I've got uh a lot of cool things coming up um and it is thanks to you guys you know support and I appreciate that but I do have several sponsors I just want to run through them real quick lubriderm's been awesome I have the free TV project that's coming up I have Free Tax USA a lot of you guys asked me about how to do taxes I thought it was a perfect partnership so it's a great way and you can do your taxes for free uh and then firestone's been off awesome visible by Verizon and I have easy fix I'm going to be doing some cool things with easy fix I'm actually going to a show um so I'm going to appear at a show in Las Vegas uh end of January so that should be pretty fun and I got a couple videos uh with them as well so uh so we always like to ask where are you from I see you're making tons of comments already so good morning everybody good morning Phillip Italy I love it yeah ciao Mexico central Florida Florida Germany we have German Roots our mom's Iowa name was horse Korea wow they're cranking they built Arkansas do I pronounce that right Scotland Fayetteville Arkansas Chicago India we're going to miss Ethiopia obviously Oklahoma Marysville Finland Pluto somebody's here from Pluto now is that a planet uh Cuba Seattle Earth Poland are people just putting you know countries out there are you really from there Sweden local joke yeah okay so what I'm representing Travis yeah let's talk about Travis real quick oh you can go ahead uh yeah he had some uh minor surgery uh yesterday um and but he's doing well and uh he sounded great he uh sent us a picture after surgery and he actually looked more alert than the attendant they've been working all day he got in late because they were slammed but anyway he's doing good and this is in honor of uh him yeah so we missed his laugh so yeah we do we miss him laughing he's at home right now just I wish I was here I think it did countertop to not be here so uh let's see so we have a few dad jokes that you guys are not aware of okay okay so I'm trying to speak well we'll do a Christmas themed one okay what's the difference between a Christmas alphabet Rick and the regular alphabet don't take too long it's there's no l oh wow the Christmas alphabet has Noel I still didn't even get it after you said oh well I get it okay so what's the scariest part of owing Santa money oh the elves come after you that would be scary too okay he knows where you've been sleeping oh that is scary okay we'll move on all right all right so it's just the scariest thing about Santa in general even if you didn't owe him money that's fair that is fair uh let's see um where are we at so we made it I've got a dad joke oh oh Rick's got a dad joke so this okay all right these guys know I've never in my life been able to tell a joke so I'll probably blow this but I came up with this the other day um how is a wise counselor like an herb farmer boys for that farmer don't know they both have Sage advice oh no that's good well thank you well thank you big words in that that was good I know and they weren't even written down no right wow that's amazing uh you have a dad joke nope you're not a dad I'm not a dad yeah hopefully soon [Laughter] so uh one thing I thought would be fun was so how do you celebrate New Year's what do you guys do um one thing I would just say real quick when I lived with you yeah right um I remember uh The Simple Pleasures were always big because we didn't have a whole lot of money right he was part of it you gotta make it big right so I think you did a good job of making yeah stuff where you're not spend a lot of money but just having yeah having time together and making it yeah right just having fun with what you got Karen gets a lot of kudos for that for her always giving us good interesting stuff to eat and stuff but uh out in our place I have another Studio we're kind of out in the in the woods and so you get some people that save their fireworks from other times of the year and so you kind of hope that you don't have anything blown up next morning so you're there to protect your house yeah you're kind of like please don't blow up my house um so there's a lot of occasional big boom um just pots and pans right yeah just banging pots and pans together oh nice anymore the older we get the tougher it is to stay up yeah I can relate to that yeah yeah what about you well you guys probably did similar stuff yeah I don't really have Traditions with my wife we sometimes somebody will have a party and so we'd go to that or sometimes we'll just watch the stuff on TV like watch the celebration in Seattle or something we haven't done anything super special but yeah I don't know uh those are usually the two options nice the backup plan is the is the TV yeah there you go we're pretty excited we're an exciting Bunch yeah yeah we turn up the volume a little bit more than normal that's been left um shoot uh so we like to play Skip-Bo everybody skip bone skip oh it's an easy card game and oh yeah you guys told me that yeah so every year we uh gather around play Skip-Bo and we have the score sheets from the previous years and I'm usually the winner but uh what [Laughter] I pretty agree I got my wife and my son uh did you want to make an appearance or no sure yeah get in here so you probably none of you I don't think I've ever seen my son he just woke up so I don't have a hat there's Kyle it's my son he's home from Virginia yeah yeah I'm Kyle [Laughter] nice so you guys uh have met Christine of course because she's been a big part of uh my channel but there's Kyle awesome yeah that was his debut that was his debut he got all dressed up yeah so so I don't know if you make uh resolutions I think um you know it's kind of a tradition to make resolutions unfortunately a lot of people if you're normal you break them within a week so uh one thing one thing I would say though um it'd be good to yourself again you know be kind to yourself I think we can be Our Own Worst Enemy I was talking to a friend uh recently and we're he you know and somebody told him that you know if if you if somebody talked to you the way you talk to yourself you'd punch him in the nose because you know we can we can be our own worst critic so if you do have some resolutions and you you start out in the new year and don't keep them start over you know it's okay don't don't go okay well I just gotta wait till next year and I'm just gonna keep that works for you want to try it once a year right I don't know just that's that whole thing where you know if you set a goal and you you don't quite reach it that's okay at least you're you're aiming at something and you know be kind to yourself so yeah um do I have more dad jokes or well you know uh I talk about resolutions yeah but yeah so we so we in the past couple years my wife and I we don't do resolutions in the traditional sense what we do is we choose a word for the year and uh so she went to grad school to become a school counselor and in the process she learned all these different sort of uh activities exercises to help kids sort of resolve certain things in their lives right and so sometimes it's choosing a word of the year and there's a whole process you can go through it's not a big process but you can go search it on the internet you can find this word of the Year tool and basically it gives you uh you kind of write out or you choose words based on kind of what you're wanting uh to do in this new year and then you um you Whittle it down essentially until you find this one word so last year I had just been reading this book called How to break up with your phone and in reading that book I found out that there's so many things at your phone when you're just so attached to your phone you're really hurting your brain a lot and you're kind of hurting aspects of yourself they're on their phones right now yeah so don't give up on it now wait wait till this is more I'm gonna say more um but uh but so I I just wanted to to care for myself more and care for others more so my word of the year last year was nourish so I that was kind of so instead of making like a grand resolution like I'm gonna start going to the gym I gotta stop you for just a second so I don't lose it so Amber your wife making a comment we aren't boring Adam we are going to a New Year's Eve wedding today that's true there you go sorry I didn't mean to cut you off so but my word for the year was going to be boring but not anymore I guess not uh weddings um so so yeah we are going to a wedding today so congratulations Henry and Camilla uh all right congratulations but anyways we're uh when you choose a word then you're not like you're not attached to one idea of like what you have to do for that full year in terms of an activity or in terms of a new thing you're going to be doing uh like painting or something like that but but you can maybe you you transition from painting to drawing maybe you find a new and maybe it's just art is your your word of the year I don't know so this year I'm looking at maybe trust being a good word um because I'm also shifting my work from what I've been doing the past several years to something new and so I just want to trust the process I want to trust myself and I want to trust God and all that so if Trust might be my word this year banding some words around it could be give I want to be more giving well you're kind of running out of time so you got to come up with that word yeah it's true uh we'll be working on it tomorrow actually but yeah uh I I did a little homework oh okay on resolutions yeah um I like to think of them as goals maybe so yeah you know and the thing about New Year's I think the weird reason people do it is it gives you a starting date it's like okay I'll start then and then you kind of keep track of it it's kind of like starting a new school year or something so it's kind of a good thing the resolutions and I thought I looked up resolutions and uh words are interesting because sometimes you break them down yeah and so it's kind of uh trying to uh kind of reach a point where something is resolved um and uh resolved research result solve it again yeah yeah so that's um what are some years do you have any uh you're willing to share some resolutions yeah yeah I mean I always try to I kind of give myself a little bit of Grace around this time because my kids are home and so we tend to eat more and so right you don't want to get back in the um routine of now that especially since I've left my job now um I'm gonna plan to walk the dogs regularly you know we do it but it's kind of oh they need a walk and really we need it for our own health too and I just got to be better make better choices as far as my health is concerned I'm getting older you know right right so I gotta make sure that I you know sometimes it can get away from you oh yeah so I do want to yeah I want to eat healthier and all that but I also you know I think Life's a balance and I try to enjoy my kids company and kind of yeah maybe eat a little bit more while they're home because we're you know yeah a lot of times when you get together you're eating dinner or you're doing stuff like that right and rather than go I should do that kind of do it and then make up for it in the new year so yeah I'm usually pretty good about it too I think I get back on track yep and then Adam taught me how to paint so I'm planning to do more painting I'm looking forward to having the time to be able to do that I did it make I've done two yeah and I thought they both turned out decent so you know it's one of those things where I think the more you do it the better you get so yeah for sure just like anything right Adam you gotta well I choose words I haven't chosen my words oh that's it okay but uh trust give yeah okay we went through that I thought you actually had a like I want to improve on this or something oh no I'd like to improve on it okay yeah listening procrastinating oh procrastination none of you guys probably procrastinate no I don't know I put the pro in Pro Craftsman yeah but anyway try to you know follow through on if I thought yeah yeah you waited too long to say that you should have said that earlier you procrastinate oh okay all right okay you're right um so how are we doing that time oh we're doing good you know what I want to do what oh no you know I want to uh I want to actually appreciate stay in the moment more I want to appreciate the moment I can often look at like uh things like today's wedding you know I can think okay that's another thing on the calendar that I got to do that day or whatever like just different things that should be fun and should be enjoyable and I can I can guard my time too much and that's yeah and that's kind of where that giving and that's why I'm thinking about that word give for the year yeah but yeah I want to be more in the moment enjoy the people around yeah because we get so busy it's kind of like check that off check that out yeah it's like before you know it's like whoa did I do that I guess I did and he didn't even know it wasn't even there yeah exactly you didn't stay in the moment before right right or do you pay attention to my wisdom Wednesdays is that where you is that you've got that that idea from last Wednesday I did actually I did watch that and I thought you know what I'm gonna steal this it was uh enjoy the little things because one day you may look back and those are the big things right and it is true you got to slow it down and enjoy because we are a lot of times what's that I think it's a John Lennon quote where life is what happens while you're planning for tomorrow yeah yeah yeah it is true you got to make sure to yeah be in the moment yeah very good yeah I like that um so Dad joke all right yeah you didn't bring a bad joke even though I did warn you you were I have some I mean I have some right here on my app called Google just give me a second what do you call I don't think I used this one before I don't know what do you call a winter monster with a six-pack did I say this one before a winter monster with a six pack like muscle six Packers oh I know I know it's a a abdominal Stone oh wow [Music] thanks for all your kind comments by the way yeah sorry we should probably be reading them occasionally you guys are all so kind if the whole world was kind of just Community the world would be a better place yeah sure yeah um a Yeti cooler not a cooler Yeti maybe uh here's a good one okay you've got some now yeah okay what did the fishermen what did the fishermen say to the magician Cod any Cod oh God all right I'm done I hit my quota okay which days are the strongest which days of the week are the strongest Saturday and Sunday the rest are weekdays oh did you get both of those membership website or something like the abdominal what's the bicep say that no okay uh so one thing uh I wanted to touch on a little bit more we kind of glossed over last time if you're comfortable with it so is uh so you your recovery anniversary yeah uh was December 10th December December 7th was was when they I was in the hospital about three or four days before that and Britain and undergoing chemo leading up to that for a couple months and then went to the hospital and then I got Don's uh stem cells transplanted into my body on December 7th 2012.
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yeah yeah so it's been 10-year anniversary since then and then I was in uh speaking of New Year's um I spent New Years in the hospital that time because it's about a month recovery in the hospital yeah and then I got out um and then I had to go to another house so anyway for any of you guys who go through uh cancer or some sort of long-term uh disease like that or struggle whatever um I just want you to you know be encouraged and uh and I I had a lot of time to read my Bible I was in there and uh I I claimed a scripture claim in a script I don't know what that means but anyway one one verse kind of stuck out to me okay and it's Proverbs 21 31 and it says uh the horse is prepared for battle but the victory Belongs to the Lord and so what I took that to mean is I have my responsibility preparing the horse for battle I did what the nurses said to do even though I didn't want to drink more water drink more water Mr Kenny okay I'll drink more water and do all the a few of the things get up and walk Mr Kenny I'd get up and walk uh and so I took that as my responsibility I was going to do that and then leave the results up to the Lord if he chose to take me home then then I knew my family was in good shape because they all trust in the Lord and so uh either way it was going to turn out fine but as it turns out the victory he gave it to me in this particular uh case so if you're going through something please uh uh you know do your part my own thoughts are and I could hope that you have it is that you take it to the Lord and uh restaurant you know give it to him and uh and take some rest leave it in his hands so anyway that's kind of what I wanted yeah well thanks for sharing that so uh yeah so Rick had leukemia to just for those that don't know and it was a pretty scary time um yeah it kind of came out of the blue and yeah like those things tend to do and um but now you know it's like wow that it's almost like it didn't happen sort of way but then there's times that something will bring back the memory I did uh I think I have more anxiety now um I'll blame it on the drugs I my memory is not as good I'll blame it on the drugs oh wait the drugs before my no why no no no um but anyway so uh um yeah thanks for um mentioning that you know praise God it's been 10 years yeah and so for those of you who that don't know when um you know when I was younger I went to live with Rick and Karen when I was 14.
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and so Rick and I are really close because of that I'm almost and with that almost kind of like we're like yeah sometimes I'll call Adam Rob yeah yeah he does is that a compliment Adam are you going uh it depends on the day so um we talked about Travis's surgery too the different things that uh we're all going through you know everybody there's always something it seems like and then our nephew um our nephew uh has struggled with um some sort of brain cancer a tumor on his brain yeah just recently he yeah had some he's been battling it for a while yeah removed you know when you're working around your the brain of course you got to be real careful removing tumors and stuff so it's a tough process uh but he's been doing well in controlling it after the initial removal of most of it then he's been chemo and other things so he's been uh dealing with that but uh apparently developed a little complication but he's doing well yeah so anyway those are kind of on our because that we just found out about that yesterday that it kind of came back and yeah had some bleeding and so yeah something something he's my godson too so um anyway just prayers for prayers for him uh let's see do we want to try to sing a song or sure oh we could try do we want to sing a song you know if you guys sing along so you can drown us out we got to get in closer dad and I are getting serious here what is going on here you got a harmonize harmonize plus we got to read the paper yeah so do we do 12 Days of Christmas I I think so let me try that that was kind of a big hit last year okay and now we're gonna try to do do we want to do this for New Years is it differently you just gotta it's a first day of Christmas first day of New Year yes that would be the only time does it come up later where you where you do that so uh I don't know I don't remember every every time every verse you say on the second day of Christmas so we have to do New Year's do you think we can pull it off can we substitute that well if we don't it'll be funny so we can try Okay uh so who wants what are we reading I could do uh no I was just reading that one long one there gal in Ukraine so yeah my prayers are with Ukraine yeah sure for whoever's involved in all that yep so yeah do we wanna just get just I mean it's 12 so we usually get four cards right okay and who wants what let's start bing bing bing okay so I get the first one does that mean I always have to end every verse with the Partridge yeah and so every time as we come back around we gotta yeah oh my goodness well we'll see how this goes yeah this might go make this go viral yeah all right uh on the first day of New Year's my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree now what um the second day of New Year's my true love gave to me two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree on the third day of Christmas New Year's all right on the first day of New Year's birthday on the third day of New Year's all right cut we rehearsed this on the third day of New Year's my true love gave to me all right Three French Hens two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree on the fourth day of New Year's my true love game TV four calling Birds Three French Hens two turtle doves and a partridge and a pear tree uh-oh on the fifth day of New Year's my true love gave to me five gold rings four calling Birds Three French Hens two turtle doves and a partridge and a Harry I think I have this part last year too on the sixth day of New Year's my true love gave to me 60 Lane five gold rings four calling Birds Three French Hens two turtle doves and a porridge in a pear tree on the seventh day of New Year's my true love gave to me seven swans of swimming excuse [Music] to turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree on the eighth day of New Year's my true love gave to me eight maids of milking seven swans are swimming six geese a length five gold rings four calling Birds Three French and two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree on the ninth day of New Year's my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing eight maids of milking seven swans are swimming six geese laying five gold rings four calling Birds Three French and two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree what are we on the 10th day of New Year's my true love gave to me ten Lords of Leaping nine ladies dancing eight maids of milking sevens wants us swimming six he's a laying five gold rings and two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree is it me yes I'm getting tired on the 11th day of New Year's my true love gave to me eleven Pipers piping ten Lords of Leaping why not lying ladies nine ladies dancing eight maids and milking seven swans are swimming six keys are laying five of glorys four calling Birds Three French and two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree on the final day of New Year's my true love gave to me 12 drummers drumming 11 Pipers piping ten Lords of Leaping nine ladies dancing eights made some milking seven swans swimming excuse me Glory [Music] four calling Birds Three French Hens two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree wow that's the most reading I've done I know I was getting tired the headache oh so hopefully you all enjoyed that I think we lost about 50 yeah there's nobody there what where'd Diego Go I don't blame them so let's see we did that nice thank you thank you guys uh that was a lot of fun yeah yeah that has to be a tradition I think we have to always include that love it yeah in every live throughout the year every live video you do yeah no matter the month okay sounds good are we gonna pop do you think no oh uh well we're well we are at 8 30.
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so do we want to hook up how long that take like 15 minutes to do that yeah uh let's see where do pirates get their hooks okay there's got to be a store there some store second hand store second hand that was pretty good all right so I guess we're gonna wrap up huh yeah this has been a lot of fun uh thank you guys for for joining joining us and sorry we didn't do the the Christmas carols but we'll definitely start doing that and we're going to do some more lives trying to figure that out uh what what my schedule looks like I wanna I'd like to on a regular basis maybe once a month we do a live um so you guys kind of know because it's a little difficult to get the word out I feel like with um with my different platforms because I'm on so many different platforms and each platform doesn't want you telling them to go to another platform and so when I post on Instagram about a live on YouTube I don't think they like it that much that much which is understandable and so I'm trying to figure that out but uh anyway thank you guys so much for everything looking forward to the new year we got some cool things planned uh lots of sponsorships and lots of fun things and I'll be be able to post more now because I can put some energy into this because right you know for the last two and a half years I've been actually the camera's up there for the last two and a half years I've been spinning plates as fast as I can and I'm looking forward to to all that we're going to be able to accomplish and then you know looking forward to maybe traveling a little bit and getting to meet some of you um that's in the plans but still still early still trying to see what that looks like so do we want to say happy New Year oh yeah and with that okay yeah one last thing anyway or something I've been wanting to say is that you know I go through Rob's Channel and read the comments and what have you uh and so you guys are awesome but there is the comments and I know Rob can attest to this and whoever reads the comments some of them are heartbreaking I'll tell you the truth uh what so many some of you young people are going through uh where uh Dad or Mom or whoever kind of uh didn't do their job uh and uh my heart goes out to you it truly does but I want to say and Rob has said this in the past there's a future right hang in there you do the right thing uh you know you do what's right and uh and leave the rest to uh you know that's on them okay you do the rep there's get you know this thing the young guy that's you know Grandma steps in or whoever it's it's awesome uh for those of you who are doing the right thing hang in there yeah yeah I think that's true yeah I mean if we're gonna go talk about that a little bit I thought we were ending up and we're gonna oh okay okay sorry yeah but yeah so I will say this and I've shared this a lot about forgiveness and moving on from your past you know if you if you've gone through some stuff you know everybody's gone through different things to some extent and um and I've shared my story of you know holding on the unforgiveness for a while and then letting go of it was freeing for me and I and I so I want to encourage people to be able to forgive and even forgive yourself too if you've done some stuff that you're not proud of uh you know we gotta be able to move on move forward right you can't keep dragging the past into the future it's not beneficial and then you know a victim card I talk about a victim card and you know and I had a victim card you know that I played and it felt good when people would kind of feel sorry for you but it wasn't productive you know and so once you can kind of break free from that boy then it's life is pretty exciting because then you're able to you know you're not you're not taking up mind space with stuff that's non-productive it doesn't help you know you can learn from the past but don't keep bringing the hurts from the past into the future so yeah anyway thank you guys uh so much as we close out here we got some whoa dude [Laughter] [Music] Happy New Year what do we blow the microphone wish you guys nothing but the best um God bless you guys bye [Laughter]
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and you are alive from the Board of Education organization meeting 2023 my name is Mike morske I'm a school business administrator board secretary and this is a unique meeting because it begins without board leadership or board committee chairs they have to be re-established at every organization meeting so we will have an agenda item for the nomination process for president that I will open up until I chair or president is elected and then it will reside on the rest of the day so um we will now pull the meetings order the New Jersey open public meetings law has enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice and to attend the meetings of bodies of public bodies at which time any business affecting their interests is discussed and acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Board of Education policy 0162 is Board of Education with the founder board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the board office and at the Bound Brook High School and mailed in facts to The Courier News Bound Brook Maryland clerk South Bound Brook Board of Education and any person who has requested individual notice he paid the request for the fee if you'll please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance pledge of allegiance to the pride of life [Music] foreign [Music] and also for membership to the board of education for a one-year vacancy term Mr Donald Balmer who's in the audience tonight as soon as Mr Voldemort is furnished with evidence of completing the criminal background check he will be sworn in at the very next meeting congratulations thank you and to the members who are re-elected congratulations and moving right along item number seven on the agenda is elections of president so at this time I will open the nominating process for the election of a word present yes procedural method I would like to now swear in the following members if you could please join me at the podium Mrs musin Mr Dawson and Mr Bowman immigrants does Miss Lima have to get sworn in as well her name is great thank you foreign [Music] for the office of member of the board of education for the office of member of the Board of Education and that I am not disqualified as a voter that I am not qualified as a voter pursuant to RS 19 colon 4-19 nor disqualified due to conviction of a crime no disqualified due to conviction of a crime or offense listed in or offense listed in njs 18a colon 12-18a12-1 and that I will Faithfully congratulations [Applause] [Music] oh okay okay so now we'll go on to item number seven election of president with anybody local [Music] Mr Bell here Mr Dawson here here here Mrs miss high here here we have a farm present for this evening and at this time I will now open up nomination for board president is there any member of the Board of Education that would like to nominate a member for president of the Board of Education yes Mr zapko who do you nominate Mr Januzzi does not require a second would anybody else like to nominate any other member for board president none I will now close the nomination process for president with a roll call with um the election of Mr Richards University as Board of Education president please respond yes to affirm your vote for Mr museum for president Mr Bowden yes Mr gossip yes yes Miss Lima yes this is upcoming yes Miss moosen yes and miss high yes and Mr Jones upstate congratulations Mr Januzzi on your election as board president uh so we'll move on to item number eight the election of the vice president at this moment I will open the floor for nominations thank you and I found a mic very official thank you [Music] any other nominations all right Eric Johnson Drew can we have everyone affirm with a yay or may vote uh Royal cultures a roll call for the election of Mr Michael Bell is the board vice president Mr Bowden Epstein Mr Dawson yes Miss Casino yes Miss Lima yes en yes yes Miss hi yes hi Mr Januzzi yes Ocean passes congratulations Mr Bell thank you okay item number nine we're up to the code of ethics which I believe Mr gorsky is furnished to all of the members um I don't know do we have to read this during the meeting no just acknowledge that it was French to all the members and they could please sign the receipt of the document and get back to me that's great okay so we are moving on to resolutions the first one is a great question we need to read the most separately no uh Mr President yes sir uh everything is a uh starting with item 10 is a consent protocol awesome okay so uh for the members everything that is listed during resolutions which hopefully prior to the meeting you've had an opportunity to review uh are going to be discussing voted upon all at the same time uh just to help us save the number of yeses that we have to go through so what I will do now is entertain a motion to open the discussion we'll have an opportunity to discuss any items that you would like to and then we'll close it into a book emotionally okay thank you Mr Bell the second second thank you Mr zoko now we are open for discussion okay yeah the only one that I wanted to bring up actually has to do with our schedule for the coming years uh can you note that the number of meetings have been produced as we have discussed to one per month for the most part uh the only monster to look at specific dates for are March May and November uh the tentative times that we had included in item number two under meeting dates would conflict with the southbound Board of Education meetings um you know my preference I'm sure this Lima's preference would be that we make it uh possible for her to attend our meetings as well so I would ask that we move those meetings either a week prior to or a week after um the the dates that are listed on the agenda tonight if possible it was March May and November so I think we generally settled on Wednesday evening for our meetings um obviously this one's going to deviate from the third Wednesday of the month uh or I apologize those three DBA from that pattern but does anybody have any reservations uh about changing those particular meetings the only question I have is it was the week before the week after so the only yes but in November that puts us on the 22nd which I think is the day before Thanksgiving I'm not sure how anybody feels about participating in the meeting that evening but it might be a tall last to get everybody and then accept your November we're saying March 22nd May 24th November would move up to the to the eighth not sure my calendar seems very open in November yes November 8th is over okay is that the Wednesday before teacher convention in November and it is School we do half day I mean I don't know if anybody cares about that if we still want to have the meeting that night it's a fair question so it probably is I would imagine the the date for the teacher's convention is and so that's the week I mean the alternative is we could move off of Wednesday and maybe just shift it Thursday the day after we had originally anticipated so on 750 .
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welcome everybody to the great Lawrence technical school committee for January 3rd 2023. um I'd like to call the pledge of allegiance to the flag please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and a moment of silence please thank you yeah so can we call the roll call please Miss Fitzgerald here Miss disler Mr Hayden yeah Mr Cirillo Miss mammal present Mr LaMontagne is the absent at the moment I like to have a motion to accept the minutes from November 30th a second any discussion so we moved Finance report I'm sorry we have to take a vote on it I'm sorry please there's two sets of minutes too Miss mammal Fitzgerald yes Miss Tesla Mr Hayden yes Mr Cirillo discussion discussions vote please Mr Cirillo Miss mammo Miss Fitzgerald yes Miss disler Mr Hayden yes Finance report cash balance report Mr Stefano I think you're doing that yes I am thank you uh cash balance report as of December 23rd 2022 the account balance on November 29th 2022 was 3 million 449 311 spot 21 we had deposits from November 30th to December 23rd 977 664 spot 26.
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if that's okay for everybody yeah we said the day before the teachers convention no because went on to school graduation right this week I think in the proposed schedule that's why we have teacher conferences as well for k6 um okay so you want to move that one to the 16th yeah to keep everything simple can we just say that from March May and November we would take we would accept the dates that are in here but move them to the Thursday rather than Wednesday it would be Thursday the 23rd hold on hold on isn't that wouldn't that be the 16th was it was it not originally the 15th okay okay um so so that's Thursday March 23rd Thursday May 18th and Thursday November 16th the exception on those three in this schedule would be as presented that sounds good to me before we finish that item is everybody a comfortable with that or anything else you want to review um okay okay so that is meeting dates is there anything else included in this resolution that any of the members would like to discuss instructions all right hearing no other questions please yes sir Mr Bell yes Mr Dawson yes Miss Casino yes Miss Lima yes Mr zip code yes that's most important yes it's high yes and Mr Januzzi yes support president motion passes thank you uh at this point we are open to the public for any comments online it's refreshing there are no responses Mr vulner anything you'd like to add at this point all right at this point then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn motion thank you Mr Bell second [Music] thank you so much for
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transfers out of 500 000 to the mmdt less payroll on December 8th of 1 million sixteen five twenty five oh nine payroll on December 22nd of 976 845 11. you had warrant number 19 on December 2nd of 11 741.50 warrant number 20 and 21 on December 7th for 736 273 spot 94 warrant number 22 and 23 on December 19th for 1 million 148 6 17 24 and wallet number 24 on December 21st of 1032.84 leaves us with the book balance on December 23rd 2022 of 35 939 spot 75 and a corresponding bank balance on the same date of 2 million three eighty seven 371 spot 14. mmdt account on November 29th 2022 of 8 million nine hundred thousand one fifty two spot 36. we had of 500 000 transfer from the main Ops account and interest posted for November of 28 956 spot 12 leaves us with an mmdt balance on December 23rd 2022 of 9 million 429 108 spot 48 and total operating cash balance of nine million 465.048 spot 23.
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thank you can have a motion to accept that please Mr Hayden Mr Cirillo yes Miss Mamo yes Miss Fitzgerald yes and Mr SLA cash that's in the packet I just actually passed it out revolving fund report any questions on that budget report informational no vote let me get down to Communications donations I'm still avoid what do we have for donations no donations articles no articles no public participation report from superintendent director so in your in your package you got a copy of the admissions report uh as of right now we've gotten uh 1179 applicants and have officially verified the information for 1044 students up to this time um so in terms of admissions we're moving quickly uh with the number that appears that it's going to be coming in higher than last year it's higher than it was at this time last year so we're actually doing very well with admissions at this point and family handbook for child care so and you pack it you got a copy of the family handbook for the new child care center called the little reggies it's in there for you to review and next week for you to vote on it I thought you would need some time to review the Pat the whole handbook and then next week any questions or concerns you have we can review that at our next meeting we'll bring it up as a for a vote at our next meeting we'll give you a couple weeks to go through it and also the proposed costs which this is all a draft right now but for also looking at the draft costs we'll be able to uh take your questions and concerns at that time as well yes I I did read the entire thing and if I had questions prior to the next meeting would it be better for me to reach out to the director or to you I you reach out to me thank you out of state travel uh out of state travel for Jason Rivera to travel to the Hyatt Place Atlanta for training for property administration of our virtual desktop infrastructure total cost was five thousand seven hundred and ninety six dollars and 39 cents can I have a motion on that please let a vote Miss Tesla Mr hatem yes Mr Cirillo Miss marmal yes Miss Fitzgerald yes um Co-op report Mr LaVoy so in your package you have a copy of uh this number of students who are on Co-op for each program at this time we have 177 students out working at this time of uh approximately a little over 400 students so Co-op is continuing to increase each week and you can see where health assistant has the largest are actually medical assistant that's 31 looks like 31 students out there 22 for health assistance so the numbers are strong particularly in the medical assistant in automotive is very good as well like to go 15.
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