Um that's why it's handwritten. Um but uh so no judgment call in there. I'm just attempting to fit things together. Um you will need to decide that. I would recommend interviews of of somewhere around an hour and you'll want to consider how many you would want to actually have. Um Mr. Chair, it's obviously entire entirely under the perview of the committee as to how you make your selection um for who you will interview. Um I will offer this that generally my recommendation when I am asked by a committee how to um at least start making a decision is to do so with a straw poll which is to say every committee member raise your hand if this is someone that you want to say go through the names alphabetically that the reason I say that is it does have a way of very quickly sorting out if there are people who the committee is just simply not interested in seeing at all or who they're quite interested in seeing together as a group.
So, um we're getting close and we're down to almost um two board meetings after this with May in June. And I want to remind the board that there's a curriculum committee meeting on April 30th at 9:00 a.m. Is that here, John? It will be at the excuse me, it will be in high school. It will be at the high school.
So, um there at one point there was a hearing um that um heard from the homebuilders and a handful of other advocates. You know, some uh in support, some against um homebuilders advocating to not do the 2021 and stick to the 2024, I think largely as a delay tactic. Um and there was going to be a second hearing to hear from more advocates. and the leadership of JPAR essentially um uh found that there was not the political appetite so they canceled the hearing and I think is just essentially waiting for those session days to time out. So um I don't want to get fully ahead of the process. Something could change but um pending any crazy political changes at the state level. Those should move through um you know shortly after the legislature resumes from their their current spring break. And I'm the one who added in that the commercial codes uh go into effect later this month.
We could raise it 10% or we could reduce it 10% when May 1st comes. It was a vote that gave us the authority to submit it to the county for compliance purposes. And then, guess what? Two major things changed. Two major things changed. On Friday the 28th, we received a broadcast from the New Jersey Department of Education telling us that we're eligible to apply for additional money. Get there in a second. That we're eligible to apply for additional money above the 2%. The following Monday, it was Eid. I was off and my phone started blowing up because Governor Murphy released a press release about the federal government rescending ESSER funds. ESSER funds that we were promised and that have already been spent on major capital projects going on in our district right now. So, let's start with the first one. Here it is. I don't need you to read it, but let me explain to you very simply what it says.
They said, "Okay, well, this is what you could raise your taxes up to in order to make up the difference, right?" Um, which we know our deficit this year was it was $7.1 million by itself, right? And then um you also had the the capital projects that we're talking about which are obviously dire needs for the district. Uh that being said though um you know when it comes to taking a look at what we're going to do tonight right I don't think that we should be looking back to the boards of education's decisions 10 15 20 years ago and what they decided to tax residents at based on the information they had at the time and then saying okay well now we have to meet up to that level that they chose not to go up to because again it wasn't our decision decision to decrease our revenue by the $7 million that we lost from S2.
And then Arizona Healthpool, that's a new trust that's starting beginning 71 of 25. It does partner with Blue Cross Blue Shield. I'll show you a proposal that we received from them is coming in at 26.7% increase. And then Cairo Health of Arizona, this is an established trust too. They do partner with United Healthcare. They declined to do to a quote due to the concerns around the previous high-cost claimants. Cobalt Health is another new trust with programs beginning 712 partnering with Blue Cross Blue Shield. We received a proposal for them and they're at 38.6% % of an increase. And then there's Valley School Trust Insurance, which is established for much larger school districts. So, taking a look, here's just what a a proposal looks like from Cobalt Health at 38.6% increase. Plans are similar to what you currently have with ASBAT. They offered as match as close as we possibly could.
Snowflakes is lower than ours. Um we have older buildings. We have some old buildings and it takes a lot to maintain old buildings. And we're constantly fighting with the school facilities board to get more money, but they don't have any money either. So, we're just going to have to do what we have to do to keep our buildings functional and working and the roofs not leaking. Had a flood and a fire in the same year. So, that that could possibly Yeah. All right. So, this when I saw this, I was like, dang it. So, let me kind of put it in context. So, we have something called the chart of accounts and the auditor general gives us this booklet and says you need to code everything to these certain codes. Well, in 2024, they made a new rule and said that we needed to break out certain types of pay to teachers.
So when we're sharing our average teacher salary, we're calculating it at a point in time that we believe it most represented represents a stability in our teacher population at that point in time. When we're talking about the annual financial report, we're putting in the cumulative of as teachers come and go, you know, we're putting in the total amount that reflects the end ofear total of all of these buckets. So they're never going to match is my point. Um but but we've been trying to do it with fidelity and you can see that at Gilbert we are at least explaining how we're calculating um and what what's included or not included. So um I have a question. So from a learning standpoint for me, I've been looking at these reports now, you know, what four or five months. And I was just wondering, is there a way that we could get kind of a one-page wonder sheet of whatever line items and we could sit down and talk about it because I know it's going to be a lot.
But I don't Yeah, I I I I think there's a lot of gaps. There's definitely some pros and cons. You know, I did a little research on it. Got some pros and cons, but I'm not going to go into a lot of details here, but there's definitely some pros and cons. And I heard a lot of the cons and I heard a lot of the pros, but but I would personally would want a little bit more information. I see you use an example. I think Northbrook. Um there are some districts that do that. Typically districts will do that if they're trying to attract employees. That's not been an issue for us particularly. And then I heard specifically uh you know sports who maybe have a athlete out there that's the and that particular athlete parent work for the district and there's a chance that we can use a good athlete but I think it need to encompass not only the athlete athletic portion but students in general that's what we're going to get you know we're going to we want this if we open it up it'll be students in general but from the monetary portion of it.
type of games, but So, were were you good at this? What was your position? What did you like to do? No, I I'm I can't aim, which is kind of a as you can see, if you can't aim, you're probably not very good. Got it. So, that would be Okay. But I know what to do. I just can't do it. Kind of like sports now. Like I have the knowledge. I wish I had back when I was 17. Your mind knows what to do, but your body can't do it. Yep. I hear you, brother. Yep. I hear you there. Yep. All right. So, right now, Norwell is still holding. Oh, man. They are just They're taking it to us right now, aren't they? At the moment. Yep. We We've got to get control quickly here. All right. But I, you know, I got faith in them.
But again, that is entirely up to the committee and I will I will stay here until we do that and then I'll talk to you about interview questions and I'm prepared to keep track if you'd like me to too. Thank you. Yes, please. So, we should go through one by one if that is the will of the committee. You want to start if you want to do it by stroke. Are we referencing people by name or initials? So, I would what I would do is I would actually my recommendation Mr. through the chair of the committee would be that I would simply name them people by last name and you raise your hand if you someone that you would like to bring in. All right. Um we can do that. I've got the list well the files in front of me. It's sorted alphabetically so that's fine.
So, I'll take any questions out of the superintendent's office at this time. Any questions for the superintendent? I know. Is Russell Bush online? Russell, I don't mean to. Uh, do you have any questions for the superintendent? I do not. Sorry. That was camera off. Muted. Okay. Uh, hearing no questions, we'll move to the assistant superintendent report. Mr. Bishop. Sure. Thank you, Chair Daniels. Uh, it's it's great to be able to see so many folks from our middle school community here tonight. Uh, just a few highlights from this last month and some of the work that we've been able to do from the district perspective and in collaboration with the middle school. Uh, myself, Mr. more missini and Mr. Tracy had the pleasure of presenting at the uh CAS conference which is connect Connecticut association of schools uh leadership conference and we uh held a presentation on uh using using metrics to be able to move mountains making making meaning of metrics to move mountains.
Those did make it through during the lame duck session last year. Um and um uh later this month they formally go into effect. Um I'm not an expert on them, but they do include solar readiness. It doesn't mandate solar, but um there has to be some planning around making sure that there is, you know, like rooftop solar potential um and connectivity and whatnot. Um yeah, I saw something about that too and it's another one of those once it gets adopted it's that they go they in effect three months afterwards so that should be um or that's something different but yeah so be looking out for it all. Um the only other thing Yeah. Go ahead. Can I ask a quick question? And maybe this is part this is part of the um you know in terms of building out some of the the incentive discussion is one of the things I imagine there's going to be some gaps in adoption of the codes and and so part of moving forward for this I would imagine is there's probably going to be quite a bit of capacity building you know not only at the state level but through different professional organizations and trades and things like that.
It told us Clifton is eligible to raise taxes above the 2%. As much as you need to bring your budget up to your local fair share. And when I show you what that number means, you will be word I used last month flabbergasted. State says we are one of the cities where according to New Jersey, not Danny Roberts, according to the DOE says Clifton does not pay enough in its local fair share. So this year and this year only, you can raise taxes above 2% till you get to your fair share. I'll show you that number shortly. That was number one. Actually, no. Here it is. Go back to the beginning lesson, folks. Adequacy budget. 11,000 students times the base times the weight of the types of students gives you is is one half of the equation. The other half is what your district can afford, the difference you get in state aid.
So, there has to be some kind of a middle ground in where we're finding uh you know, where we're going to take care of what we need to take care of as regards to this budget and plan for future budgets. Also asking the question, do we really need the full $15 million in additional levy to accomplish that? I I have a quick question to to add on to this. Does any of the admin or you know really anybody if they could fill in how much additional tax dollars on the average assessed home were added as a result of S2? So since 2018, how much just for the school board's perspective, right, on how much we tax the average assessed home has that gone up by? If anybody has that number, you know, that'd be that'd be great. We'd have to run an analysis on that.
You have a high deductible health plan at a $2,000 deductible. the PO with a 750 deductible and a PO with 250. Taking your current population that you have in each of those plans and and the based on the rates, that's where we come up with the 38% um increase for that plan design. And then then Arizona Healthpool little lower but a 26 7% increase. Again, their high deductible health plan was a 2150 deductible. PO at 750 and a PO 500. So again, taking that same participation and putting in gives us that increase. Something new that we met when we met with these new um emerging trusts don't also have the capability of all the additional benefits that you do have with ASBY, the programs that will go into um the hinge hell, the biometric screenings, since they are newly up and running, they haven't established partnerships with those vendors yet.
Um, for instance, if they're doing um curriculum work, then we needed to code it to a different code. If they were teaching on their prep, we needed to code it to a different code. If we if they were doing, let's say, something non-instructional, taking tickets, we needed to code it to a different code. If they were coaching, we needed to code it to a different code. So, what's happened is this this said $64,000 yes last year, and that's why it's down that $7,000. It's because before we were able to code everything in one group. Now we have to code everything in a we have to code all everything separately and they're looking at that one specific code for teacher pay and that's so it's really semantics because we're still doing it but that's just from year to year but it's the same for everybody in the state.
But ideally, what I would like to be able to see is trending over the last 8 to 10 years of teacher salary, how much we're spending per kid for the classroom, administration, um, buildings, classrooms being utilized, classrooms that are un not utilized, transportation, all of it. Because if we're looking at it over the course of 8 to 10 years, it will help get a snapshot of kind of just overall how we're doing. because for me looking at it like in this vacuum it's really hard for me to get a really big picture. Does that make sense? Um that that absolutely does. Um that's what we're trying to do with these trends. We are trying to do that with these trends. So these are large buckets um that are based upon function like what they're used for. Um so um and that's what the transportation too.
There's still some gaps that we need to figure that out if we want to move forward. And it was just to make it legal for per the IHSA. That's the because what was the ISA was that policy predicated on sports driving it? Yeah, because the IHSA only focuses on Oh, sports. Okay. Well, not just sports, but certain activities as well. But that's that was why. Yeah. because they have that and to make it you know and and one thing I'll just say the cons and again predicated on we have had a lot of public relations issues a lot of button heads with the residency over the many years as Jamie alluded to and one of the cons here it says uh equity and fairness concerns and definitely impact fundings but again some pros were stronger community ties uh boasting local enrollment, employees moral moral or morale and job satisi uh satisfication.
I got faith them. I think they they can they can turn this around. I'm not I'm not giving up the ship. No, this is still the first round. So, we got best of five. This is all right. But looks like we're about not gonna get through this one. So, one of one of the things that Norwell does that's a little different is they tend to have the same guys, the same characters each round. So, we switch some of our characters around. Like we were seeing Aiden played a character called Reaper, then he played a character called Ash. Norwell tends to stick with the same. Okay. So anyway, here here's the highlight of this is like the the the u the highlight of the first round. So this is showing one of Norwell's guys who this is the ultimate we sort of talked about and in this ultimate this character has the ability it both heals and does damage.