One of those two things. And again, we're in um we're in negotiations right now with that as well too. But it won't impact the student calendar as well. So is that why the 25th of August is held open? I just historically speaking, we've started school on a Wednesday. Yep. That's exactly I mean on a Tuesday. Wednesday. Yep. That's exactly why that um to Mike's pleasure, we can stop the kids even earlier and we'd be back in teacher would be back in on the 25th as a first day. Um or it would be also on the last day which would be moving it down to June 25th. And all that information is on the back as well too. Um we put the number of school dates on all that information. We just really feel like it's already April. We need to get this calendar approved so parents and families can do their planning um in plannifications during the February and April breaks when we have them.
That's the union they belong to. Can I have a motion please? Thank you Peggy. Second. Thank you, Felicia. We have a first and a second on the floor. Any uh any further debate? All those in favor? I opposed at 70. Any objections to uh adjourning? Then we walk out. We adjourn at 8:20. Thank you very much.
Um I don't think the city can proceed without a franchise unless it's not using any gas. Clearly that's not going to be the situation in 2035. So I'm not asking for a response now, but I'm just confused by the comment. And so maybe in some scenario we can have a discussion um regarding the height bonus that Commissioner Murski brought up. Um I'm very familiar with this. I've been tracking it actually termed a height exception. It's section 5184 of the UDC. So far um 129 129 South University 19 stories 1208 South University 17 stories have taken advantage of it. 611 church, 19 stories, 1313 brown court, seven stories in D2 zoning. They've indicated they will. This is kind of a title wave. Um, this wasn't a factor before because the limiting factor on height was never a formal height limit. It was the floor area ratio, but council repealed that in January 2024.
I don't mind doing that. So, I'm I'm pretty sure Mr. Tabicanin can clarify this, but there is like a statutorial date where the budget has to be passed by something by the governor and the legislature. I'm assuming it has to do with tax purposes and getting everything ready for the July 1 uh payout. So, we get paid twice a month from the city on taxes and uh this and once a month, I believe like on the fourth of every month from the state for state aid. So, they have to know what they're doing to be able to get their ducks in a row. So that's why the budget is due first or second week of May, something like that. I don't know the number off the top of my head. The $20 million shortfall that you're talking about this evening is not a creature of the New Jersey uh state government, it's a creature of the federal government.
It's always going to be something of course, but since I've been on the board, we haven't said a single thing about test scores. We haven't said a single thing about curriculum really, you know, all these other things, all this other business that I would love to get to as a board where we're not overshadowed by like the budget situation. And if this gives us a chance to be able to do that, I think we should strongly consider it. And again, there's no guarantees, right? But it puts us in a really good spot to not be able to to have to fight this fight every year. But I don't understand why just taking half does not put us into a good spot. And and I'd also like to just be a voice for the other side. when you talk about healing that additional money that you're costing no to c to certain demographics there there was a time for me that if I suddenly had a $200 increase I wouldn't have been able to buy groceries and there are a lot of people that live that way and we have to take them I mean as a board yes we are here to administer to the students and correct and the teachers but also the taxpayers it's the entire community that elects and we have to think about the impact on all of them.
That's fine. We'll take a we'll take a take a break. Okay. Good night. Thank you. You have what? Oh, okay. Okay. I didn't have the answer when you asked me, so Okay. Okay. Thank you. Can we make because I gave them the wrong information. And I think the the location might be Let me see. I don't know if it was updated. Let me see. Ding ding ding. Put it in the cabinet. Cabinet meeting. Yeah. April 20th. Cabinet meeting. 8th grade graduation um May 20th. It's going to be at 4:30 p.m. The promotion, right? Promotion is 4:30. 4:30 p.m. And then the high school 4:30 p.m. Uh and that's going to be at the intermediate gym. And then uh the high school uh it's at 5 it's at 5:30 and it's here in the boardroom. I already reserved the room with them. 5:30 p.m. Mhm. And then it's going to be here in the boardroom.
And right here in Wells County. Right here in Wells County. Right here in Wells County. At the center of Indiana esports where where um where of course the Adams Wells internet is right here in Wells County. Yes. If you want to That's adamswwells.com. Yep. I believe uh Norwell uses Adams Wells for their internet. So, they're probably playing on an Adams Wells connection as well. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Maybe Norwell or maybe Adams Wells could turn that off for us. Hey, if needed, I like where your head's at right now. I like where your head's at. Not Mr. Dailyaly, I'm sure. Arrange it. Yeah. So, right now here, Norwell's up 6439. It's real close. We got to the first one to get to 100%. Right. Correct. Yeah. Hey, we got to get possession. Yep. Yeah. Cuz Norwall has it right now. Y it's all right. We're turning.
Um but we think it's important to get this approved. We're already working on 26 27 so we have two years done. So we don't always have to play. We're trying to get it done before before we also in past years I mean I think we I think there's been some of the stuff for teachers prior week. Is that I think that's true. That's all laid out um in the weeks of that week, the week of August 25th. Yeah. No, I'm just saying historically speaking, not last year then, but I I feel like it was a prior week as well. New staff orientation. Yeah. Oh, maybe that's all that will be taking place before even school opens up for everybody else. All right. So, this is our our calendar. This is the professional learning days. We heard loud and clear from families and school about that the the multiple half days which is reminding tomorrow was a professional learning day as well too.
So now we're if developers want to build higher, they just have to um show that they're all electric or all electric ready. I have proposed at planning commission that since this is an incentive that seems to be coming more of a loophole that this be toughened to include affordable housing as well as electrification. Um so far no developer has taken advantage of the affordable housing height exception. So, um, planning commission hasn't acted on this, but I think there's a lot of thought and action that needs to go into reforming this particular aspect of the uniform development code unified. So, uh, I'm probably out of time. Maybe I'm already muted, but anyway, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion. I look forward to more along these lines and have a good night. you. Um, no further callers. Commissioner Marcy, did you want to Yeah. to uh comment on the comments from uh uh Ken Garber?
Um so while it may be that there's an appearance of um strength in numbers so to speak that you can get 20 other districts to go petition the state of New Jersey to do something about it the um likelihood the political reality of that is deeply troubling. Um and so to the extent that uh New Jersey will join very likely I agree with you Dr. Robotozi that there's very little likelihood that there's not going to be some level of litigation arising out of what's going on in Washington and percolating down. Um the the scarcity of resources in the state of New Jersey is acute and um the belief that the state is going to be able to ride in and and bail whether it's Clifton or any of the other 20 some odd districts um is um very very challenging to believe that that's going to be a reality.
Agreed. I just want to touch base on the plan. Um, as the facilities committee and most board members are aware, we we do have a long range facilities plan that's been in place for many years. Uh, each year our facilities department does a comprehensive maintenance plan um that gets approved by the board in November. And uh we we did detail as part of this presentation what the plan is for the capital reserves. Those are kind of the immediate high priority items. Each year would be to tackle immediate high priority items with that. So I'm confused at the idea that there's a lack of a plan or or maybe the board could shed some light on what the expectation is at the April meeting, please. Yeah, Mr. I think the board is looking for a multi-year plan. We have plans for year one. I think the board wants to see year two, three, and the next many years out.
Okay. I will resend it room and change the invite. Okay. Awesome. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Have a be safe. One said he's hungry. One that said he's hungry. One is hungry. Me too. Me too. You don't want to get food. I'm tired. Um, graduation high school um, invite CC invites. [Music] Um, are you ready, Mr. Bates? Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and call the meeting back to order. Letter F is our action items. Number one is the second reading of the Barber Unified School District policy I policed school district policy amendment IKF which is the update to the graduation requirements. That is correct. As you recall from the first reading I I explained in August of last year I was uh I missed the actual change which I should have actually declined that when the board approved it but I wasn't I wasn't aware of it.
We just wiped them out. All right. Oh, we got we got control. I like that. Pin run. Hunter's getting back into the fray. Run, baby, run. Yep. Run in there. Run, Forest. Run. Any other characters in the forest? I don't believe so. All right. Never mind. But we could put in a suggestion into Blizzard. Makes the game and see if they're willing to accommodate. All right. Okay. Baker is so fired up watching this. He's just running around the room. He can barely contain his 2-year-old to be this well behaved for an hour. I'll tell you. I'm not sure. Oh, I have high school students that could uh do this. No, my middle schooler and high schooler definitely aren't. Epic battle right here coming down. I tell you what, we're we're both at 78%, Scott. Yep. We're about to lose it though here for this. We got to get it back.
There's a half day as well. Um we also knew how difficult it was for the the the child care the after school that we were working on. It worked out okay but there were a lot of hurdles that we had to get through um for that staffing that nursing staffing with that as well. Um so that's why we felt it would be more important to have targeted full days of professional learning. When we talk about the half days as well too, by the time students leave, teachers have lunches. We're really down to only a couple of hours and we really want to be able to make that um more period of time that teachers can have conversation. Never mind travel time that we were talking about as well too from teachers moving from either Bull to Berlin as well. So we're really trying to be very targeted professional learning this year and a targeted cattle questions.
What I understand he's saying or just to elaborate on that is that a developer could come in and say, "I'm going to build this building at X stories." um and it's not going to be all electric and have as a strategy of building a higher building um because it's you know to their advantage to be able to do that um then acquies um and say okay I will make it all electric um but I'm going to get the 30 30% height bonus. So it it potentially is set up so that it can be abused. I think that maybe you all understood that already, but that's what I I think he's trying to um say with his comment. So, that's something I think particularly um city council needs to consider um is whether or not this bonus is actually needed and in what cases and if it how how is how do we defeat these kinds of strategies where it's used um upfront um in their planning um to get a higher building than what they might otherwise um other otherwise be able to get.
Uh, I think the the prudent um conservative approach would be to believe that that $20 million is not going to be a reality for your community and that you should be planning accordingly, whatever that may mean to you all. Um, but the idea that Trenton is going to come in and and save the day on this one is is problematic. The 20 communities on that list do not include the double that number who have suffered reductions in state aid who are equally stressing um having financial distress as a result of of what's going on. So it's it's I think you need to plan that you're in this on your own for the foreseeable future. And I don't want to be a Debbie Downer. I'm not I'm not and I think we should do that. I think we should go to an executive session and talk about some of those things we mentioned earlier.
I I see what you plan. How many years out are you thinking, Mr. Compton? I mean, I'll leave it up to the board. I I think we are approving board goals this year, right? As part of our um it's hard to plan I think uh beyond maybe three to five years. Yeah. So, so at board goals of three years, I think three years is a reasonable ask. Understood. I actually did have a question for you, Mr. Gates. Um what? Oh, hey. Thanks. Um sorry uh the question about um your opinion of we were talking about buckets you know the one page had first you know was like what we really need to restore second being you know what we would like to get you know up to adequacy and then the third being you know capital expenditures. So obviously the first the most important are you know one and three in those buckets.
So this time I'm going to ask the board to go ahead and and vote to approve the amendment to add the author language and history back to the high school and alternative graduations. Right.
Oh, gone it. Yep. Norwell just took it. Down three. Now they they're tied with us now. Yep. We got to We got one more chance. Oh, get it back. We got to get it back. We got one shot. Come on. Come on. Lazy soulfish. Blue J. Exploded Gavalon. Get her done. Oh boy. Oh boy. There's a hamster. I don't like him. That's not a hamster. That's a big ugly guy. Oh, that big ugly guy. I don't like him either. Roadhog. Uhoh. Oh, they they have their ultimate. Yeah, they have their ultimates for their saved up for all their right there, which was awesome on their part. They saved them all. Well played, but I'm not going to admit it. That's one. It's all right. Yeah, it was well played. Yep. But I'm not going to admit it. Yep. Just came down to the fact that Norwell had all their ultimates to use right there and we didn't.
So we still have the learning learning March 20. Oh, okay. So it's just labeled PD not half PD half learning celebration of learning and then on a Friday we do that what's your thinking there? Um it it's a it's a great day. We had a chance to visit all three schools. Teachers are busy. There's a lot going on those days. Um we just thought it was a nice backup for um leading up to the to the weekend for for our teachers. Um it's a lot of work. Um getting Yeah, those schools were busy. I visited both Wilson and Berlin and Tonto. There's a lot going on. Um and teachers are preparing a lot of parents in here as well too. Um we just sort of married it with the the weekend getting ready for So that's a front that starts at what? That's right. And the gorilla part of the day is teacher preparation, getting that ready for that as well, too.