Um also like Christina said I felt my topic like you know substance abuse and mental health were very interesting and we were very interested in that topic and just further expanding our information in that topic and how it affects people. >> Thank you. I thought that in school like we do a lot of research based topics but I've never had to really like dive in into a topic as deep as I did for my project. So, I think it gave me a different perspective on like what it what it's like really involving yourself in something. So, it definitely gave me a different perspective on how to learn. Basically, it was a lot of self-guided learning, a lot of like self-paced communicating with your group members. It was kind of on us to do what we needed to do and know what we needed to get done, but in the end, we definitely got it done.
To acknowledge the seniors who organized the blood drives, the Community Blood Center would like to award two scholarships in the amount of $250 to Hattie Bergdoll and Addison Slatzer. >> [applause] [applause] >> Yvonne Newton will now present some 4-H scholarships. >> I am honored to present several scholarships this evening to one of our outstanding senior 4-H members. This young man has been um Liberty 4-H um and a wonderful representative to um Coffee County uh 4-H
They consist of five school non-school official, sorry, two school board members. Although as of fairly recently, and I don't think anything's changed since then, uh both of the school board seats are vacant. So, we have been telling everybody that we do this presentation to, if you are interested in serving on the school ethics commission, you can let your legislator know. Again, the New Jersey School Boards Association does not appoint the members of the uh school ethics commission. They're appointed by the governor. It also consists of um two school administrators. Uh one of those seats was vacant. It has since been filled. Uh and it's nine members appointed by the governor for a 3-year term. And only five can be from the same political party. These are just the provisions of the act. So, the provisions that apply to school board members are your mandatory training, your code of ethics, your disclosure statements, and the prohibited acts.
And the health care is in Oh, that would be in the C part. Yeah. Now, the increase is a 3.55 tax levy increase. Within this tax levy increase we have the health waiver to offset the cost increase cost of the health care costs. The health care costs are going up 23.5%. And we also received an enrollment waiver to offset additional costs. We had an additional 87 students that were on our report. So, we received a waiver for that as well. And that increased the tax levy to the 539,254. 3.55% over what we had as our tax levy last year. Without the maintenance reserve, it would have been about 4.6%. Now, highlighting the revenues, our local tax levy went up to 539,000 and change. Our state aid did go up. There are basically three areas of state aid. We get security aid, we get transportation, we get special ed aid.
"Was it? Was it?" "No, Marco." Mama said, "The surprise is even more special than the marching band in the parade." Ooh, it's still Do you have any ideas what the surprise might be? A siren screamed, and Marco jumped. A long red fire engine rolled down the avenue, its lights spinning and spla- and flashing. A firefighter walked beside the big engine. He stopped and shook Marco's hand. He gave Marco a little American flag. Marco waved the flag at the noisy fire truck. "Was that the surprise, Mama?" Marco asked. Mama shook her head. "No, Marco. The surprise is even more special than meeting a real firefighter." All these exciting things happening in the parade. "Look!" Jenna shouted. A truck was pulling a big float right down the street. It had a Statue of Liberty, and it had a man with a dark beard, and he stood in the front of the statue.
The main objective of the school department is to educate our the future citizens of the of the country really. And um you know I think that any any democracy then one of their most important uh missions we might say tonight um is to prepare good citizens smart educated citizens to um you know be part of make the country what it is you know a wonderful country to live in. So, um, certainly public education is very important and and I would argue that it's one of the most important things we do as a community is educate our children and prepare them for the world. And um, and if we don't do that as through public means, if we don't support our education through public means, then education becomes something that only the wealthy can afford to give their children. So, so that's um, something that's very critical in my mind.
Our General stabilization fund is also our rainy day savings fund. Um we have through careful financial policies that we have followed over more than a decade, um we have built that stabilization fund up to where it's considered a healthy balance. However, the way our budget is currently configured is that we have more expenses, operating expenses, than we have operating revenue. So, unfortunately, we find ourselves in this for the second year in a row taking money out of our rainy day fund in order to balance the budget. Um this is not a good practice. Um I think that's pretty uh pretty self-explanatory. I'll just make an analogy compared to your household budget. You know, anytime you have to use your savings to meet ongoing operating expenses, and again, the the keyword being ongoing, meaning that you're going to see them uh year after year or month after month, anytime you have to use one-time funds to help cover that, you're not in a good situation.
All right, this is going to be Luber behind the net. Luber going. Trying to work her way. Good defense from Rogers here keeping her out. And now Olsen coming to help. She's getting surrounded now. Somehow still has it, though. Very impressive. This is up to Lubov. Lubov very shifty. Coming down. Oh, hits the post. No goal. And this is Hartnett. Hartnett spin move coming down. Schneider with it. Schneider on the 10. The five. End zone pass to Motley. Motley looking for something. Raiders in the lead right now, three to one. Under five to go in the first quarter. Olsen thought about it for a second. Looking for an option. Passes it off and great opportunity just missed by Williams. Motley still has it. Pass to Schneider. Schneider up to Olsen. Olsen dishes it off to Spalding. Spalding trying to work her way. Nice spin there.
And I could say that I've definitely learned something new and how to translate it to other things in the future. Um, well, I thought it was a great experience just because we got to choose our own topic and what we wanted to do with it. Um, we chose to do a Canva. I think that's just the best way that we could put or my group information which was about signs sign effects that you can spawn on students and it was just easier and you know to read and just to get take all the information with a Canva or a slide something quick something with small writing you know not a lot of information to take in at first and I just really I enjoyed I enjoyed this process this um this project. It wasn't anything, it wasn't rocket science. It was fine. And I feel like we didn't have a lot of homework, so the working class was honestly pretty chill.
The disclosure statements and the prohibited acts apply to all school officials, that means administrators, even NJ SBA staff. But, the ones that apply to just school board members are the mandatory training and the code of ethics itself. And we'll go through all of those. So, what training is mandatory? If you're new, hopefully you've completed did work governance one mandatory training. That's your new board member orientation. It covers your basic knowledge and skills, HIV, QSAC, CSA evaluation, all the things you need to know as a new board member. By the end of year two, you'll do governance two training, which is finance and student achievement. By the end of year three, do governance three policy and labor relations. And by um the end of it's the first year of any subsequent term you would do governance four, which are legal updates. So, one thing that we have noticed the School Ethics Commission taking of strict stance on is mandatory training and timely completion of a mandatory training.
Two of them went down, one went up for a um balance of 41,000 and change. So, our state aid has increased. A lot of districts it went down, but we were fortunate for the increase. This is where our maintenance reserve withdrawal comes in. Whereas in before we had the excess surplus, now we are using 145,000 of our maintenance reserve. At the end of this school year, we should have a balance back in our fund balance to use. The interest we increased by 20,000. So, our total operating budget is 17,439,159. Now, our federal grants I had to budget less 25% at the direction of the county hoping that we'd come back even as we did last year. I think last year I budgeted probably less 20%. We came even. We had several funds that came in at the same amount that we had prior year. So, I'm hoping for the same.
He had a tall hat and a long face. He looked just like Abraham Lincoln. Jenna frowned. "They are throwing things at people." she said. "That's not very nice." "It's candy!" screamed Marco. Marco and Jenna dropped to the ground and scooped up as much candy as they could get. Have you ever been to a parade where they threw candy at you? Isn't that exciting? Do you think that's a surprise? That he was able to get a special treat of candy? Look at all the candy. "Mama, look!" Marco opened his fist and showed her all the sweets he had collected. "That was the surprise, wasn't it?" Marco asked. "No, Marco." Mama said. "The surprise is even more special than catching candy at the parade." Marco put a butterscotch in his pocket. He would give it to Abuelo, his grandfather, when he told him all about this parade.
In the smallest sense, I can agree with that. But in the larger sense, the next generations may not have we have to go through what's going on now with emergencies in the school. In the schools, there could be a emergency through students doing their own harm to their own health. But at all the streets here where the paramedics are doing the jobs, the five the five the safety bill is a great thing to have here because they're working together. But to have an override for the schools only in the future about maybe 5 to 10 years down the road what's going to happen when the override of students and enroment gets higher again. That's all. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mark. Appreciate your concerns and and a lot of people feel the same way about that, but you know, I know that we there's there's been a committee that's been set up and they've been working diligently to get the information out as one of the things that we've known from the past efforts.
You want to bring things back in balance to where you have your operating expenses uh meet the operating revenue. Um unfortunately, this is the second year in a row, like I mentioned, where we haven't been able to do that despite some of the money-saving strategies that we've implemented. So, this transfers $1.6 million from the rainy day fund to defray charges and expenses of the town, um mainly the FY27 general fund budget. So, for Article 2 on Wednesday night, um again, the amount is 1,640,000. 750,000 of that is to go to town departments um for their operations, notably 400,000 for our police and fire department for um staffing. Um and additional to almost $260,000 to um build out a buildings and grounds fund. Um and also another big ticket item is a 60,000 in cemetery, parks, and trees to help make up for the revenue that we would be losing from the field enterprise fund, which is actually going to be dissolved.
Going to the towards the net. And good save from Lacey. Spalding doing a good job there getting in and then switching hands. >> [music] >> Ursuline Good move there. This will be Dwyer with it. Dwyer passes it off to Mayhew. Mayhew looking for a hundred. Oh, just missed it. Getting it. Ursuline Dwyer Trying to go. And she gets a call there. I think that is Luber. Luber going to have an opportunity on Moral right now. Flying is up and I don't know what happened on that one, but But look at that. Ursuline gets it back. Ursuline gets a shot. Save by Moral. Loose in front though. Moral gets it down. Moral fires a great pass right up to Ferry. Ferry dishes it to Sachs. Sachs now finds Schneider. Schneider looking at Hartnett, but decides to go back. To Motley. Motley to Spalding to Hartnett. To Williams.
As long as you had your research that was, you know, reliable and trustworthy, it could just be done for the day, for the class. So, yeah, I really like the class. I really like the project. >> Awesome. Well, thank you all so much. Thank Heather, thank you for bringing the uh being here tonight. parents, thank you for bringing the students and and ladies, wonderful job. You are awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you again. Okay, up next we have Danberry High School. Spotlight your school. So, I'm going to ask that team to come on up. You have a tough following here. We're just going to take that off. Okay. Thank you for having us uh here tonight. I know we got snowed out for our our first time we were going to do this with the other half of the academy. So, we're here tonight with uh three of our or four of our other ones that we're going to be talking about and we'd love to get the other ones back in front if you can.
So, make sure that you do it. If you're unsure because sometimes board members don't know, especially if you're in you've been on for a while and you're like I need to take governance four this year and you don't remember. Just contact one of us, contact your BA, you can contact the call center at New Jersey School Boards Association. They will help you out with understanding what training you need to take. And we do try to make it as easy as possible for you to take it. The in-person trainings are great if you can get to them, but there's on-demand online training that you could do at any time in the comfort of your own home. So, we try to make it as easy as possible for every board member to be able to do their mandatory training. Financial disclosure statements those are due Well, if you are a new board member, they're due within 30 days.
Now, our appropriations, the biggest is our outgoing tuition that includes Janice tuition to our neighboring Manasquan as well as special ed and out of district tuitions. Next up is regular ed instruction within our building. Then special ed instruction within our building as well as resource, OTPT speech. After that, we have admin costs including our secretaries, guidance. After that is transportation which includes uh students to here, Manasquan, out of district, and any non-publics that we are able to get a route for. And if they don't receive a route, then we pay them aid in lieu. It's a law. And these are some of the highlighted appropriations. The tuition for regular and special ed went up 84,000, but the gen ed portion of Matawan for the top line accounts for about 5 million. So, a good portion of our budget. The regular instruction salaries went down. We had several retirements and other surprises.
What was happening? All the people stood up and began clapping. Marco could not see. There were no sirens, no band, and no falling candy. Still, the clapping became louder. What do you think they see? You ready to paint out? Men and women in uniforms with shiny metals came marching down the avenue. And right up front was Marco's grandfather. Do you think this is the surprise? That his grandfather is in the parade. "Abuelo! Abuelo!" Marco shouted and waved his hands. "Why is your grandfather in the parade?" Jenna asked. Marco stood tall. "My grandfather is a hero." So, it looks like his grandfather, Abuelo, was a soldier. And this is a Memorial Day where we're thanking them. Abuelo put out his hands and Marco ran and climbed into his lap. "Happy Memorial Day, Marco." Abuelo said. Marco threw his arms around Abuelo's neck. "Happy Memory Day, Abuelo." Does he look happy to see his grandfather?
There was not enough information to provide to make people make a a sound decision when they come time to to vote. So you can't say that this time around. That information is up there and out there. >> Good evening, sir. >> My name is Bill Gaff. My residence is 10 Beverly Road in NICT. Obviously, I'm not a resident. I am an honorary citizen. >> You mean honory. >> I was going to say that sometimes referred to it as honory. [laughter] I am a member of many groups as you know in Ashlin, but I am here tonight representing myself. None of those groups. I do not speak for them. Uh I'm speaking on my own behalf. Tonight I'm here to ask about the uh donated bench policy. I have some questions that I have about the policy and I don't know whether you want me to ask those questions now or whether you want me to wait and listen to the debate you have.