001good evening good evening everyone at this time we are starting our Board of Education meeting and while we welcome free speech at this time we need to start our meeting and we expect cooperation from everybody in the audience thank you um okay we do the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand as our student board member leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all may we have a roll call Mr borski Mrs armeno here Mr Braverman here Mr Chella here Mrs Deo here Mrs kapano here Mrs Lang here Mrs Corino here Mr Ryback here Mr Russo here Mr rutsky Madame board
002president you have a quarum president this evening thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monroe Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted March 24th 2018 at all schools the home News Tribune the Asbury Park Press and filed with the clerk of the municipality thank you at this time we will have the approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of February 21st 2018 move moved by Mr Ryback second second by Miss Deo any additions or corrections to the minutes all in favor I I opposed Mr Mr bramman is opposed you're not opposed he's abstaining any other AB extensions U Mr Russo is recusing okay and the approval of
003the minutes for the closed session meeting of February 21st 2018 Mr rback second second by Miss arino again any additions or corrections to those minutes seeing none all in favor I opposed extensions Mr abstentions are you abstaining Mr Braverman no I think I was here for the Clos session no no he abstaining and Mr Russo you're recusing so noted thank you at this time we will go to our presentation and public hearing of the 2018 2019 school budget uh Dr kosac Dr Ali and Mr Gorski y yeah good evening Board of Education including student board members member parents community members staff tonight's presentation is the 201829 budget presentation three of us will be speaking about this budget tonight myself Dr kak uh Mr Gorski and Dr Ali uh Mr Gorski put a uh consider considerable
004amount of time into this budget and the presentation this budget presentation reflects the work of not only the leadership team uh but certainly also the um coordination with all the staff and the administrators uh throughout the district okay so the first or second slide is our Board of Education this is Kathy Cal panovich our board president Mr Steven Ryback our vice president Mr Marvin Braverman m Michelle arm Mr kenell um oh let me go back Miss Michelle armeno of course is our policy chairman policy committee chairperson uh Mr Chella is our chairperson of buildings grounds and transportation Miss Deo Mr J Deo is our curriculum committee chair and we have Miss Patty Lang Miss da Corino Mr Frank rusco uh Russo sorry and Mr Paul rutsky our Jamesburg representative our finance committee who works very
005closely with Mr Gorski myself Dr alvik and the rest of the board in finalizing this the chairperson is Mr R Paul rutsky Mr Frank Russo is the vice chair Mr Ken chirolo Miss Jill Deo and we have our our uh Miss Dawn Corino is our alterate and Miss Kathy K panovich is ex officio division statement of the district the Monroe Public Schools in collaboration with the members of the community shall ensure that all children receive an exemplary education by well-trained committed staff in a safe and orderly [Applause] environment okay and that is followed by our district goals so I'm not going to go through each one but I'll just talk about some of the general things within the district goals we structured our goals a little different this year and we put them in basically
006four different categories looking at academic achievement communication buildings and grounds Finance the management of the operation so the first goal under improved student achievement we have that we're going to continue to develop Innovation through real real world and project-based learning explore programs and Partnerships to advance stem initiatives utilize data to continue to improve student Proficiency in language arts Math and Science and develop the whole child through cultural awareness character development and an emphasis on a healthy lifestyle this is not the end of the year report where we will go through each of those goals and provide data to support what has been achieved or not achieved for those goals we did provide a midyear report but a couple things with that the continue to develop Innovation and the uh stem initiatives I think many of
007you if you look through our schools if you look at the fal and flyer if you look at the school newsletters if you look at other programs can see can clearly see the the Innovative and the creative uh student learning that is taking place every single day throughout our district and this is the work of our teachers our principles our directors our okay so I get the trigger word every time I say teachers it's going to be an Applause okay uh and in collaboration uh with our students and let let us not forget the work of our parents and our community members who are very valuable and our partners in education but the students continue to Excel and to demonstrate their knowledge and their Innovative practices and learning opportunities and they're utilizing critical thinking and
008they're developing their communication we're doing this of course by looking at data from many different assessments uh either our map data we use Park data we use local assessments Benchmark of course informal observations uh project-based learning many many different ways that we look to to ensure that our students are not only learning but they're exceeding that they're doing everything that they need to do to be successful in both college and a career and this is a different concept for us this year although it's not entirely new and that is to develop the whole child we looked at many different facets and Dr aloc has done a very nice job of leading a committee of our staff members um to look at various aspects of the what we consider the whole child so it includes of
009course other subject areas other than kind of the core that we look at but it also looks at the emotional well-being of our students so we're looking and we have a project and I'm sure Dr aloc will talk about this a little bit where we're looking at reducing the stress that some of our students are experiencing hopefully working on developing strategies to help them to better deal with anxiety to better deal with difficult decisions that they may face throughout their uh throughout their life These are really important lifelong skills and they're broken down into different areas so I think that's very important and just as important if you will to our work with academics and technology and other areas so that is part of our uh whole child awareness the cultural awareness the character development
010and an emphasis of course on a healthy lifestyle our second goal is to improve school facilities if you look around I think it's clear that our facilities are an excellent in shape and kudos to Mr tag and his team and you know you think about all the snow that we've received really late in the season this year and how hard well many of us were looking out at the window and having a coffee or a tea and saying wow is the snow ever going to end you know our committed staff was out there clearing the the the facilities uh you know making sure that the facilities were safe for our students you know and our staff coming back uh and of course throughout the year and every year keeping the buildings in good shape clean
011keeping the the roofs repaired keeping everything that you know anything that breaks to making sure that it's fixed so there's a couple other things also uh this budget will talk about the temporary classroom units slated for the middle school for next year of course to deal with our student overcrowding looking at the land for an expanded School Bus Parking Contin continuation of our Capital Improvement programs and of course we're always looking for safety grants and to develop and present a referendum which we know unfortunately um was defeated by 143 votes but it was did go out to the community and that's the important thing I think that it went out to the community and now the Board of Education and the administration will go back and look at that data uh and review to decide
012on what the next steps will be the third goal increase Community involvement um continue we we are always looking to continue or to improve upon our communication with the staff with the parents with the community uh we did a number of presentations this year specifically on the referendum uh but that's not all you know we also have communication going out into our adult communities we have communication going out to our parents uh we try to make ourselves available to anyone who has a concern the uh other part of that is to collaborate with the community stakeholders in the continuation of our one toone initiative at the high school and that has occurred we've had several meetings back um I think it was November October November starting around that and uh continuing through and um collected
013a lot of data on that which we are presenting well we presented to the curriculum committee and we will present to the finance committee at the next finance committee meeting the improved management and operation ations first thing on there is continue our efforts to seek fair and Equitable state aid funding and thank you to many people in this room that went to Trenton and lobbied and spoke and wrote letters and did all types of different things last year we had 458,000 and this year and $98 hours and this year 300 and some thousand and M gors will give us the exact number I'm sure in a little bit that speaks volumes to the work and into the power of collab oration of working together with the community of going to our our government officials our
014legislators uh legislative officials and lobbying and saying this is important that Monroe Township receives its Fair funding and of course to continue to to the spending efficiency and best fiscal practices next we have our board goals thank you and our board set three goals to evaluate and adopt a plan for enrollment growth and facility needs to continue professional development for board members and to improve Community uh I'm sorry committee communication and reports with board members so the executive summary for this budget this budget was set within the parameters of the budget philosophy that was adopted last I believe it was late summer maybe early fall and that was to prepare a comprehensive budget that would meet the needs of 452 projected additional students to address aging facilities and without the expectation of additional state aid
015and also by suppressing taxes by Maxim maximizing budget savings through Surplus and the use of reserves this budget has been developed it has been reviewed by our County Board of Education I'm sorry not our County Board of Education our County Office of Education the executive county superintendent and the county business administrator it has gone through many phases including budget defense rounds with our leadership team has been presented to the board of education and the finance committee and it is what we believe is an excellent budget that we can present to the Board of Education and to the public tonight and with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr Al okay so as we started to plan for this budget uh cycle there were several things that we took into consideration as we were
016looking at where we were going to allocate funds one of the first thing is we we continue to get students we all know that so we are expecting a projected 452 students for next year so that was one of the considerations as we we were adding to our as we were um creating the budget we also always look at our aging facilities some of our buildings need some some work uh the boiler at at Brookside is a priority um our Core Curriculum content areas so we want to ensure that we're continuing to give our students the best education that we can give them and we want to so we want to make sure we're supporting our teachers in professional development in resources and we're continuing to do that as always we are aware of our
017student and teacher ratios that's something we keep a very close eye on at the board office and making sure that we have enough enough uh teachers to help our students that's one of the reasons we're adding trailers next year so that we could help that at the middle school um and we also have to be aware of the tax impact on our community so this is the budget creation timeline so we start way back in October for the following school year preparing our um the budget for this presentation we begin with a meeting with the board of educ where a budget philosophy is established um and then the board agrees to that budget philosophy and approves that we start looking at our enrollment figures we have a review of our staffing needs we then begin
018with the at the building level and the administration level with creating building budgets these building budgets go through budget defense rounds where they start with um each principal meets with the administrative team up at the board office and we go through their budgets line by line and take a look at them we make sure that the budgets are aligned across schools so that we have Equity across our schools and we make sure that um the schools get what they're uh requesting then there is the governor's budget address which Mr Gorski waits for anxiously every year to find out exactly what our allocations are going to be um because we had a new governor this year it was a little late which did then change our board meeting this month unfortunately um but with that uh
019Mr Gorski finds out what our award of state aid is that gets included into our budget figures we then come to this Board of Education meeting where we present the the preliminary budget and it gets adopted hopefully by the Board of Education and then we will have one more public Hearing in April for the final budget approval so as we were going through the budget one of the things we want to remember is all of the the accomplishments that we've made throughout the year so our our school last year we had over 90% of our students attending college 1.1% of our students this is the 2017 graduates 1.1 of our students um is going to a career or a technical school 1 point 1.2% of our students entered the military academy one of ours going
020to the prestigious Naval Academy um we had uh some of our students did enter the workforce and we did have some that were un undecided or did not graduate so that's something that we work on and we try to keep that number low um We are continuing to score very high with our AP tests and our students are scoring above a three which is what the passing score is on our AP test Monro Township High School every year scores above the average and continues to increase their scores in the SAT and ACT [Applause] tests and this year we will have 27 students achieving the Seal of biliteracy on on it as seniors as their [Applause] graduates so what items are we including in this year's budget one of the things we are continuing to do
021is implementing the New Jersey student learning standards so we're continuing to do that across all of our content areas ensuring that our curriculum is up to dat and available to all of our staff and you have the resources that you need um we also we still are involved with the park assessments that is something that we are required to do as Dr kak mentioned earlier one of the things we're trying to focus more on is supporting the whole child I've been working with the committee on um coming up with ways that we can support all of our students their emotional needs as well as their academic needs and you'll be hearing more about that um as we progress through the year because we are we've um come up with a plan for that um adding
022more AP courses we offered more New Jersey seal of biliteracy Assessments this year than we had last year this is only the second year of the New Jersey seal of by literacy increasing professional development for our staff um we also cover the professional memberships for many of our staff members um specifically the ones that um if you're required to be a part of a professional membership in order to take our students for um uh competitions and um continuing PSAT for our uh 10th graders 11th graders and Avid is continuing and growing this presentation will be available on the uh website starting tomorrow so you'll be able to see these a little more closely but what I've included in here are some of the great projects that are happening in our schools We are continuing to
023do projects with our our students our teachers come up with these ideas we've shared them um at different board meetings where we've had the student presentations um the MTA has provided fast grants for some of our teachers to support some of the other programs that are [Applause] going we are also implementing the Next Generation science standards and stem and maker spaces in all of our schools so we have a lot of great activities happening with under under those titles technology across the grades we're continuing to implement technology the to the best of our ability to meet the needs of our students and to help them in the 21st century World our athletic and our athletic and co-curricular programs are doing a fantastic job congratulations to our cheerleaders who just won the national National Nationals many
024of our teams have won State and County championships this year and we've had many students signing already with colleges um for their scholarships for athletics our special education program is above any of the other ones that I know about in in in the area and we are continuing to offer programs to our student students Unified sports expanded this year to three different sports um I had the pleasure of enjoying one of the basketball games that uh Mrs Dylan works with those students um and works with works with that group of students and they did a fantastic job um but there's a lot going on with our Unified sports there's um many activities for our students in all of the schools and our high scope um curriculum in our preschool so that is continuing we are
025as we have in the past trying to get more buses so that we are not Contracting out as many buses so we're trying to look there in in this budget are a few more buses uh Mr Gorski will talk more about that also in this Bud budget are temporary trailers uh temporary portable classrooms at for the middle school for next year and a new boiler HVAC replacement at Brookside so specifically for transportation we're looking at nine 54 passenger buses 125 passenger van and it which includes some additional drivers with Benefits um a GPS bus locator monitoring and tracking system for our buses and two additional Transportation power professionals so continuing to add to [Applause] that all right Capital Improvement so as we were talking about our aging fa facilities and what we need for our
026facilities um Brook sides I already mentioned the bo uh boiler and hbac unit is 29 years old so looking to replace that um replacing the Caged turf field here at the high school high school bleachers the foods rooms at the middle school oh the counters that's right yeah the counters um at the middle school we we did get them some new um appliances this year but replacing the counters at the at the middle school in the foods room um looking at the uh Middle School the design of Middle School roof and HVAC equipment and again the 10 trailers portable classroom units at the middle school so those are all Capital Improvements for consideration but we're also looking at how can we afford those so looking at what money is coming coming in so we've made
027money through the ECE Falcon CARE program so some of that will go go towards that and we have capital reserve and I know Mr Gori will go into more detail about that thank you Dr Al this slide shows where does the money come from I hate to see what happens when we get to the tax impact money comes from fund balance which is administration's management of the budget every year we do our best through purchasing consortiums bidding and quoting purchase order freezes to roll over about $6 million of surplus which generates as a revenue source to a future Year's budget we are also transferring money from the Falcon care ECE program which has earned $1.1 million in its first 2 years of inception unfortunately as many know the majority of the budget comes from local
028taxes and we'll talk a little more about that later turn back a little bit tuition from Jamesburg represents 3.34% of revenues and I would like to speak on behalf of Jamesburg Board of Education at this meeting Mr rutsky is not here but the Jamesburg board of education has increased the amount of tuition they're paying to Monroe above what is required by the agreement with Monroe by $143,000 and depending on their budget they may make an additional $100,000 payment towards the indebtedness and their eagerness to get that paid off as soon as possible transportation fees and jointers miscellaneous Revenue extraordinary uh Aid reimbursement state aid is only 3% and federal aid is only less than 1% so the majority of our revenues come from local taxes 88% of of all the revenues required comes from local
029taxes that's unprecedented you will not find another district with the greater percentage key facts on our state aid there are two types of state aid Equalization Aid is the largest type Ty it's designed to support a District's adequacy budget the state determines how much Equalization Aid you get based on two Financial metrics income and property wealth income comes from the aggregate amount of your New Jersey 1040s that 4digit Municipal Code segregates districts by municipalities and property wealth comes from your net valuation of ratables those two items for Monroe indicate that we are higher uh in income and property wealth than the majority of school districts and we are not entitled to any Equalization Aid so the state with its limited resources has determined that Monroe's taxpayers have to pay for the adequacy budget of which
030about two-thirds is mandated from the state the next item is categorical Aid that consists of various categories that we are eligible for such as special education Aid Transportation Aid security Aid one of those in particular Transportation aid went up quite a bit this year because we have the most efficient transportation department in the county and among the very highest in the [Applause] state let's talk about general fund state aid this year we received an increase because Governor Murphy wants to bring our district to full funding now that will take Monroe's revenues to as much as 4.6 million which is a 41.9% increase from where we were last year the governor is phasing this in over a 4-year period we received 25% of that this year which is approximately $344,000 of additional general fund Aid this
031District district has done a Herculean job fighting for more state aid you will not find another District that has done more has testified before more audiences has gone all the way to the governor's office and even written our own legislation to get more Aid we will continue that fight um because one of the areas that you don't see here is the amount of general fund Aid that we're entitled to tomorrow I'm going to post to the website our actual state aid award which looks like this and it indicates that Monroe is eligible for $9.1 million of total state aid however the state of New Jersey with their limited resources can't distribute what the school funding Reform Act of 208 qualifies districts for so just like you've seen with your shower head at home with the
032restrictor they have growth limits on funding which limits the amount of Revenue that each district gets and that takes the $9.1 million down to this figure here 4.6 that is the area that we must fight first to get rid of the growth limits because they are grossly unfair to districts like Monroe who are growing by hundreds of students each year small Elementary School sizes of students each year and then we need a new funding formula to to better serve Monroe's interests I handed out handouts for sources of revenue and state aid history those are la labed a b and c a once again starts off with fund balance that is one of the areas that management can manage the most and that is our effective and efficient management of the budget which rolls over every
033year between 5 and $6 million of surplus we are transferring 600,000 from Falcon care ECE local taxes has been consistent in the high 80s per percentage of the total Jamesburg is paying more state aid went up a little bit federal aid is flat and that's where all the revenues come from next is schedule B all of these will be posted to the website tomorrow schedule B shows a multi-year history of Monroe state aid which unfortunately illustrates that we receive no Equalization Aid going back to the Inception of this schedule and back in the 89 school year we lost 98% of our Aid and we're left with $240,000 to run this school district from the state and it's bounced up from there but we we are still grossly underfunded we received 30% less Aid now than
034we did six years ago with 30% more students and finally we have Schedule C which shows a comparative schedule of of Appropriations are future expenditures that are in the budget and you will notice the consistency in these um Appropriations and in salaries we have estimated because we're out of contract 3.5% for teacher salaries and I want to talk about one of the largest items in the budget next which is health care expenses [Music] the district contracts privately with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield as opposed to the State Health Benefit Plan and Horizon is a monopoly in New Jersey markets they control 70% of the market share and they dictate to school districts including those in the state health benefit plan which they manage what the premiums are going to be each year Monroe's initial premium
035increase this year on an account that's over $23 million in size was an 11.5% increase that is more than we can grow the entire budget with the tax levy cap and this has been one of my areas of focus has been negotiating with our broker against Horizon um Blue Cross Blue Shield and this was the first year where we came very close to sever ing our relationship with Horizon and I had a contract in hand to recommend to the board of education to switch to Etna because Etna came in at a 5.7 Horizon would not move they said we're going to come down to a 10.5 take it or leave it so I had a 10.5 from horizon or a mid five from Etna and it was only until I was ready to sign contracts
036and and and meet with bethanne and the other Union m members to talk about this did Horizon come in and say we don't want to lose you you're too large of a a client we're going to come down and match basically et's figure so we will be staying with Horizon once again that is the name brand of insurance but to to quote Jim Morrison the future is uncertain and the end is always near next year will be much more difficult because the competitive quotes that I've been soliciting each year to play against Horizon those entities are becoming frustrated when they didn't get our business so from going from 11.5 down to 5.3 I saved this District $ 1.3 million 1,355 786 in health insurance premiums what does that mean to you the average employee through
037chapter 78 deductions will save hundreds of dollars because of these negotiated savings that's why this is important budget Appropriations are driven by enrollment so many people have said over the years why can't you come up with a budget with a tax decrease sure we could if we had flat enrollment or like a lot of other our colleagues have declining enrollment that would be easy but we're picking up over 450 students this year and you could see the escalation this is how our enrollment has has has matched with our state aid award and as I said before over the past nine years we have a 2.1 million decrease in state aid which is 30% while our enrollment went up6 1683 students a 30% increase that's outrageous that we have 30% more students than nine years ago
038and the states contributing 30% less Aid than back then we all need to fight this together in order to get our fair share where does the money go over 60% goes to instructional Services instruction special education tuition 51 1.14% benefits 19% and the majority of those benefits are directly attributable to instruction Transportation almost 7% grants less than 1% everybody would be interested in knowing that we have a grants director here who applies and solicits every external dollar that is available for Grants but once again our affluence and income our our number of at risk students and those on free and reduced lunch disqualifies us from a lot of Grants and that's the only reason why we receive less than 1% capital projects are less than 2% administrations less than 3% Debt Service is about 9%
039Athletics co-curricular only about 1.3% that's where the money goes over 60% is directly attributable to instruction and as I mentioned where does the money go it's not in administrative cost this slide tells it all the gray is the county regional limit that keeps increasing every year but Monroe's per pupil administrative cost is $1,462 it's less than the $1,555 that we had last year so our administrative costs per pupil are declining even though we're adding layers of administration to help with student enrollment we already did the Appropriations hand out let's talk about cost savings from shared services this is important in keeping the money in the classrooms Food Services Nancy mitac does a fine job providing lunches for the Academy Learning Center we make $40,000 there techn excuse me please be polite technology Services we provide
040services with the township we have joint service Arrangements saving 50,000 we participate in eate program which is 125,000 intered local Services agreement to share TV hosting 50,000 professional development with Jamesburg 7500 and show me another District that has created a proprietary fund that has become a cash cow generating over $500,000 a year of Revenue that the district could use in any means it SE fit as long as they pass a resolution this year $600,000 got transferred to help offset trailer costs purchasing consortiums interlocal service agreements recycling transportation services and insurance once again $1,355 th000 decrease in health insurance through our negotiations and I have a documentation here for that here's a chart of our comparative health insurance rates the green represents the state health benefit plan which is the state run standard for health benefits
041the blue is the rates that Monroe has negotiated every year with Horizon this is not only a fiscal best practice for a school district but for any entity public or private we have controlled health insurance C that the median is below 6% every year without this we would not be managing growth as effectively as we have and we have very generous Rich health plans that we all enjoy we've done a fantastic job keeping the cost down what factors influence the tax rate obviously state aid if Monroe had the state aid that South Brunswick had in terms of Equalization Aid $30 million we could have a tax reduction and cover every cost that you could think of but we don't fund balance is one area that we can manage and we've done very effectively $6 million
042ratables is a topic to talk about because ratables shares the tax levy that's how the tax levy is raised and and brought in Monroe is a growing Community all of the new residents although they contribute to to infrastructure ructure demands with the need for new schools they do contribute to the rable base and that's grown almost 2% above last year and that reduces everybody's tax rate and increased student enrollment effect on Appropriations and now to conclude how does this affect the tax situation here in Monro in 2016 we rolled out a budget a budget with a 45 Cent increase inrease which was $138 on an average assessed home in 2017 3.5 cents or $100 and8 $108 on an average assessed home in 2018 last year we were below a 1 cent increase $27.85 on an
043average assessed home and this year because of the demands of growth we are at 1.7 cents or $2 on an average assessed home this is an extremely attractive tax situation that this board of education has put together over the last four or five years that that shows our our desire and our sensitivity to the taxpayers in Monroe in providing the very best programs and services for students the very best environment and and um compensation programs for our staff while maintaining a responsible tax impact for our community and as I mentioned we will continue to to earnestly fight for more state aid because it will help across the board thank you are you reading this okay Madam president Madam president miss armeno will we be able to ask questions now yes we are we're going to
044have a motion and then we'll be able to open it up to the board for comments or questions so Mr Gorski at this time could you please read the resolution and may we have a little less of a roar out in the in the U public so that we board members can hear what is happening thank you thank you it is recommended to the Monro Township Board of Education that to 2018 2019 tenative general fund budget be adopted in the amount of 117 m715 1842 an a tenative general fund local tax levy in the amount of 10,353 868 and a tenative special Revenue Fund in the amount of 1,1 192,25 and a tenative Debt Service budget in the amount of 11,397 213 and a tenative Debt Service local tax levy in the amount of 10,971
045185 whereby the tenative 201819 budget totals 13,36 $9 and whereas the Monro Township Board of Education has been notified of state aid amounts and whereas such state aid amounts are for the 1819 categorical special education Aid $2,434 n1177 and for the 1819 categorical security Aid $13,750 categorical Transportation Aid is $1,964 2017 and for the 1819 Debt Service Aid is $427,000 and whereas the mon Township Board of Education has estimated a state aid amount pursuant to application and for 1819 the estimated extraordinary Aid amount is $350,100 provides that the Board of Education shall establish in the annual school budget a Max maximum expenditure amount that may be allotted for travel and expense reimbursement for the 1819 school year now therefore be it resolved that the Monro Township Board of Education hereby establishes the school district travel
046maximum for the 1819 school year at the tenative sum of 1,124 311 and be it further resolved that the school business administrator shall track and record these costs to ensure that the maximum amount is not exceeded and be it resolved that the members of the Monro Township Board of Education authorize and approve a withdrawal from the capital reserve account in the amount of $89,400 to fund 12 Construction Services account 120 4450 for the emergent replacement of HVAC equipment and a boiler system at Brookside school which project is included in the district's long range facility plan and has been assigned an appropriate project number 50-18 d1000 and we're as as a result of the extraordinary budget efficiencies created by the administrative stewardship of the budget which provided alternative revenues in the 1819 budget such as the
047transfer of $600,000 of Falcon care ECE retained earnings to offset instructional trailer costs and a fiscal best practice of very effectively controlling escalating health care costs the board has not exceeded the maximum spending Authority and furthermore has not used the $600,000 of Bank cap created in 1617 now therefore be let it be resolved that the superintendent of schools and the business administrator board secretary file the appropriate required documents with the executive County Superintendent of Schools second I need a mo motion who did did you move it I'll move moved by Mrs Mr mayo and second by Mr Ryback and now I'll open it to the board for any comments or questions M armino I'm I'm I'd like to go through through a couple things so on the executive summary where we're talking about 452 projected
048additional students did Miss alvic say next year or is that over yes ma'am we are going to have Madam yes address that again these budget slides are all going to be on the website and they contain a a a great wealth of information and in the executive summary it states that next year we will have to meet the need of 452 additional students where does that figure come from that comes from the Assa State count of students as of October 15 2017 to the projected number which is only one year out from Ross Hab Associates at this juncture where we compared it to that estimate it appears that we are right on track and we'll meet that number in one 452 additional students are being provided for in this budget and that's extraordinary if everybody
049can visualize what 452 students looks like it's a small school by itself and we've been picking that up regularly every year okay by the way I I don't want to be wordy but this is the most intensive year projected on the um enrollment projections and the next one or two are very um High and the board itself has really no uh power to change any of the construction or approvals or the impact that it has we have actually we can't we can't do anything about the impact on our schools we just have to house the children when they get here that is an accur unfortunately we don't have any say in how um how the construction the rapid construction is well okay so uh the budget development okay the best on public hearing I have
050a couple other questions let me go to the the resolution so the total budget for uh 2018 to 2019 is projected at this point for3 I'm not going to read the small numbers $130 million that's our operating budget or is that the total budget that's that is the sum of all budgets general fund special Revenue fund um Capital project funds and Debt Service fund okay so when we talk about the tax levy um it says on here that the tax levy is $101 million and then The Debt Service tax levy is $10 million this is all plus almost $1 million so our total tax levy is 100 almost $112 million is that correct do those two numbers get added together yes if you go to schedule a which is one of the handouts right there's
051a line called local taxes it adds up general fund and Debt Service fund and you are correct the total is 112 m324 53 86% of the total revenues comes from taxation of our res so that's the amount of taxes we're going to be a asking the community to pay for the 2018 2019 budget yes ma'am at this point okay ma'am I got I think I got that part U let me see I think right now I I'm okay I may ask another question I'll let somebody else do so if they need to any other comments or questions um Mr Gorski I know that we got an award of I'm sorry Mr Russo it appears you did a very good job with the budget there was a lot of could you use your microphone it appears
052you did a very good job with the budget there is a lot in there I was looking to see if there was a line item for respect is that here anywhere the the gentleman's question is there a line item for [Applause] respect respect for our teachers is contained on every appropriation line item in the budget it's on every line item okay yes sir okay okay I'm I'm back I'm back to another question M okay so on the general fund state aid page where we're talking about um $4 million uh 41.9 increase from the state aid but that's an anticipated and not yet awarded state aid that promised the state aid has been awarded and I said tomorrow I'm going to put our our state aid actual notice on the website where the residents can see
053how this is calculated it's worth taking a look at if you're interested this is is is probably going to um be actualized there was one year where they pulled this back mid year when they ran out of money and their state revenues dried up right um that is always a possibility and that's why it's so important to continue to save and manage the budget effectively so that if you have that kind of shortfall you have resources to transfer to make it up so you're not riffing teachers or cutting programs mid year which other districts have done we've never had to do that here so my question is has the state legislature formalized this award or formalize their budget in order for us to actualize this number yes yes the only item the only line item
054on there that is estimated is extraordinary Aid which is a reimbursement of some of our out of District special education costs so so we we don't have to just anticipate that we're going to get this for sure that is our award we've received it in full for the last several years and I expect to receive it in full again okay an expectation still though I want to really be clear we don't have the check yet we do not have the check yet they send it every month they okay so so it is sent in increments every month and it's supposed to Total by the end of 2019 4,668 1983 yes ma'am so okay so we're just not getting it up front it's it could take over a year to do so correct okay so are
055we going to keep tabs on that number and you'll let us know if when soon as the budg it's a very good question and um as soon as the budget is adopted we set up a set of books for next year and that's one of the first journal entries to book the accounts receivable from the state of New Jersey and that's that's managed throughout the year every month when we get a payment we we apply it against the receivable we do the same thing with the uh tax levy from the township do we have a separate um like bank account and they and they wire that in every month I mean or is that just come into the general fun the state does wire the money in every month into the custodian bank account okay
056yes okay thank you any other board members have questions or comments Miss armeno are you I just wanted to point out again that Mr Gorski said that we are we've had one point we have 2.1 million decrease in state aid since TW 20 to 2009 on the on the um from from the budget printout right if you turn to the one with the uh effects of growth compared with the state aid award which is the graduation caps with the money bags yeah at the top of the page it indicates that N9 years okay we've received a reduction in state aid compared to 9 years ago of 2,196 48 which is 30% reduction okay while our enrollments gone up 1,683 students a 30% increase okay that's supposed to go uh with a uh a direct relationship
057and it's inverted here obviously well um I think we talked about this uh way before the election about our um our representatives in the state so I hope people don't forget to keep contacting them they made promises to get us this money and more so I hope that um this budget will we will get some more relief from that and you know we have to it's not just the local people but it's you know we pay T state taxes as well so I hope that they they come forward with their promises people supported them from this community I hope they show that they support us now Mrs Lang Mr gki I I remember okay so the aid that we were inre this year was $344,000 right uh general fund state aid increased 344,000 which is
058a 25% installment of full funding with the growth limits still in place okay and didn't they take a didn't we lose Aid also in that process I I remember seeing something that we lost actually 120,000 of that because of it's but I don't remember I I I have to be honest I don't remember the quite specifics and I don't know where it is yes ma'am um in schedule B it indicates that while the general fund went up on its 4-year course to full funding with the growth limit in place our maturing debt schedules uh disqualified us for the amount of state aid Through The Debt Service Aid line that we received last year and we received a reduction in in debt service Aid which when you net the two together the 344 plus the loss
059of Debt Service Aid we only netted 135,136 the state reimburses principal and interest costs on the existing amortization schedules and they are maturing and the principal's reducing and that disqualifies us for uh the amount of Aid we got in previous years had the referendum been successful we would be getting more Debt Service Ave oh because that 7.1 million that we talked about for the project would be over a uh 30-year life of the bonds but a lot of it's upfront so okay thank hopefully we'll be getting more Debt Service age soon Mr Rybeck thank you so many of your words about the state made me think can't hear you I said your words about about the state legislators made me think of this um so I'm going to throw this out as far as um
060what we're entitled to um if I'm not mistaken we our transportation is exemplary and I think we we're entitled to get more state aid because of that and I think that's something we have to remember remember to push for when we when we speak to these legislators mad yes that's going to be on the state aid printout that I put on the website once again and I don't mean to be redundant but Monroe qualifies under the state's own model for funding school districts which is the school funding Reform Act of 2008 for 9,123 620 but because the state doesn't have the revenues to fully fund the formula they they do it they're fa ing in the fully funding but they still have the growth limits in place which restrict how much your budget can grow
061and and that difference is about $5.5 million that Monroe is losing an entitlement to because the state can't fully fund their own formula it's outrageous but if if may I but if we um we've had growth limits over the years imposed on by the state correct yes but if those limits are eliminated it may be worse that our budget could grow in enormous I mean it would be allowable and it might be dangerous overall for the community is that not correct I mean so there's a double-edged sword to losing growth limits um don't confuse the growth limits on state aid Award with the growth limits on the tax levy cap uh the growth limits on the state aid award restrict our award by $5.5 million we want those to go away we want that money
062that we're entitled to under the formula will that go in the same direction though as a a cap I mean will they elimate go against the cap it would reduce the tax levy it would it would uh reduce taxes so if they maintain the cap though the M the cap might not be maintained either in this new climate correct which can also be a detriment correct anyone else I do have one other question I'm sorry I'm sorry so we we did meet our Our obligation stayed within our 2% cap we are at cap we did not use the bank cap we have $600,000 of Bank cap that was intentionally um excluded from incorporation into the budget because we wanted to hold that to offset the incredible amount of costs that we will incur when we
063open a new school okay that will happen in the future hopefully next year and we will need that money desperately at that time okay thank you doesn't say though that this is not a very comprehensive budget you know we have $1.5 million for total trailer costs we have over 30 new staff nine buses one van a a capital project that most districts acrew and then go out for a bond referendum for once they have a an assortment of these projects we do we've been doing it every year in the budget within our cap within our cap AB thank you and Dr alvic and Dr kak and this goes all the way down to the zero based budgeting that we deploy here which starts with teachers and and and bus drivers at the at the most
064uh minimal level to determine what they need from next year and that's given to the principles who do school-based budgets and then we get insurance rates and put it all together districtwide we don't roll over numbers on budgets like like Others May thank you Mr Russo did you have a question just one more thing about the budget um you mentioned that you you had some concerns about the trend so it would be nice if you could just make that I do um what I communicated to the board previously is that the demands of growth on this budget are are unsustainable with the current amount of revenues and the restrictions in place with the cap and the limits on state aid funding therefore we are we are eating the seed corn of our excess Surplus and
065that number is depleting and that will continue to pleet over time we must push our legislators to either number one give us more state aid which would provide uh much needed Revenue source of of a responsible nature or number two soften the the uh tax levy cap and allow us to go a little more there because we our demands of growth are exceeding our ability to meet it with revenues okay anyone else from the board okay at this time I'm going to open up the floor to the public if anyone would like to come up and make any comments on the budget and just on the budget we'll open it up to the public we will adhere to our four minute timeline this is just on the budget but I am in the budget right
066I'm a teacher salaries health care that was in the budget talk salaries and Healthcare are in the budget thank you just wanted to be clear Karen Brey to nson drive I'm here today to express concerns as a parent taxpayer and teacher I would like to point out a time about five years ago when the board of V asked our Union to help the district out when the economy was in pretty bad shape during this time big businesses were failing and the people turned to the teachers to give back never do anybody else give back unless when the businesses are failing the teachers did so without a fight by freezing our salaries for many teachers that meant wondering how to supplement that loss now fast forward a few years businesses are back economy is back and
067many of us are telling you that we are suffering yet we don't get the same courtesy or respect so maybe you don't exactly understand how we feel so let's try and exercise often in my class when students can't grasp a concept I encourage them to visualize the problem and work through it in their minds so if you will indulge me please close your eyes now I'm not going to put you in the shoes of a teacher but on the other hand I would like you to imagine that you are a parent of a teacher in this District now your child comes to says Dad Mom after 10 years in my job in this District 20 years in the field of Education working two jobs in this district and after paying my medical benefits I make
068about $557,500 a year also this year I have not had an increase because our Board of Ed cannot see the value of my work in addition if the board continues its patterns I will experience negative net pay and go to work every year making less money because of the amount of my medical benefits that I am being charged so what do you visualize right now as your response to your child as a mother or father do you encourage your child to stay in a job where they are undervalued where they will not continue to move up a guide but actually make less money or do you encourage them that there are better things out there where people will value the work they do and reward them for their accomplishments at this time you can open
069your eyes and for those of you that participated I appreciate it I'm sure we can all imagine your answer right now like many of us we are considering our options maybe that is what you are hoping for because inexperience is cheaper I say this mostly to the parents in this town and as a parent myself I do not want an experience ience for my children I came here for the schools and for the teachers I look around and I heard tonight we have the best of everything in this District we find money for all things yet we cannot find the money to compensate the teachers who have proven themselves based on many different ratings as a parent and as a teacher I want the best for my children and May and [Applause] them I only
070have four minutes that starts with paying their teachers the worth their worth so that they are not forced to make other choices finally as a tax player payer officials have made horrible decisions for years with our taxpayer money and and now we decide that teachers is where the cuts have to be made really think again cuz we the teachers are not the problem we are the product of the problem and we beg you to fix it [Applause] my name is Danielle pesi 28 Brandon Avenue and as a former Monroe student and graduate it was always my dream to work in this amazing District because of all of the wonderful teachers that I will never forget who shaped me into the exact person I am today now I've been teaching for nine years in this district
071and I'm still making under $50,000 and less and less each year but I'm still here because I love my students I love my supportive parents the amazing co-workers and administration that I get to work with every day however I'm really not sure that I can afford to stay in a district that really doesn't respect the time effort and more than that the heart and soul that I pour into this job every single day and Beyond the hours I'm paid for please budget for a fair contract or you're going to risk losing the amazing teachers that make our District so special and what it [Applause] is my name is Sarah aiz and I live on three llot Drive in manur Township my son is a first grader in Miss pep Andrea Miss pel's class my daughter
072is a fourth grader in Miss Lombard's class the school staff here has done a wonderful job with my children and so I feel the need to be here and speak in their defense and and to support them in their effort to get a fair contract many personal characteristics draw people into the teaching profession greed is not one of them people do not decide to teach grades K through 12 because they expect it will make them millionaires rather they do it because they love children and they want to play a role in educating them and inspiring them to reach their greatest potential our whole society benefits from a well educated Workforce and it is society that owes its teachers a debt of gratitude our our teachers expect and deserve to be appropriately compensated for the vital
073work that they do they have college degrees some of them have master's degrees in additional training and they they should not have to work two to three jobs to make ends meet so if they are here requesting better compensation and benefits it's certainly not because they're greedy but because they want what's fair a livable wage manure Township Public Schools are ranked among the best in Middle sex County and yet their teacher compensation is amongst the lowest so this is a mismatch that needs to be re ified by the Board of Education before our best teachers leave this District finally I want to mention the the events in West Virginia and Jersey City where teachers have gone on strike to get better compensation teachers should not have to go on strike to get what is rightfully
074theirs I urge the Board of Education I urge the Board of Education to work quickly with our teachers to provide them with a fair contract before our teachers also consider going on strike thank you very much for your time good evening Danielle sapola 10 Gloria Le at 18 I remember my dad bringing me to get my first car and him saying you can get the car but can you handle the payments I said yeah Dad I make $10 an hour at the Hallmark store I babysit and I do children's parties okay my dad said as long as you're making enough and you could handle the payments every month I remember at 26 years old calling my dad and saying dad guess what we found a house in Monroe where I teach I love the district
075the taxes are cheap and my kids can eventually go to the schools my dad said that's great as long as you can handle the payments I said yes Dad my health benefits are included in my teacher package I'll be at top pay in 14 years and it's the best best town well since then I'm now 38 years old my first steps were frozen steps have been added on and 14 years later I'm on step nine I have to pay into my health care for my whole family and my taxes went from $10,000 to $16,500 in six years the best thing about my job is I felt like we were one big family and appreciated and Dory I love you because you still support me that feeling has changed as adults you should know if you
076want a positive climate you need to create a positive atmosphere when when you're an employee of 26 first graders teaching them to read at all different levels teaching them almost every math skill they will need for Life teaching them to be kind and treat others the way you want to be treated treated loving them as if they were your own consoling them when they are hurt on the outside and making their world sunshine and rainbows because outside the classroom is a very scary place I'm the most positive person in the world sometimes my husband says that's a default because I let so much positivity in well now at 38 years old I've called my dad crying saying Dad I'm sorry if I disappointed you I can't afford my house because that amazing town I told
077you about and that district has let me down I'm not sure what age your children are or your grandchildren but make sure when you take them to get their first car or a big purchase instead of asking them if they can afford the car make sure you ask them if there is a chance that their employer can give them less than what was promised I'll be sure to keep my chin up teach my students with all my heart and keep them safe from the deceiving Scary World out there I do remind them every day to treat others the way they want to be treated in hopes that when they get older they will hear my voice never in my 14 years of working in Monroe have I felt so unappreciated and talked down and I
078have major anxiety because of it thank you sueza grade five teacher at Applegarth I should be right now at home putting my two six-year-old kindergarten daughters to bed and instead I'm here standing here after teaching tag after school after then grading some more papers actually grabbing a bite to eat and then coming and rallying at 6:30 I've been doing this 18 years and I'm tired of it so I'm telling you you're going to be losing even more awesome teachers than you've ever imagined I can count at least 12 over the past five six years that have left it's pathetic and I'm really just heartened look at all around you we should be home we should be with our families but instead we're here so all I ask is for respect exactly what's on the back
079of our [Applause] shirt good evening my name is Patrick Hy I teach at the high school here um in listening to the budget presentation one thing really struck me uh in projecting a budget I find it a little unsettling as an educator in this District that um this board has projected our salaries the salaries of the hardworking individuals in this room conservatively um conservative and fair are not synonyms any first grade teacher many of which are here tonight could have taught you that so um I just implore you to please budget a fair contract and not a conservative one thank you [Applause] good evening I'm Gary katowski I teach at Monro Township Middle School I would like to speak but I will wait for respect and eye contact from everyone thank you I feel unappreciated
080we all feel unappreciated the public needs to know a person has been hired at step 7A without proper certification or passing the practice exam offered more more money than many teachers some of those teachers with three degrees offered more money than them if we had a competitive salary that wouldn't be happening that's why we need a competitive salary you're getting very scarce amounts of interviewees your applicants are you're not getting the same as you used to we deserve a fair and competitive salary stop the negative net we deserve a fair contract thank [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you hi my name is Laura Steinberg I am a parent of Monro Township and I'm a former teacher of the Freehold Regional High School District former because so a lot of you guys in here know my son Robert
081he's born with Down syndrome and I resigned after 18 years teaching there because I had a you know it I'm blessed that I'm able to take care of him with my you know with my husband's salary when I hear how low some of the teachers make in this District I find it for lack of a better word disgusting in 2002 when I went back after maternity leave my daughter is a senior now at this wonderful District when I went back in 2002 they hired me back in 2002 at $57,000 and to hear some of these teachers make excuse my language crap makes me really sad because when you hire new people I want you to hire like the first round like the first draft picks you know the best of the best not the last
082you know the bottom because all the good people are going to man alipin English town to Freehold Regional I mean I love left 6 years ago making 76 6 years ago I miss it tremendously I tutor I'm still involved I love teaching but I'm really sad because I really want these good teachers to stay here because a lot of people are retiring at freeold Regional High School District FYI High School teachers I don't want you to leave cuz I still have two little ones coming in and I my daughter says wonderful things but a lot of people are retiring from Freehold Regional High School so I really think you guys need to think about hiring or and keeping those first round draft picks and not the B you know not hiring with the leftovers and
083you know if you really try you can make it work it's just what you choose to find what's important and no matter the boiler I mean it's what you choose to find important and the teacher should be important because we know great teachers can teach in we don't want a crappy environment but doesn't have to be everything has to be the best it has to look nice nice the teachers have to be great cuz that's really what makes education great so I hope you guys really think about what's truly important and prioritize what's fair and what's right because like I said before it's disgusting [Applause] hi my name is Debbie dor I live at 109 Old Forge Road uh many of you know me um been in the district a long time raised both my
084kids here uh both my sons went to the Naval Academy their wives are actually graduates of Monroe as well uh and I've been here 25 years and this last several as the coordinator for special education at the high school I've seen all the changes that have happened in this District district and though we've gone through tough contracts before I've stayed because I really feel dedicated and uh I'm still excited about being a staff member here I wish I'd been prepared to speak because I would have actually written down some numbers instead of just being off the cuff like this but you have to know that from my perspective at the other end of the spectrum uh my salary my take-home pay is less than 10 years ago because it's really tough um I I'm now
085paying at top of the guide I'm paying $8 to $9,000 a year that's with my masters and with being the coordinator uh in that amount of time my raises have been a, a thou 1,300 300 1,300 300 so $33,000 increase in six years in my salary and I've I'm out 54,000 in that same six-year period that I did not have to pay before uh this is not a position I want to be in at 61 years old where I'm I'm making less money taking home less money than I did before um so that's heartbreaking for me but I'm still here because I really do love Monroe and I'm hoping for a better contract the reason I'm standing here is because I've been one of the people interviewing for positions we have a department of 39
086teachers 25 right now par professionals at the high school uh when I started here it was Joe Cardone myself three other teachers five of us in the special ed department and uh it's grown to this size to where I have 50 people uh in my department right now um the heartbreaking part is going on these interviews to get new employees with Monica prior to that with Marie with Rob Goodall it is difficult it is so difficult to find quality people and we have had to hire people fortunately uh not recently we we're not hiring we're covering with six classes for teachers because we can't find good candidates we have three positions down right now because we chose to not hire people that we didn't feel were adequate and that's not the position to be in
087what really disheartens me now is that I've had three teachers come up to me in the last month new good specialed teachers at the high school and ask me for letter us recommendation because they need to move on they can't afford to stay here um and in my heart I've really tried to encourage them to stay and wait out see what the next contract is the people are good the district is good the great the kids are great hey hang in there but I have to tell you in in my heart when I know they can go over to Freehold and make $113,000 a year more than they are right here it's really hard for me to not tell them at your age just do it but I haven't by the way I've tried to
088encourage them to hang in here but I would just implore you to please um give a lot of thoughtful consideration to what we're going through um most of us are not here we don't come here easily we're not the type of people who are confrontational we're here because this really doesn't mean that much to to us so thank you and I understand your constraints too from go [Applause] start hello my name is Hannah Tori I'm a senior here at Mon Mon Township High School I'm also the senior class president it just really I don't I really don't understand because you every single teacher here that teaches in this District goes above and beyond every single day to make sure that we are getting our education and not only our education but to make sure that
089we're okay they don't have to do that they don't have to stay after all these hours just to help us with a math quiz when they could be going home or going to their other job that Unfortunately they have to have cuz they're not getting paid what they need to be paid you need these people to run the show they should be your first priority because they make us our their first [Applause] [Music] priority you are losing more and more of these amazing people and I promise you you might not find them again so if you want to continue to thrive and to push forward you need this group you need every single one of them so treat them with what they need to be treated with that's all I got to [Music] say my
090name is Sal Peri I'm also a senior at this high school and again i' just like to highlight the excellent teachers I've had over the last four years or the last eight years even in middle school I don't think I've ever had a single teacher that didn't care about my success every single one does way more than they have to in fact a lot of these teachers I don't see as just teachers but mentors not only do they teach me the curriculum they went above and beyond they went up to me after class or I went up to them after class and I was able to just talk to them as people and they would teach me about life they'll they give me direction about what I want to do and you could tell they
091really cared and just like before how she used a visual I like to use another visual a imagine a great Mansion polished but there's nothing inside these teachers are the heart and soul of Monroe Monroe every every Township envies Monroe for this school system which lately has been on the rise but if we continue to have more and more people moving in and more and more of our best teachers leaving what's going to happen the answer is obvious we're going to end up with just a downward spiral and the school system isn't just for the students isn't just for the teachers isn't just for the administration but everyone whether it be property values or just that culture of living in Monro right now Monroe is the place to be but who knows in 5 years
092if this continues it's not going to be and I just like to say that this is completely unfair and to think about it because if you think about it you're going to realize where your heart lies and it's not going to be over there it's going to be with here in red on this side of the room let's here for kids making a difference my name's Doug Dale I live at 653 Spotswood Englishtown Road like to address the referendum situation as it applies to the budget referendum failed by 143 votes and I'll bet the board could have found those votes if you respected your staff there's way more than 144 resident staff members in this District who either didn't vote or voted no because we have no contract think of all the help you would
093have had from the mte we would have voted we would have had events at the schools to get voters to come out we would have helped you promote this referendum you now see how easier things can get done when we work together my last yearly raise over 18 months ago as an 18-year top of the salary guide District employee with a master's degree was a pitiful $300 according to the district referendum calculator my taxes were to increase $272 a year if the referendum passed now I'm a speech therapist not a math teacher but this pretty simple equation to figure out that if the refer if the referendum passed my raise would have only been $28 if I was able to leave in a more expensive home that raise would have been in the negative just
094to build that one school we all know that there's two more schools that we need to referendum money now let's take into account that I have family benefits and pay the district back $1,889 a year for them doing the math again that means that I not only pay my own sorry raise but I can also pay the raises for 39 other teachers at the top of the salary guide just on the money that I pay back to the district for health benefits now I know the money is to go to health benefits but you see how much money we're talking about which brings me back to the referendum because this board won't negotiate from that 35% state scale on the health benefits 144 plus votes of this referendum got lost so was it worth it
095at every board meeting we hear the same we care so much and appreciate our staff from all of you but here we're at impass going into year two without a contract the board negotiation team needs to get realistic with what is happening in the state with chapter 78 contributions if you want referendum supported or Valu dedicated employees to stay in this District I work for njaa I know for the for a fact that other NJ New Jersey districts are negotiating chapter 78 fairly with their employees this board blaming Mr Gorski and Miss calapan which directly is not negotiating like you care so much or appreciate your staff Miss kapano and Mr Ryback have you forgotten when you were running for for the board all the support you received from this association's members I had your
096signs on my lawn and now that's replaced with a no contract still working sign as you both sit on the board making decisions on my livelihood you are not being reciprocal with support this board in our association is usually used to working hand in hand yet because there is no contract you shot this referendum the district and this whole town in the foot thank [Applause] you Betty seito to Barrymore Drive um this is probably my sixth time speaking more or less the same speech if you're sick of hearing it I'm really sorry I'm sick of having to come up here because these educators don't have what they should have which is a fair contract I'm here to speak in favor of our teachers and our staff and our drivers and our parents and urge that
097you settle on this contract they deserve a fair contract and this has gone on far too long as I said in the last meeting administrators you are paid by taxpayers that means you work for us board you are elected by us so do what we're asking you to do meeting after meeting and coming up here and speaking in support of these teachers and I really feel like I'm speaking to the all I thank all of you for making eye contact today for actually looking at us because it is showing a sign of respect which we had not seen in the past few meetings we have an incredible group of teachers and it is simply unacceptable that they continue to work without this contract I have two children in District and they have been privileged enough
098to have the teachers that they have had and I say privileged because I mean it they would not have the foundation in these early years that they need to reach their potential and to be successful if it were not for the teachers that came into their lives I want to commend the following Jean Barca Susan huie kuki Lisa Pap Andrea and Danielle pandaly for making one of my sons able to soar it is amazing to see how he loves learning and is enthusiastic about going to school every day and that is all thanks to them I want to give a very special acknowledgement to Paula DeBlasio both of my children were very lucky to have her in Priest K and it was her that got them started on the right path most especially I want
099to thank the Educators for my with autism Jennifer bck Jim Bo Anette Hardy and Stacy libros they have been the most amazing group of individuals to come into the life of my special needs son and to come into our life without him he would not be able to continue to succeed they gave him a life and a real chance at it Jennifer bck will always be the teacher of reference in his life it is thanks to her that he has this life and that he's going to have a chance in life you just recently lost because one of your autism prek teachers resigned that is a huge loss and there are other children with a diagnosis that will not be able to have the foundation that my son had I bring this up because you
100need to know that teachers mean something not just to these children now but as they grow especially in the special needs Community we are simply not paying what is fair to them somebody else touched on it they're not greedy they just want what's fair it's not fair that these teachers have to supplement and that everybody has an issue with them supplementing their income by having second and third jobs please settle this contract with our teachers and staff give them what they deserve in terms of salary in terms of benefits because we're going to lose them and it's going to affect our education for our children and the futures of our children thank [Applause] you good evening Mary Joe Caputo Jan Cola 224 Old Forge Road I'm here to implore you to budget for fair contract
101for the people in this room and the people who are not here with us this evening but are part of our staff uh it amazes me Kathy you and I have gone back a long long time and we've always worked for this District tooth and nail and it just it stymies me why we cannot sit down at the table and budget for a fair contract when the lights go out in this building and every other building and the parking lots are empty Monroe Township is just a bunch of buildings it is 7 to 5 7 to 7 that these people come and make it alive and make us a stellar District the buildings are useless without the quality people that we have in my building alone in my building alone I've had the privilege of
102working in mil Lake and now I'm up at the middle school in Middle School we've lost two Stellar Stellar special ed people and it's because of lack of funding and a better place someplace else and I see that more and more and I'm on my way out but I admire these young people that come in the men and women that come in here are people who are topnotch you are not going to continue to get that these are smart kids they don't need to be here they can start picking and choosing where they want to be so I leave you this evening asking you to please sit down at the table do what you've always done go to Bath for Monroe in the most positive way with the people who make Monroe who Monroe and
103what Monroe is good evening [Applause] hi my name is Victoria Dar Carlo I'm a fifth grade teacher at Brookside in fact I was honored this year as brookside's teacher of the year I have been with this district for 13 years and I hold a master's degree the last seven of you those years I have received less and less money every single year I am being asked to do more and more work and I am bringing home less and less money because of such I get to live in an affordable housing unit so let that sink in I have taught in this district for 13 years and as a single mother of a wonderful little girl I cannot afford to live in anything more than an 800t apartment and this wonderful little girl who I speak
104of Ador school and is in first grade and goes around talking about school all the time and saying that she'd love to be a teacher one day but she can't because she won't be able to have a real house it is also not lost upon me that our field is comprised largely of women any field made up of approximately 75% of a female Workforce it is not lost upon me that we are paid much less than we are worth our needs our needs are being pushed aside by society and by this board well guess what time's up it's time for a change and I think that you all deserve to be on the right side of change and to do that you need to budget for a f our contract plain and simple thank you
105hello my name is rck Patel I'm a senior at the high school and have been in the district since first grade just in the last year I have seen a huge impact that all these teachers have had in my life as I apply for colleges outside of the classroom and outside of the normal school day and its hours teachers work extremely long hours just with extra extracurricular activities I would hate for teachers not to be able to dedicate their time to running major clubs such as future Business Leaders of America Deca and monot Township economics and finance team along with that without this time they would not be able to write recommendation letters as they have been a crucial part of me getting into my dream school if teachers are not appreciated and properly compensated
106they will have to work other jobs if teachers are tied to these jobs they won't be able to stay after help prepare for AP exams or educate students further that need help all these things have made a huge impact on my life and these extracurricular clubs have made me into the person and leader I am today not only have these extracurriculars built specific character traits in me but theyve also built lasting relations with both teachers and Friends through these clubs like I said before I developed my passion for finance with the without these extracurriculars I would not even have realized my future career all these reasons and more are why I would like to call for the board and everyone else to respect teachers fairly compensate them and appreciate all the hard work they've done
107for us thank [Applause] you hello my name is Achilles fry a senior at this High School let me foreshadow to you what may happen if the teachers aren't given their desired contracts right now Monro is a growing city and one reason for that is our prestigious schools across all the grades from K to 12 as a result our students have been getting accepted in top tier schools and IV leags however none of that would have came without the help of our teachers from all the grades due to the fact that teachers don't receive their contracts for work there's a strong chance many of them will depart and as a result education within our district will Decline and leave Monroe in the bottom of ranking um so my name is namit Sharma I'm a senior at
108Monro Township High School uh so the other night at dinner I was talking to my parents basically reflecting on my high school memories and I have a little younger sister going to the Middle School in 8th grade extremely bright student she's diligent EXT the hardest work ethic I've ever seen in my life extremely smarter than me I seem really dumb compared to her and I just want the best future for her obviously viously so my parents were like nth how is uh how has the high school helped you and throughout these four years of my life I cannot explain the influence that all my teachers have had on me um so I'll give you an example Mr Gia Quinto he was here earlier but he he has honestly helped me so much throughout high school
109with the opportunities he's given me the guidance he's given me he single-handedly along with other teachers and clubs such as FBA have helped me discovered my passion which is business and I don't want to see teachers like that leaving so my parents asked me at the dinner table that night they were like should Ria go to Monroe Township High School or should we send her to a private school like Petty now I feel like I'd like to say that my classmates and I have been pretty s uh successful during high school so I'd love to say yes send Ria to monor Township High School send her here it's amazing the opportunities are everywhere and she will definitely flourish but that's not going to happen if teachers are not compensated properly like teachers are the reason
110why we're here today our valid dictorian rashab Honda has the highest ever GPA recorded in Monroe Township history and that didn't come with just himself every teacher around him made him prosper and that's what we want here and looking at a Township perspective just looking at the Applegarth side of town Stratford Monroe Manor Monroe Chase many people are moving in on a daily basis just because our school school system is so highly ranked but if teachers are not compensated properly people will decide to ditch this school district people will decide not to move here tax revenues start going down for the township small businesses will decide to leave this town will just basically become dead and as someone who's lived here for almost 18 years of my life I don't want to see that ever
111happen in my life and I teachers just need to be properly compensated just to make sure that every student no matter matter how bright they are has an equal opportunity to flourish and make themselves something thank [Applause] you prakash per 33 Dana Drive I'm tired you know the teachers have been coming for last three or four months and the buck stops here the Boe is the decision maker for your salaries so Boe is responsible and you all are responsible so please do take care of our teachers we taxpayers we taxpayers are ready to pay more I tell you we that $47 increase I don't care I'm ready to pay for $150 increase because we need teachers you all know teachers you all know what is the budget state budget $14 billion $4 billion and our
112teachers average salaries are 57 to 60 shame to the New Jersey out of $4 billion budget how much mandra gets 3 .6 million that is peanuts 0.02% so we have to you guys all of us have to talk to the governor but we are not going to leave Boe Boe is responsible for teachers that's [Applause] it I am equally disappointed with the budget 3.6 million what is it peanuts our school budget is $130 million and more we the public are taxed twice by this politicians and it is time we act on that the referendum now I'm hearing the teachers did not support the referendum that I don't know that's a fact but that is not good with respect to referendum that's true that I'm very sorry you know we need teacher support next referendum make
113sure by next month the contract is signed we have a new referendum for middle school high school and full day kindergarten that is the way to [Applause] go if you guys cannot sell the budget I will go to each community and talk and meet the hug the ners and we will keep it moving we need vibrant best school we'll have vibrant Society here we'll be all United that is the way to go one thing I didn't like you know oak tree at 6:00 p.m. there was one hour waiting line to vote one table that is the way you all plan 1 hour waiting line at Oak Tree at 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. I know that it was open till 9:00 but many people went back we would have won this referendum but lastly please support
114the teachers I don't want to hear next month coming back the teachers are on strike the contract has to be signed and we are ready to adjust the budget this budget is not approved by the public until the teachers salaries are given and they are satisfied thank [Applause] you Gala Bora one Miko Drive um I'm not sure how many of the board members have been to the elementary schools here in District uh but as a PTA um member and officer I walk in every day and um it's been a very sad site for the last week because all the bulletin boards are empty in elementary schools and it breaks my heart those are not the hallways if you've ever been inside an elementary school those are the most bright most cheerful hallways because every teacher
115puts in a lot of time and effort to display the students projects artwork on the on the bulletin board if they ever change it it happens um transparent to the students so they'll go home when they come back next day they see their different artwork display they take pride in walking into their classrooms when they see their work it's it was blank the last week the school hall way were really sad and it was a very small statement the teachers were making because this is not part of their job they do it because they care they do it because they love these little children who are four years old to 10 years old 11 years old who take pride in the work that they do I as a parent am standing here today not just
116speaking for the teachers I am speaking for my children their education is now getting affected we as a district have taken too long too long to decide on the teacher contract they always given every time that they've asked for something they've been the ones who gave in because because you know the fight went on too long and the students were suffering this one time they've decided time's up and now we're seeing the effect on our children and I request the board to to please let this not affect our children's education High School seniors are not getting recommendation letters from the teachers again a very small statement because this is not part of their job they care they're doing a whole lot on on their working day I I my support is is 150% with the
117teachers I am not blaming them for whatever I'm saying is not happening right now I'm blaming the board for not doing something that we've been asking time and again every month in the board meeting we need to decide on this contract because slowly and steadily our children's education is suffering so this is not just about the teachers anymore it is about our children it is about the quality of Education in this town we need to do something and we need to do it fast thank you [Applause] good even Chrissy scurby 21 pness Drive um as a parent in the district I've had the opportunity to know our fantastic teachers at Oak Tree at Applegarth at the middle school at Barkley Brook at Brookside at the high school they are second to none in our district
118they are fantastic they are not just teachers they are like our family when when I stood in the hallway tonight alongside of them I started to tear up thinking about their struggle here it is not right we ask them to do the very best for our children and they are they deserve us to do the best back for them I would like to point out that the budget a few years back it was taken away from the voters of Monroe Township the budget the budget used to go out to vote to the township residents and this board voted to take that voice away and I think it's about time that this board re-evaluates that we do not need to go only to a 2% cap we don't have to stay under 2% if we cannot
119make the teachers contracts right and fair and adequate then we need to go above cap and go out to the residents obviously you see this room is filled I'm sure every single resident in this room would vote for a budget that gave the teachers a fair contract it is not fair what this board did and I know there are members that are on this board currently that at that time voted no for it and stood up for the voice of the residents and unfortunately it was not voted for we were our voice as residents were taken away and I'm asking this board give us back the voice to allow us to have a fair contract and a fair budget for our teachers [Applause] good evening my name is Andy poori I'm live on 16 St
120James Street I have two daughters one of them is actually born in Monroe the older one just is going to be graduating from high school already got admitted into the college thanks to the teachers of mro Township my younger one is in the sixth grade and she goes to the Middle School both of them always wanted to become teachers having heard what I heard over the last hour or so I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that they're not going to be the teachers uh it's very unfortunate because my dad was actually a professor and I came from a family of teachers I'm going to say something that I'm born and brought up back in India and please bear with me all of you it's in Sanskrit it's says Guru Brahma Guru
121Vishnu Guru maheswara Guru sakshat parab Brahma Guru Tas SRI Guru namaha what is it Guru means teacher teacher is the creator teacher is the enforcer teacher is is takes you to the next level and the last sentence actually talks about respect towards the teacher which is above and beyond the respect you have for your own parents so that's the culture a lot of these people who are moving into Monroe bring to Monroe Township so having said that I have been standing up here at the podium been asking the board of education for well over 6 months about this contract and also even before that we were talking about the number of teachers leaving the district as well so we haven't seen much change in that course and as of right now we have a serious
122issue with the uh the teachers contract and we talked about solving this I end understand the financial constraints we have I did everything in my power to make sure that the referendum passed but there's a lot of political elements that worked against it and it's very unfortunate as as uh prakash said that the teachers were not behind it maybe we would have had a little bit more money to negotiate if the contract did go through if the referendum did go through but it is time we solve the problem of the teachers contract hopefully we solve it tonight thank you [Applause] my name is Jessica mastor I've been teaching in the district for six years I graduated with my Master's in education from Ruckers University I was recently honored with mil lak's teacher of the year
123and my take-home salary is $26,000 it's disgusting I want to move to this District to raise my kids here have them go to the school that I teach in and I'm reconsidering thank [Applause] you hi my name is cira SE I'm a senior here my mom is a teacher my dad is a teacher my brother and sister are teachers and you may think that makes me biased but I think it makes me informed I know that teachers are the most important part of a functioning Society because an educated population is is absolutely necessary for a functioning Society but I'm speaking in in ideals and this is obviously not an ideal situation because we have hardworking teachers who put their heart and soul into making us better human beings every day and having to work second
124and third jobs because you are not paying them what they deserve I wish I could detail exactly what each teacher in the school has done to help me and better me as a person but I think it's some Point these teachers would like to go home to their families and they could if you pay them for all the work they do and not for society's jaded view of the education system thank [Applause] you anyone else wishing to speak okay then at this time I'm going to close the public forum for the budget and um if there are no further comments or questions from the board we'll have a roll call Mrs armenio yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs Deo yes Mrs Lang yes Mrs Corino yes Mr Ryback yes Mr Russo yes and
125Mrs kapano yes madame board president the 2018 2019 tenative budget has passed thank you very much at this time we'll go to our student board member report thank you Deca held its state conference at the end of February in Atlantic City 13 students qualified for the International Conference in Atlanta hone can you use your microphone I yes uh nine students got awarded the certified guest service professional award as well dea would like to thank the board for approving this trip FBA held it state conference as well despite the trip getting short because of the sow storm there were still 27 students that advanced to Nationals also on March 14th many students participated in a 17-minute walk for peace March in efforts to end school shooting tragedies and support families who lost their lives in Parkland
126and other communities thank you thank you thank you very much uh next on the agenda closed session resolution be it resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in accordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 col 4-6 through 10 colen 4-21 to discuss the following subject superintendent contract contract extension and matters falling within the attorney client privilege with respect to the subject following closed session action may be taken the discussion conducted in closed session will be disclosed to the public at such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists come move second moved by Mr cherella second by Mr Ryback all in favor I I opposed then at this time the board will move into Clos
127session I'm thinking maybe about a half an hour hopefully a little less at this time the board will move back into public session and Mr Gorski may we have a roll call please Mrs armeno Mr Braverman Mr Chella Mrs Deo here Mrs Lang here Mrs Corino Mr Rybeck here Mr Russo Mr rutsky and Mrs kapano here Madame board president with only four members in attendance we are short of the six required for a quarum which means as you know the board cannot conduct business any further this evening okay so again we have to apologize for everybody coming out um there were a lot of ramifications for not being able to have a meeting this afternoon because of some personal agendas for some board members we cannot approve any Personnel recommendations or field trips we cannot
128approve a a policy to have armed in-house retired police officers which means that the um the the recommendation or the the work that we're doing with the um Township Township will end in May and we will not have a policy in place we will not have an approval for the school calendar as of now I'm not even quite sure what that means and when we be going to school and when we won't um we cannot pay off our vendors we cannot have professional development with staff we cannot approve field trips student teachers and the board authorization to go out for an RFP for food service is not able to do that so at this time we will adjourn the meeting and um see what happens come April thank you [Music]