001good evening the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice all may we please have a r cmer sagorski Mrs Co panit here Mr Chella here miss antelis here Mr Braverman here Mr calman yeah Mr Klein here Mr Larry here Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Ferron here Madame board president you have a quorum thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monro Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted November 9th 2012
002one at all schools two the home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality and before we go to the public forum on behalf of the board I just like to congratulate Mr Braverman on his reelection to the board it's going to be real nice to have you back for another three years and I also like to congratulate and welcome welcome Mr Anthony proso and Mr Doug po to our board we look forward to working with both of you in January and um G to we're going to work with you to do great things for kids so congratulations and and congratulations Mar welcome at this time we'll go to the public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak to the agenda please come to the microphone and state
003your name and address for the record okay seeing no one we will go to the approval of the minutes for the public Board of Education meeting of September 12th 2012 move Mr Klein second second by Mr Masters all in favor I opposed abstentions Mr cherella is abstaining the approval of the minutes for the closed session meeting of September 12th 2012 so moved so moved by Mr Mr tesler second by Mr Klein all in favor opposed exensions Mr Chella so noted the approval of the minutes for the special Board of Education meeting of October 17 2012 sove Mr Mr Masters and Mr Klein okay who um all in favor I opposed abstentions and lastly the Clos session meeting of October 17 2012 second Mr cherella Mr Tesla all in favor I opposed abstentions okay at this
004time we will go down we will go to number seven the presentation of the 201122 comprehensive annual financial report would you like to take this or give it to Yes um I'd like to introduce um Mr Jerry stankowitz from Samuel CLI and Company certified public accountants he's here this evening to present um this year's [Music] audit good evening uh members of the board Dr Hamilton Mr Gorski good evening student representative um I'm happy to be here this evening uh to uh report on the annual comprehensive financial report uh otherwise known as the annual audit um I'd like to indicate that there were a couple meetings that were held prior to this in the normal course of business there was an exit Conference held with the administration uh Friday morning to discuss the findings of the
005report prior to final issuance then we had issued the report last evening there was a finance I guess business operations I'm not sure the exact name of the committee we had a lengthy meeting on the findings in that and I'm here tonight to present to the uh board the the full full board the audit um I do appreciate the ability to be here tonight we like everyone else lost time and power and I'm happy to be here to make the presentation this evening we kind of put it all together on Friday so we could do this and get this off everyone's plate there's two documents that you have in front of you the the thicker of the two is actually the board's Personnel in conjunction with us putting together What's called the cafa comprehensive annual
006financial report inside this report uh there are Financial schedules that were presented by the board personnel there were statistical regulatory information that's contained in here rather lengthy but it is in the form of a uh report of of a corporation where there's a uh there's a statement of uh net assets as we call it there's revenue and expense statements there's an independent Auditor's opinion um then there's individual fund the various components that make up the entire entity of the board there's a payroll fund a food Food Service fund a child care fund Student Activity funds special Revenue fund which is your grants the capital projects fund which bulk of which built this building um and then there's the main General operating fund which is really where the primary well the focus is on every major
007high-risk area but the primarily what we try to do is come in and based on the records as presented to us we give an opinion on that and just to briefly We There is a clean rather unqualified opinion on the statements meaning the the records as presented by the business office to us were present fairly the financial condition of the district just to supplement that with a few things and briefly I'll I'll describe them um with regards to payroll transactions we verified on a sample basis everything we do is based on the sample that all the transactions were properly adhered to proper pay was given to people that the withholdings were taken out that the withholdings were paid over to the IRS the state the pension board on a timely basis okay we and that
008they were charged to the proper accounting period which is Major importance with regards to expenditures expenditures were all properly documented they were done in accordance with the local public contracts law or the public school contracts law uh and they were properly charged they were charged of the proper fiscal year okay you there are bills that get paid in J in July August September and October that relate to June 30th and prior they are set up and accounts payable then there's a proper control over those there's no bills that are significant in fact there's probably no bills that were charged to 1213 that are really 1112 charges so we found that to be you know a really good aspect of our audit also the revenues were cut off properly um we spent some time in the
009capital projects fund as we do every year making sure that all the bills are proper there that all the compliance matters that are required to be done that everything is purchased properly and accounted for properly um student activity funds we put time in on that we don't want to uh neglect the Student Activity funds because there those are areas where they're not always under control of a of a Michael Gorski or a Laura Allen they're out in the schools and they're not OP they're not monitoring the day-to-day operations they do monitor on a periodic basis which is Major which is a major important thing in this day and age where uh people take Liberties okay we don't have that here haven't had it for a while so that's important as well we do spend time
010in that but we always recommend that it gets pre- audited before we get here in fact pre- audited probably on a quarterly basis so the whole the whole the whole um picture here is pretty good we also uh you have very little Grant activity in terms of like Title One and idea but the people we met with that run th those particular programs within the district were able to demonstrate that there's compliance with the grant requirements um they spent a good deal of time and effort on that and it's it's a benefit to the district major import item too and the final aspect of of why we end up with a clean opinion the your bank reconciliations and all your cash agree to your general ledger and all the supporting records that's of a major
011importance it's a little technical but a little every now and then a little lesson on accounting doesn't hurt anyone so in the end we end up with this thick document that uh contains a clean opinion which I would tell you is on page nine if you'd like to look at it it's and if you don't want that's fine um my feelings aren't hurt basically the third paragraph says the the financial statements above present fairly in accordance with um they present fairly all in all material respects the financial position of of the governmental activities and business activities of the major funds of the uh of the district okay so we we're happy with the result we also uh so you know we try to sometimes every year switch the direction of our audit test to to
012make sure that we keep people on their toes and that uh some people have been in the business long enough like like Michael would know the predictability of audit tests okay we sometimes change direction on those we might come from a different angle on certain items but you usually we try to stay very aggressive and make sure that that everything that I told you about is properly adhered to one page I want to refer you to which is well I shouldn't say that by the time we get there there's various sections of here one is management discussion and Analysis which is actually a document authored by the management of the district that indicates to the board that the audit took place and kind of converge some of the financial information in it to um to
013to English so not not accounting terminology it also factors in uh items like compensated absences and depreciation which are required by the Lords of the accounting business world but it it really doesn't affect the district it's nice to know the numbers but um the real meat of your district with your finances is actually contained in on um exhibit C1 which is page 82 I guess there there used to be a joke at board secretary business administrator meetings uh what's your Surplus and how many recommendations did you get so uh we're we we'll answer half of that question here we started the year 12, 114,000 and ended at 11,742 there are if you see on the page turn it sideways there are five components um one is your excess Surplus that was appropriated in your U
0141213 budget that's left over from the 1112 school year I'm sorry from the 10-11 school year then you have unreserved excess Surplus of4 million 122 that's left over from 1112 that will be appropriated in 1314 you have 1,700 bucks in your capital reserve and you have $239,000 which was some excess state aid that you were awarded in June of 11 that you are using for your 1213 budget as revenue and then you have your unassigned which is really your maximum level of surplus you're allowed to keep it's a 2% I call it a 2% ceiling it's 2% of your uh operating expenses that you're allowed to keep in reserve you can go below it okay um if you have to but that's what they let you keep sort of as a safety net and probably
015for for future years so that's really the summary of of the whole uh audit process and the exhibits that we prepare in conjunction with the business office there's a lot of other schedules there's notes to financial and as Mr Koffman pointed out uh in the past that the bi it's not really the Bible but there's a lot of information in here um and don't I mean to me I know it by heart some people don't like to read it but if you want to find out about the foundation of the finances of this district and even more information about the town this is a good starting point um talks about Debt Service your future payout on debt service talks about uh I know Mr L's favorite topic cost per student U there's a 10-e history
016of that uh talks about how many meals we served uh just the whole lot of different things to get a good idea you need to kind of read both of these documents um I'll get to this thinner document the thinner document is actually my letter to the board that indicates the operation of the district as to whether there were any deficiencies or errors and I could say for what we've tested and uh over tested we we found no uh problems that were required to be disclosed at the board level okay uh there wasn't even inconsequential as they say in the business um uh errors inside of here there's also um a summary of the uh Assa which is the application for state school aid which shows you how many kids by grade that you have
017and sometimes that's interesting especially in the earlier grades if the numbers are really big uh as your gisik is growing it just gives you maybe an early warning indicator as to where where your district is heading for overall uh student count we also again we we look at various items we do test your food service company we test their bills they charge them to you but they're actually their bills um we look at that we look at how many meals were served we verify those numbers different things that we do uh we look at your maintenance expenses to make sure those were proper in accordance with the law and as I indicated at our exit conference every year Department of Ed comes out with more requirements that add onto your business administrator even your superintendent
018and trickles down to everybody it just non-stop with the um with the requirements and we have to stay on our toes and even though we don't have to spend two weeks on one area we do spend time in these little areas half a day or a day trying to make sure that we're in compliance with that so as a result of our testing in this smaller document there's no recommendations and I do want to congratulate Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski for uh allowing the staff to help us uh achieve our goal in getting the order completed your staff is very hardworking and uh they want feedback they want to know if they're doing good they want to know what they can do better uh and and along those lines I want to emphasize you know
019we talked about this and I always have to do this um it's important that the money be in the classroom however we got to put a little bit aside for the business office the only way the board can make decisions about things is to have proper accounting information okay and the only way to do that is to make sure that it flows properly right from The Source documents which is the tiny little petty cash voucher or any little invoice for an exterminator or purchase of books or hammers or repairs so that that my message is we have to make sure that that there's a proper Staffing level there we don't want to get behind in in any of the recordkeeping and we've been pretty good pretty aggressive in this District that's staying at that level
020so in the end we have a clean opinion and no audit recommendations okay thank you motion to accept and approve the 20112 comprehensive annual financial report second second by Mr Klein Mr Gorski did you want to say something before we um um yes than thank you before we vote um if the board would allow me the Indulgence of just a few minutes I'd like to go through the report and and touch upon some of the items that I feel are U most interesting to the public um as Mr stankowitz pointed out the management discussion and Analysis part of the audit touches upon some of the highlights of the year um in 2011 the district received an additional state aid Award of $887,000 which $647,000 was appropriated partially for new science program restoration of transportation services
021and 239,000 was dedicated for tax relief in 1213 in March of 2012 the district refunded all of the high school Bonds on this building project and that resulted in a Net Present Value Savings of over $2 million of Interest savings um the district opened the high school in September of 2011 which was this audit year 382,000 budget was $352,000 the actual Appropriations that went towards Applegarth were in excess of $1.7 million I'll explain how we got to those numbers in in a little while uh the district entered a Cooperative purchasing Management program which produced total District Savings of $323,000 on Supply orders compared to the prior year and we're in compliance with s701 the next section on page 16 has to do with taxes and and the only thing I want to emphasize here is
022what Mr stano's found to be profound from this pie chart 86% of the revenues raised by this District to support the education of 6,000 students comes from the local tax levy that's extraordinary it doesn't compare well with other districts and we're fighting hard and we're going to get to some legislation shortly that the district has introduced to the Senate through Senator Greenstein to helpfully change that that make up on page 82 it talks about Surplus um the amount of surplus applied to the 1314 school year this is called um excess Surplus calculations $4.1 million that's a decrease from the prior year of $5.5 million the decrease or utilization of that Surplus is due to partially the renovations at Applegarth school that went over budget and some other expenditures for this opening of the high school
023that were not anticipated um a resident inquired before about how much debt is outstanding for this District what do we owe on outstanding Bond obligations as of the end of the audit that figure is just above $152 million unemployment in the township last year was 11.1% higher than than the national average um we're pleased to say that that's dropped to 9.8% as of June 30th and as Mr ly pointed out on page 126 there's a very important statistic cost per pupil and the percentage increase in cost per pupil back in 2007 when we had um trailer Appropriations throughout the district cost per pupil percentage change increase 99.66% in the last 3 years the percentage increase in cost per pupil increased 98% 0.3% and this year 87% that's less than 1% increase in the cost per
024pupil increases for the last three years that's doing more with less finally I would like to thank Mr Jerry stankowitz and his audit staff for their Professional Services I'd like to thank the of education for the precious resources that they have committed for Staffing requirements and I would especially like to thank Laura Allen accounting supervisor who's truly the most technically proficient and ethical accountant that I've had the privilege to work with her contributions toward fiscal reporting budgeting and internal controls make our financial representations both relevant and reliable and I thank her for her dedication please comments or questions from the board Mr tiella yes I I just want to I I want to thank you Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski and your team I think you guys you know year after year you've done a
025exemplary job making sure that this is done uh properly and that every penny is accounted for um I also want to thank Mr liry and the finance committee because I know that they also do a lot of work with regards to this and and and and helping keep an eye on on our tax dollars um I have to tell you though this was a boring read and I do thank you for sending it to us but I had to read some pages a few times and I know I'm not the The Brightest Bulb in the Box here but I had I did have to read that a few times but I do thank you for sending it and I I don't know if I would have read it if it wasn't you know my tax
026dollars also going into this but I I want to thank you guys for great job anyone else and um it's sad to think that Mr ly who is going to be retiring from us next month will not be doing um this financial work anymore and I think whoever follows in his footsteps has got big shoes to fill thank and a lot of stories they going to have to know I'd like to thank Mr Larry as well every now and then we have I do many boards and many Gover bodies microphone we I'm sorry here's a microphone okay we um we uh every now and then we get a person who makes us up our game also okay and we appreciate that we keeps everybody on toes and including the Auditors because there's a an old
027expression who audits the Auditors um we still haven't figured that out yet but we need to know you know it's great to know that we have someone there that actually understands what we do and also in effect pre- audits a lot of things uh and takes a look at things uh had board members from Enron done that there might not have been similar problems in they wouldn't be in the crossbar hotel that's correct so I want to thank him for that I I want to make one other comments Mr L I had the uh privilege for seven years of being on the middle sex County Educational Service Commission and uh I'll be candid with you I spent more time working up there than I did here and I was again I was the chair of
028the finance committee and they have an executive committee and I was on that and that was a great learning experience and I transferred a lot of that knowledge to here and some of the knowledge from here back to there so it's a showing the cross coupling you can get and uh it's been a good ride but uh it's time to uh get back to Rossmore and start looking at that governance and I think we all concur with Mr chell's statement that um we we need to thank the business office for what they've been doing um it's continuation of what um Mr holiday did and it's just gone right to your you and your team Mike so um we appreciate everything that's been going on there we don't have to worry about things um Mr Tesla
029just a quick question for Mr stankowitz out of all the districts you uh you audit um just roughly about what percentage would you say have a clean bill of health like Monroe are we on the minority or the majority uh me personally all pretty clean um and there's a reason for that is that I push you know I don't have to push here I push these districts to to get better and do better um that's just how I was trained uh you got to help your client you know some people don't help client I believe in was trained to help the client so yeah we write them up for things but we try to push them so that let's let's get this thing perfect okay because with all the technology today and all the training
030and certification processes there should be minimal errors on any districts other districts I don't work on them that my my nor office does they I assume they have a lot of problems and I shy away from those so me you're the people I work on I'm more you know South Jersey this area here there's not lot of problems okay thank you anyone else okay then we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski I think that passed already the C vote on this the C I thought it present beg your pardon made the Motions okay um Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes M anelis Mr braver yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano Madam board president motion passes thank you okay at this time we will
031go to the superintendent report Dr Hamilton good Thanksgiving thank you have a good bye bye good evening everyone um couple of things on the superintendent report firstly I I'm going to read a resolution a little later wrong when we get into board action but I want to take a moment to really acknowledge our uh Maintenance and Facilities crew for doing such exceptional work with getting our schools ready following the um hurricane that we experienced and the the snow that that followed um it was a took a Herculean effort to get our district uh as open as quickly as we did and and I would be remissed if I didn't acknowledge our team for doing such exceptional work uh moving on to the superintendent report uh your enrollment data is listed there and the um out
032of District placement numbers are also uh listed on your your board report home instruction records home instruction records are also listed and the fire drills um are being submitted for your approval and the lockdown drills noticing that Monroe High School uh missed their emergency lockdown drill as a result of the weather so we'll have to make that up at another time on the Personnel report Madame board president and members of the board of of Education it is recommended by the superintendent that personel Personnel items a through V be approved by roll call vote second Mr Cho and who second that Mr Masters is there any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton seeing none will'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr liry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes
033Mrs fron yes Miss antelis yes I recuse myself on item T like Tom so noted Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes M Pano yes Madam board president Personnel items passes thank you on board action items I'm going to break these items up a little bit because we have um I'm going to need a motion on the floor um for someone to represent us on the uh middle six County Educational Service Commission so I'm going to read up into up to that item and then I have another change on item H so Madame board president and members of the board of education is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through e be approved by roll call vote Mr cherella and Mr Kaufman comments or questions seeing none we'll have a roll call Mr
034calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr liry yes Mr Masters Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes M antelis Mr Braverman yes Mr cheer yes Mrs K Pano Madame board president board action items a through e passes thank you and on item f it is recommended that the board appoint a representative to the middle sex Regional Education Service Commission effective January 1st through December 31st 2013 and if that motion passes we would need a recommendation uh for approval second Mr cherella and Mr Kaufman do we need to um I do a roll call first to approve okay a roll call and comments or questions then we will have a roll call Mr calman Mr Klein yes Mr ly yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon miss antelis Mr Braverman Mr Chella yes Mrs colan m
035board president item passes and if someone on the board would make a recommendation for or volunteer if that's the president's pleasure to have a represent ative on the middle sex Regional Education Service Commission from this board oh I don't want to do it I was gbody I would I was going to nominate can't be L Mr Master you want yeah great very hard I nominate Lou Masters is there a second I'll second okay um we could do this as a all in favor all in favor of having Mr Mr Masters as our representative to the MCC all in favor I opposed abstentions congratulations Mr can I ask don't tell my wife till I get home uh she probably got the text already yeah sorry um board action item G it is recommended that the board
036renew the navian lost my place got it it is recommended that the board renew the Navan succeed essential subscription and the nav store learning style inventory for the middle school for the 2012 2013 school year in the amount of $517 Mr Chella and Mr Masters any questions Mr Tesla yeah Dr Hamilton can you just explain a little what that is thanks um that is a system that we used to um monitor student progress and it helps us to track where students are going uh through high school and Beyond okay thank you did you have the same question okay um roll call Mr Gorski Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr ly yes Mr Masters Mr tesler yes Mrs frony Miss antelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs colano yes Madam board president item
037G pass thank you and item H um I I'll read that through because it's going to be modified just a little bit uh it is recommended that the Monro Township Board of Education approved retroactive to November 5th 2012 the previously submitted agreements regarding employee attendance on school on November 9th 2012 as follows agreement between the board and the Monroe Township School administrations administrators Association and sidebar agreement between the board and the Monroe Township Board of Education support staff Association the board president and the business administrative board secretary are hereby authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement the act4 said agreements motion Miss Miss anelis is there a second Mr cherella is there any questions Mr Masters so is the only difference that you're removing the first bullet that is correct we we
038need to revise the sidebar with the mtea um before I asked the board to approve that okay BR call Mr calman so noted Mr Klein yes Mr lirry yes Mr Meers yes Mr tesler yes Mrs fron yes Miss anelis exuse so noted Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs Pano yes Madam board president board action item H passes and it is recommended by the superintendent that board action items I and J be approved by roll call vote Mr Masters second second by Mr Tesla again comments or questions seeing none we'll have a roll call Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr liry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Miss Fon yes Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs K Pano Madam board president board action items I andj pass and last
039item on the superintendent's report which I'll read into the record um would be item K it is recommended that the members of the Town Monroe Township Board of Education acknowledge and memorialize the following account as related to Hurricane Sandy and its impact on the district the hurricane superstorm arrived in Monroe Township late in the evening of Sunday October 28th 2012 District facilities were without power for varying durations from October 24th through November 8th 2012 after which time all facilities had full power restorage voting operations were able to be successfully conducted at Woodland and Brookside on November 8th 2012 election day however the oak tree school voting site was relocated to the Applegarth fire station due to lack of power at Oak Tree damages which are still being calculated are thought not to exceed $40,000 and
040consist primarily of down trees spoiled fruit and medication and electrical damage to building HVAC and alarm control sensors Etc Monroe Township office of emergency management utilized Monroe Township High School is a shelter of residents on October 29th through 30th six scheduled school days October 29th October 30th 31st and November 1st 2nd and 5th were canceled due to the storm but a planned school closing on on November 9th 2012 njaa convention was able to be reversed to lessen the impact of days loss however due to a snow storm on o on November 8th 2012 also an njaa convention day plan school closing the district was closed and was unable to recoup this day no staff or student injuries were reported in District as related to the storm due to the storm damages suffered by many school
041districts throughout the state the Department of Education extended the 1213 application for state aid um and the district report for transported student residents filing deadline from October 31st 2012 to November 9th 2012 fortunately due to the hard work of the Monroe Township facility staff and the expended efforts of the Monroe Township support staff these reports were reported prepared electronically transmitted and hard copy delivered to the county office by the no the November 9th 2012 extended deadline as it also extended by the department of of Education was the deadline for reporting the NJ smart from November 13th through November 22nd 2012 to November 30th 2012 this report is in progress and will be filed by the extended deadline is there a motion so move Miss antelis Mr Chella are there any comments or questions Mr Klein
042it's night at the council meeting um there's supposed to be Aid coming from federal government financial aid are we able to get um government money for any damages that we had I'm not sure which is why I read this into the record so that there is a documented record a public record of the damages and the impositions that we experienc as Resort they're expecting anywhere from 75% I believe they got in Irene to 100% of what their losses are right we are we've been directed by the commissioner to calculate our damages or losses and enter them um in a formal record good thank you Mr cherella yeah I just want to quickly just thank you and the facilities team because I know that there was a lot going on and it it took a Herculean
043effort to get everything up and running and um I know that there were periods I didn't have power and none of us had power for over a week so you know you you did keep in close contact with all of us I know we received numerous text messages I know you were touring Monroe I know the facility team which that work I know that I I may have even had a short fuse because I wanted my kids in school and that back out of the house cuz I was going stir crazy myself without power and having them killing each other and me but I just want to thank you all for thank you great I appreciate that Mr tesler thank you uh ditto and Ken's remarks uh one suggestion um for something maybe we can
044Implement in the future um during the storm uh at home I lost phone service uh my my landline was down uh my cell phone could barely get a call out so a lot of ways I one way I kept in touch with everybody was Facebook and I know the Monroe Township office of emergency management put up a Facebook page and they would put posts on there maybe we can do something addition to the alert now because a lot of people couldn't get phone calls or maybe even see the website um maybe putting a just a uh a same type of Facebook page that we can post school closings or important announcements uh for the future so there was a lot of confusing and rumors going around kids were posting things incorrectly so I was trying
045to help squash those rumors as well but just a suggestion thank you Mr Larry U I have two uh phone lines I have one that's on Comcast and the other one on Verizon Verizon with good old 48volt battery never faulted Comcast was dead in a dil thank you Miss L Miss anelis oh okay she has a correction um I just also wanted to elaborate on uh what Ira was saying um I know that as you were sending us things we uh Ira myself some other people were posting them on Facebook and maybe in that case because people have their smartphones you know a lot of parents that it would be good to maybe start up a Facebook page when there is something like that it just seems like a really good way to get the
046information out there um I know that Monroe now has an emergency phone system um but unfortunately when your phones are out you know it doesn't help and it really was a good way to get some good information so and I thank you for also keeping in touch with us that that really was um what you would send us I would ask you if it was okay to post on Facebook and I a lot of parents really appreciated you know that um too many rumors and things going around so quite welcome thank you a quick question about the generator situation Mr caufman because I think on one of the text messages over some kind of an issue uh yeah just had a question on the the the status of the generator I know it's both Diesel
047and gas backup and I know at some point in time something happened can you elaborate what that was and no because I don't know I know that um I got a call that we needed to uh open the high school for temporary shelter um and we had to send the generator out for Repair actually had to have someone come in to do the repair um and once that happened we were able to open the school but I'm not really sure what the malfunction was do you know Mike um as Mr calman stated the backup generator for this building doesn't support all the systems in the building it's just basically the emergency systems and the basic lighting and and the Heat and the um the it's a dual hybrid system of natural gas and Diesel and
048there was a a technical problem with the Natural Gas part of the system where it didn't function and it then switched over to diesel but a th000 gallons of diesel got eaten up rather quickly and it was impossible to order a a fill of diesel during this time um I'll have to check with Mr T to find out what technically was repaired but I understand that it is fixed and operational again I think what one of the things we need to do looking forward is figuring out what parts of the building can actually run on the backup generators to make sure that the facility is able to function um reason being I I came over to the municipal building one of the days after the storm and to be across the street from a 400,000
049square foot state-of-the-art facility and see cars backed up on top of each other and people huddled in hallways around outlets in the municipal building seems like we we missed an opportunity here now I know the buildings new this the systems are new but I think as a part of our disaster planning type of stuff we need to continuously ongoing you know make sure that all of the backup facilities work on a regular basis to make sure that you know I felt bad for a lot of these people because they were they were literally crammed up in like sardines um and we have this enormous amount of space here and we couldn't use it all because it wasn't working so you know you learn right you learn from these things and you try and move on
050and it's a good idea to make sure we have the ability and capacity to you know to support our you know our residents Mr Klein again last night's meeting they had 500 to 600 excuse me last night's meeting at the council the report was they had 500 to 600 people a day in the municipal building charging their phones and sitting around and a woman spoke who uh I don't know if was her daughter or her mother has a medical condition where they need electric and they had problems getting a ren there were also um their reverse 9911 phone calls worked for me I had landline a lot of people didn't Facebook is a very good idea they discussed it last night um but they also are looking for emergency facilities now they know that they
051have the high school they know they have one of the adult I think it's Clearbrook has uh a generator um my community we're bringing up uh the possibility of putting a generator in um what they want to do and this is through Ernie Feist is they want to uh develop a listing of Emergency Shelters that can be used and perhaps we can do something well the high school definitely I don't know if we can do something at the middle school to help the township you got to remember in 14 months we had two major major storms we can use any of our facilities we actually did end up using uh Woodland at one point because it was it was so we can use any of our facilities and I have to say the um Chief
052um we communicated on a daily basis about where we were in the district and in the township and um it was a very very solid working relationship through the crisis I think we used mil Lake last year too during move yes that is correct anyone else roll call roll call this is a roll call on the memorialization and documentation for Hurricane Sandy item k Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr lirry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon Mr Nellis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella yes Mrs kapano yes mam board president item K pav thank you and that concludes the superintendent's report okay at this time we will go to the business administrators report Madam board president and members of the Monroe Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action
053items a through I be approved by consent roll call so moved sellis and Mr Kaufman comments or questions from Mr Gorski I think Mr Klein where do we stand with the state for what do they owe is $5 million good um the state owes us just under $3 million as part of a section 15 grant for this school it was $15.4 million and we've received all of it but about $2.9 million Mr T and I have met with representatives from the school construction Corp in Trenton and we provided them with our final payment installment request along with a plethora of documentation supporting the payment request I understand from recent communication that our audit that our application and this whole grant for the school has now been audited by the state of New Jersey because of
054its size and that they will be visiting us to inspect the facility and request additional documentation before they submit the final payment I'm hopeful that we can get that money before we finalize the budget process this year because it would be much more comfortable knowing that you can commit fiscal resources that you have in hand as opposed to that of a receivable from the state so in other words we have to jump through hoops for them and as we we know a few years ago two years in a row they beat us after we set up our budgets they shorted us $500,000 a year oh I think this is utterly ridiculous what about the 95% cut yeah that's terrible that was $4.1 Million indeed any other questions we'll have a roll call Mr calman Mr
055Klein yes Mr liry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs frr Miss anelis yes Mr bra yes Mr Chella yes Mrs K Pano yes Madam board president board action items a through I passes thank you that concludes your report yes ma'am okay um before I go to my board president's report since I did not see it in the um agenda um we will go to our student board member and have her give her report good evening ladies and gentlemen several events took place this month November 6th school was closed for election day due to the storm the marking period extended and will end November 20th also there will be a half day November 21st and no school November 22nd to 23rd for Thanksgiving thank you thank you very much uh at this time I'll
056go to the My Board president's report um it was mentioned at the last board meeting that proposed legislation was drafted by Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski and sent to Senator Linda Greenstein in the hope that she would introduce it to the senate for their consideration so I'd like to give you an update on where we stand on that um a slightly varied version of that proposed legislation that was drafted by Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski was introduced by Senator Greenstein it is now in the Senate system for their consideration the next time they have a quorum and it is known known as Bill number s237 currently school districts are subject to a state aid growth limit in a single year a district state aid may not increase by more than 10% or 20% depending on
057the district's expenditure level relative to the prior school year this new bill would eliminate the state aid growth limit for a school district in a municipality in which at least 33.3% % of the residents are 65 years old or older according to the most recent federal decennial census if this bill is passed it would give significant School tax relief for our overburdened community in the additional amount of $6.9 million and fully fund the school funding Reform Act of 2008 for our Township if this legislation passes in the Senate it would then go to the general assembly mbly for their consideration and approval and then hopefully if when it's passed by them it would go to the governor for his signature what we're asking as a board now is to get our entire Community behind this
058bill and help us uh support this legislature by writing letters sending emails texting our Representatives that you support the passage of Bill number s237 I believe that there were copies um available of this bill with the agenda so we will be posting online the names and addresses of our um assembly people or Governor or Senators so that you can have their addresses and contact them it is also important that the Board of Education Gets behind this bill so at this time I'd like to read a resolution supporting proposed Senate Bill 2307 for the board to consider and approve whereas under current law school districts are subject to a state aid growth limit and whereas pursuant to the current state aid growth limit in a single year a school district state aid may not increase by
059more than 10% or 20% depending on the district's expenditure level relative to the prior school year and whereas proposed Senate bill number 2307 eliminates the state aid growth limit for a school district in a municipality such as Monroe Township in which at least 33.3% of the residents are 65 years old or older according to the most recent federal desal census and whereas the Monro Township Board of Education believes that the passage of the aforementioned proposed legislation would be in the best interest of the Monroe Township School District and the taxpayers of Monroe Township now therefore be it resolved that the Monroe Township Board of Education hereby supports the passage of proposed Senate bill number 2307 and directs the business administrator board secretary to send a copy of this resolution to the governor and all legislators
060representing Monroe Township so moved second okay who who is the first Lou and second by Mr Chella there any comments or questions Miss analis I think this is a great step it's a step in the right direction but I think we need to do more I think that letters are not enough we have done petitions we have done letters I think it's time for the people down in Trenton to meet the 33 and a3d from Monroe Township this town has World War 2 veterans uh Korean War veterans many Vietnam veterans Holocaust Survivors I think it's important that they see these people and hear them um and I think that we can organize that I think we really need to go down there and let them see the kind of people and what they're doing to
061them Mr Cher I correct cor me if I'm wrong but did you say that there that would be that would benefit us by $6.9 million additional additional monies the only thing that I would caution and I think this is very important is that if we do see an increase in Aid by $6.9 million that we use it to offset the tax burden of our taxpayers instead of using it to spend on you know just to spend more and and and keep the tax burden the same so I think I'll vote for this but I I I I'd like to see us help alleviate the tax burden that would be part of um our budget philosophy that the board would have to con look at together um Mr ly yeah I would uh I'm fully in
062support of everything that's been said before but in order to get legislation approved you got to have 21 Senators you got to have 41 representatives and therefore I think we should urge Senator Greenstein to go across the aisle and within her own caucus and search out the communities of Ocean County in particular and large parts of Essex County that have planned retirement communities and can meet that 33% and build a head of steam and it's not just Monroe saying me me me me it's a tidal wave across the entire 21 counties Mr Gorski to Mr L's comment I had a a nice conversation today with Senator Greenstein and that is exactly what she proposed to do also and that's our that's our game plan to reach out to all of those communities with high senior
063citizen populations in excess of one-third of their Township residents who are hurting from property tax increases universally and unite those in a letter writing email phone campaign to get this through the Senate uh with with support and with the kind of enthusiasm that we saw at our last board meeting surrounding tax increases in this town I think there's a chance that this could pass and so does Senator Greenstein would be great KY Mr Klein one other thing if this doesn't pass um I there was supposedly a bill I mentioned something months ago about the way these prop property taxes are handled or school taxes are handled throughout the country and you have some states that if you're handicapped disabled or over 65 you pay absolutely nothing in in school taxes which I'm against then you
064have other school other um states that for the same categories they get a 50% cut in school taxes that's fairer somebody had mentioned to me after I mentioned it at a meeting that supposedly there was a bill uh in the senate in their archives because remember they can put all the bills they want unless it's called by the leader of the House of the Senate it just sits there so I tried to find the uh the number the bill number and all I see is loads of bills for um um grievances uh uh theft everything other than what you want so perhaps the next time you speak to Linda or I'll call Linda and find that if there is a bill uh in that effect which really is the right thing to do but uh
065I wish us a lot of luck it's it's a great move if they could move it up for discussion and for final vote so good work Mr Larry and that's the reason why I say we got to go broadscale do everything we can right here in Monroe but make sure we hit all 21 counties make sure there's a head of steam and you got Sheil Oliver and you got Steve Sweeney coming along and saying hey this is the right thing to do for people who have really got their back to the wall we got to do something anyone else okay roll call M anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs crony yes Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr lirry yes Mr Masters Mr tesler yes Mrs paano yes Madam board president motion
066passes thank you and just a couple more things um this Saturday November 17th the New Jersey school boards Association will be holding a school funding Forum which will feature a panel who will discuss alternative revenues to fund New Jersey public education system including linking the likelihood of new new Senate new state revenues to reduce local Reliance on property taxes uh this um Forum will be held at Mercer County college and I'm planning to attend that um lastly a couple of months ago um we talked about forming an ad hoc committee for district growth and the responsibility of this committee would be to review the increasing student population for the next few years and the facility requirements in addressing the student increases and um it'll be looking at we expect about 1,000 students extra in the
067next 5 years and where are we going to put them um do we need in addition to the high school will we need to build another school in the southern part of town will we have to look at redistricting so this committee's responsibility would be to address the questions and make um a recommendation to the board and I believe the first meeting is set up for Thursday November 29th at 5:00 at the central office if anybody's um no here at the high school here at the high school yes here at the high school um if anybody's interested in attending um you could either come or give uh the board office a call and that concludes my report and we'll go to committee reports are there any committees that need to report this evening Mr Kaufman
068uh yes you're being used right um there was a committee meeting this evening for the curriculum uh we took a look at the uh first draft of the uh qua report which is the uh report card on how our schools are doing a recommendation has been made to get some finer detail uh which represents how the um the individual schools are doing uh grade by grade across the entire District um I think it's a good barometer to figure out exactly how we are doing on an aggregate level and and and make good assessments of how um education is being distributed throughout the district um we also had a presentation this evening at the ey store on a a very interesting iMovie um which was done by our students um an interview of a World War
069II uh veteran which was is going to be running out in the foyer I think for the rest of the evening um one thing we didn't get to that I think is um I'm sorry to throw this at you Jeff because we didn't come back to the meeting in time um in addition to things we discussed it would be a good idea if we can start taking a look at um because it was brought up the night before in the finance committee um looking at our curriculum across the board and and trying to determine um where we know that we have to make improvements and adjustments based on the National Standard and figuring out a a project plan if you will of of managing how we're going to make uh curriculum adjustments moving forward uh
070for all of our curricula at all grade levels so that we have a better proactive plan plan just you know as as was said in other board meetings you know we're required ever so many years to review the curriculum to make sure the standards are up to par but we're not required to necessarily make changes just for change sake you know the changes are required based on the standards at the time and just for The public's information um over the past few years we've been having a lot of aggressive changes to the curriculum because we have shifted from the New Jersey core standard to a National Standard and that would also be good to know where we are in that progress too uh to make sure that we're on track of meeting all the requirements
071of that so um if you can get that to us that'd be great and that's it Mr ly yeah uh yesterday uh at the finance committee meeting we had three elements the first was uh Gerald stanko wit's presentation and that took up a good portion of an hour and then we had some Lively discussion after that on the next two items was the development of a budget philosophy as part of the Strategic plan finance and accountability and what the members agreed to last night was we should get all the members of the board to sit in a dedicated like Saturday or seminar type that we which we've had before and really discuss this because we got to look at all the elements I mean it's not appropriate for just the finance to do it with
072dollar signs we need to bring in the curriculum we need to bring in building and grounds and really have a full discussion and lay out what are the key elements so that uh guidance can be given to principles and other people as they're preparing the 201314 budget in a meaningful way and have strong support from the board so that I I I know Dr uh Hamilton is going to be trying to figure out what would be the appropriate day and we'll work Kathy and so forth but I think this is a right way to do it across the whole board rather than on a little segment of a committee second thing was the uh Mike reported on a uh difficult situation the accounting systems that the schools have to run on are based on do
073systems of what 1983 or thereabouts so they finally in the year 2012 have decided they're going to go to a new system but they have not gone and thoroughly rung it out having an alpha site a beta site and go and do what good software engineering says you should do so Mika is going to have an interesting time working this new software so give him a little slack and uh he'll keep you posted as things progress all right any other committee reports okay number 12 are Board of Education business is there any other business from any member of the Board of Education hey seeing on we'll go to close session resolution be it resolved that the Board of Education in the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into close session in accordance with the
074Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 colon 4th 6 through Ken col 4-21 to discuss the following subjects legal matters Personnel Jamesburg tuition student matters harassment intimidation and bullying in incidents and I believe there's another one that I don't have on my agenda legal advice related to Personnel matter and legal seek attorney advice regarding board governance issues the discussion conducted in close session can be discussed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved is there a motion to go Mr Kaufman second by Mr tesler all in favor poos then the board at this time will move into Clos session at this time the board will move into public session and I believe Dr Hamilton has a resolution he'd like to read yes whereas the Jamesburg board
075of education has failed to commit to pay their proportionate share of interest on the Monroe Township High School bond series specifically 2003 and 2008 and whereas this refusal adversely affects the revenue of the Monroe Township School District to operate the schools and to serve its students and James Bird students now therefore be it resolved that the board hereby directs the board of attorney the board attorney to pursue any and all appropriate remedies including the filing of a petition of appeal with the commissioner of Education against James Berg unless this dispute can be resolved within the next two weeks of the date of this resolution the board attorney superintendent of schools and business administ administrator are authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement the action of the board so moved second Mr Braverman
076and Mr lry any comments or questions if not we'll have a roll call Mr Gorski Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes Mrs frony I beg a pardon yes no no big your Parton Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr tiella yes Mrs kapano yes madame board president resolution passes thank you this time we will move to the public forum and anyone from the audience who wishes to speak please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record hi Michelle sh min9 Nathaniel Street um once again uh regarding the Clos session resolutions uh I believe that based on especially January uh 207 path versus Monroe Township Board of Education which has already been uh sued uh for not giving proper resolution uh descriptions um
077I I think that the close session resolutions were inadequate um it could have been more uh succinct about the Jamesburg tuition and also legal advice related to a personal matter again um path versus Board of Education the Monroe Board of Education um the directive from the uh judge it says that you can be a lot more informative about the Clos session resolution okay okay I mean you we open ourselves to another lawsuit if the if the resolution isn't properly um given so can so are the other matters resolved you talked about the jam just that one okay well what what is legal advice related to a personal matter you can say what kind of matter it is without divulging personal information you don't have to give me the name of the a person wasn't it
078a person personel matter we cannot discuss Personnel matters until they are resolved now I you can say what type of matter it is I believe so I I'm I'm not going to this evening okay so you're it it says that to give an idea of what would be sufficient description and this is I think the Judgment the subject matter of a closed session in the resolution the court stated that in many cases where the litigation is being discussed the name of the case can be divulged without harm in certain situations however doing so may reveal confidential information I understand that so you and it also says that the resolution should State any labor negotiations or Personnel matters are being considered in Clos session if I may if I may respond um I think the most
079specificity we can give you to that is a disciplinary action against a district employee okay that's much better and what's wrong with that I mean again you're opening up yourself to a lawsuit because there's a directive from the courts as to how to proceed and if you're not doing that you're going to cost the taxpayers money by opening up another lawsuit um could you talk about could you explain um on board action the staff professional development what that entails what number uh uh Roman numeral 5A I'm all district imp oh wait a minute I'm make sure I want I'm speaking to the right one you said 5 a oh and this is the what I got off the internet so I don't know if it's a corresponding one on the is it right 5 a
080yes that is uh professional development for the month for All District staff um particularly if it relates to any expenditures or mileage reimbursement we're required by law to to list that even if they're going what kind of professional development any professional developments there's nothing specific you mean this is General correct okay uh the list of student teachers uh in the school year how many of those on that list C board action C I'll tell you in a second and is there and uh is there any financial compensation to student teachers no okay you have that in front of you Mr kin yeah it looks like slides okay okay then can you please next could you please explain uh H employee attendance the agreement between the board of Monroe and the Monro Township education associ those
081three items agreement between the board and Monro Township School administrators Association and the sideboard sidebar uh they were originally uh those three associations their contract uh list specific holidays or days off that they're entitled to as a result of us being open on one of those two days previously designated as njaa conventions we just needed to have that as a matter record so this is a re a resolution that has to do with the storm correct okay um I think I need that the total for the month of September bills I know you have it uh broken down but would I be correct to say that's 9,326 3 $7 and about 30 that would be our September budget um number one I just want to notee that that the time has expired but to answer
082that question the general fund Bill list total for the month of September totals 8, 970,000 012.0 4 these are bills that have been audited by the chairperson of the finance committee that have been properly budgeted for money's transferred for and have are due to be dispersed upon board approval in accordance with policy the next one is fund 34 that's the high school bond series 29,42 284 is the September total fund 35 which is the oak tree referendum 14,680 530 fund 36 which is the additional cost mon Township High School 58516 40 again that's the total of dispersements that have been prepared and audited and are waiting for board approval prior to dispersement in accordance with board policy okay does that amount to around 9,326 37 I don't know I add it up for you so
083so my my next question is do are do we pay principal on these when we're paying some some of it's operating budget I understand but on the bonds are we paying principal or are we paying interest only both okay we pay principal and we pay interest it it and all right then I'll just ask I ask the board's uh um to allow me just one more question the transfer on F transfer number three can you explain that as presented as fiscal members of the Board of Education approved transfer number three can you explain what that is transfer number three is recognizing um Revenue alterations in the grant funds that are approved by the state upon award um and Vary from the original budget that's normal and customary every year in addition to that it recognizes
084revenues granted to the district under a safety Grant applied for by our director of facilities $1,840 of external money which is going to go to security systems past systems at the school to gain entrance into the school and these additional revenues are appropriated to the various generally accepted accounting principle line items in fund 20 and fund 11 okay now that's only a one sentence thing here on on the agenda if I wanted to can I get what you just read as if I came to the board office and and asked for that as a open public record request what would I ask for to get what you just read because that's more far more detailed than this could ask for an explanation of the transfer list if you're not familiar with the state requirement of
085the account number and the account description which is provided okay and this is more detail by the way than what most school districts provide most just give you the account number knowing that the board members and the public are probably not familiar with the um the line item descriptions for the generally accepted accounting account codes we've provided extra detail here and because we're all about transparency here so I believe that nothing hidden everything's wide open for anybody being extra transparent happy to talk about that okay thank you anyone else from the public Michelle you left I should leave it here it's all about open public a good idea uh good evening it's Doug PO for tamarak Road uh I've got several different questions but on the uh Senate bill number 2307 which I think is
086a is a terrific idea but could you share with the public what the plan is to get the community behind this uh effort to write letters or send emails because unless the community is fully aware of this and encouraged to do this uh it's not going to be much more than the couple of thousand signatures that we got on the petition that we sent down I actually reached out to the contact information you sent to me uh about two weeks three weeks ago now uh to get information published in the adult community newsletter so we'll be putting the information there asking people to reach out to their um if they will print it uh get information out to the respective legislators uh we'll also be using alert now to announce that information I'll be meeting
087with the president of the pto's and asking them to help us get this information out as well and we'll continue those kinds of grassroot root Grassroots efforts and also engaging save our schools to help us with this charge okay and will has any thought been given to providing some kind of a short sample letter because some of our older citizens uh you know they they yes okay we did talk about that thank you for reminding me that we talked about um preparing a short letter that we can put in the various communities in a common location if they will allow us that folks could just sign their name to and send in okay thank you uh I've got some questions about oh I'm sorry um just to um to add on to Dr Hamilton's comments
088uh we wanted to coordinate this with Senator Greenstein also we didn't want to just bombard a letter writing or email campaign prior to her proper introduction to the Senate and as Mr lirry pointed out before we are also going to reach out to the other school districts that have an excess of 33% age 65 years or older municipalities not not school districts we'll re we'll reach out to the school districts with municipalities that have an excess of 33% senior populations and and gain their support also because they also have a lot to gain from this legislation okay uh some questions about policy um there's this first policy that's in the handout uh it's talking about board members participate participation at board meetings using electronic devices and it states in the second paragraph it says in
089the event that a board member wants to participate in a board meeting but cannot attend the board meeting due to the reason outlined in this policy and as I continue to read the policy it it doesn't seem to outline any reasons that are acceptable for that participation so so I I I'm the person who uh has used that I got operated on about three years ago and had it uh my kidney removed and I particip ated using electronic means and then in March of this year I broke my hip and I participated uh again via electronic means and the the attorney said that's perfectly acceptable it satisfies all criteria and it makes eminently good sense I have no objection to the to to the ability to do that it just that the policy says due
090to the reason outlined in this policy but there is no reason that's outlined in the policy well so it's it's mainly I'm just calling that to your ATT look at that is it for medical reasons is it for someone that might be on a vacation for example I I believe um that Mr bra policy committee is under you thought we had some reasons we we did discuss it to Great length and uh I'm surprised that this well I don't know what you have mine says the Board of Education recognizes a board member may be unable to attend a board meeting due to medical condition in order to assist a board member during these circumstances the Board of Education will permit the board member to participate in the board meeting with the use of electronic and
091then it goes on you know to talk about um a you know um in in case of an emergency doing a written request yeah but um I think we had discussed uh vacations really oh okay so then it's so then the reasons are medical circumstance or some other type of emergency okay all right all right to me I I obviously did not see that uh and the next policy the pupil use of privately owned technology uh down at the very bottom in the last paragraph it says that teaching staff members must get prior approval from their immediate supervisor or principal before allowing pupils to use privately owned technology during instructional time now I know in this day and age many of our students own their own graphing calculator so that so that is uh you
092know priv privately owned technology and they are using it either in their science classes or their math classes does this require that teaching staff members have to go and seek the permission of the principal in order for the student to do that I I yes initially uh but at the time we were talk we were talking about the phones um it seems that it's possible for a group of kids to take tests and send the answers to each other with their phones so we we were zeroing in on that more or less slant High School in New York City it's one of eight specialized high schools this is these are cream of the cream and they had an incident uh in a recent spring 80 students were caught doing exactly what Marvin said can I
093just add something also the next paragraph um it actually goes on to say pupils who use privately owned technology in the school will not be given access to the district's computer servers so really it's more talking about laptops and and iPads and okay I'm just clarifying because you know graphing calculators are privately own Tech let them use the calculators okay uh and then the policy about the use of social networking sites School uh which is 3282 I suppose um and in the second paragraph it mentions that um it it the first sentence talks about inappropriate conduct outside a staff member's professional responsibilities now I would assume but I don't know for certain and maybe I need to reread this but does this mean that if I'm a staff member and I'm uh it's the summer
094or it's the weekend or it's the evening and I engage in some inappropriate conduct from my home that I could be liable to losing my job or being brought up on tenure charges yes it does okay and and I'm just asking for clarification now my main point is what's being done to make sure that all of the staff both new hires as well as the veteran staff are fully aware of this policy because it could have some rather serious implications for them we'll distribute once the policy is approved those policies that have direct implications um on District employees share with principles and the principles make sure that that information is distributed to their staff members okay thank you uh and this final One deals with what I call pennies uh this is in the the
095board agenda uh it's item R it's on my agenda it's on page nine uh it's where you were approving personnel as anti-bullying specialist for the school year okay my favorite Hib and and the amounts are small but every day any change I get in the course of my trans actions I put into a coffee can and at the end of the year I find that those pennies and nickels and quarters add up to often over $100 okay in the course of a year and so even though these amounts are small uh every month small amounts get approved by the board and those small amounts can add up to be tens of thousands of dollars my question is with the high school you've approved two personnel and at the middle school you've approved two Personnel I'd
096like an explanation as to why you need two Personnel uh when it appears uh when you look at the listing of uh the harassment cases they have significantly dropped from last year I noticed that both last month as well as this month uh do we need two people to do this but more importantly are they being expected to expend additional time outside the required contractual day uh when are they doing this or why are they getting this extra styp they these Duties are in addition to their regular responsibilities they do conduct the investigations um while students are in sessions in most instances but there is an enormous amount of paperwork that follows the investigations that happens after hours and often even on weekends uh sometimes these cases also require deliberation and meetings that uh exceed
097the regular course of the workday as well and very TI schedules for each and every step of the process exactly very stringent timelines and we're required to to meet uh to your to your the first part of your question in terms of why two um it's it's really based on the number of students that they are expected to see and you have to keep in mind also that these folks are guidance counselors so they also have uh counsil uh counsil Le that they they have to see as well so it's based on the the number of students now at the end of this year if we see that we don't need to that we've had such a significant decrease this this conversation started in June in terms of negotiating this stien so it was based
098on the data that we had at that time if we see that we don't need that well then we'll revisit that did did we have people on stien last year in that position no they were not on stien last year this was this was negotiated this is an example of unfunded mandates they were trying to go and have this done on the Fly for nothing there was a howl for across all school boards and I have characterized this as an Abomination on many occasions thank you Mr no wait the second is this that we uh the state gave a million dollars for the 566 school districts to take on this work it's another example of how we get these unfunded mandates and then go from there Mr CH yeah I just I just just want
099I just this is nothing about Hib I just want to welcome you to the board I think you're going to make a fine board member I'm very happy that you that you want I think you have great questions and you've always been a great asset for you know in the public and and uh I do have to tell you though that there is a hazing process and that can of coins that you're collecting you have to bring that to the first uh first meeting well yeah is that something about bringing dinner every din something like that you attempt to do any hazing friend and you'll have hi be on your ass it'll make you swim anyone else from the public please come up to the microphone Maran Lester 44 Avenue y uh the first one's
100a request it concerns last month's um agenda item under the capital reserve account uh it was item 9A uh the Monro Township Board of Education school district has 124 projects identified in its 5year long range facility plan that have not yet been initiated or Advanced the 124 projects have an estimated total cost of $7,997 th000 3 9 I'm sorry 7,99 97,3 58 I was just wondering if you can please give the public at next month's meeting a written list of the 124 projects the individual cost and put it on the school website just so we know what's coming down the road ma'am this was discussed at length at the last board meeting and um the 5year facility plan long range facility plan is currently being updated by our architect and facility director and board and
101there's a requirement every year that you disclose those details of your approved plan that doesn't mean the board is going to address any of Any of of those projects we could that's the total estimated aggregate amount of what it would cost some of those projects might be eligible for state some of those projects may be non-eligible costs and um this five long range 5year facility plan is a operable document that you can come in and review it's a document that you have where it's it's currently in the possession of our facilities director and you're welcome to come in and inspect where where is facilities director or you could pay to have a copy of it made but that would be quite expensive because it's rather large in the board office he's located in the board
102office okay and I also keep seeing on the agenda this is just a question I keep seeing on the agenda for some teachers that they teach uh an additional section and they get paid at a 117% rate of the contract um what constitutes an additional section I thought teachers are just required to teach as many classes that fit into the school day no the teachers um have a contract that outlines the number of classes that they teach in instances where we have an overflow or we need additional classes but it's not enough to hire another teacher those teachers May opt to give up a contractual prep period or a lunch period to teach another class so they're they're paid a proportionate rate of their daily rate and that's what the 117% covers so they might
103give up their lunch hour to teach a class saying possible yes okay and I just want to revisit what you were talking about before about the um stiens for the bullying specialist um if I can recall correctly um when my daughter was going to school Pam O'Neal is she a psychologist I know she had an advanced degree and at that time when my uh daughter was younger she was doing anti-bullying and need stop because we're not able to discuss specific Personnel no no no just what her degree is or what Pam O'Neal I believe she's a psychologist at the school I I don't know off the top of my head I know she had an advanced degree anyway uh she did anti-bullying and she did conflict resolution by the way my daughter's out of college
104now so why are we paying this extra stiens I know you said it involves a lot but if you have people of her level and her degree this is what you hire them for this is their expertise that's what they're qualified to do that's why you hire them you're already paying them for that expertise and um also if they took an extra bullying class that would come under its um continuing education classes you don't pay them extra for that that's their expertise that's not true um when teach teachers uh when people are hired they respond to a specific job posting that outlines their duties and responsibilities when we get initiatives like the anti-bullying initiative in the state of New Jersey that is not something that they were hired to do that's an additional task that's
105been placed upon them and someone has to pick up those duties and responsibilities so when they respond to those ads they're not responding to be a for example school psychologist and an anti-bullying specialist that's an additional responsib ility so when we uh assign additional tasks and responsibilities that extend or change the work conditions of District employees contractually they're entitled to be compensated for that through the process that is implemented by the board which is a application process an interview process Etc well I would disagree with that because a psychologist deals with things with with between people they deal with bullying they deal with conflict resolution that is their part of their job that is their expert that is what they get degrees for but this is this is an initiative that the um State gave
106us last year and we had to hire an anti-bullying specialist in each school which we hadn't had before so um they well then appoint one of them that has an advanced degree in Psychology or one of the psychologists that is their specialty and as Dr Hamilton said this is an addition to that work that they're already doing each of these people already you know what there's a lot of people who have jobs and they have to do extra work when they come home you don't pay people extra for every little thing especially when it's their specialty I'm sorry people come home with work all the time you have a Union contract live within the specifications of the contract yeah okay okay thank you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we find that
107piece of paper that page I'll second um our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday December 19 2012 7 o'cl p.m. at the high school motion to adjourn um Mr Kaufman Mr Chella all in favor opposed at this time the meeting is adjourned you