001oops good evening the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance a pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all may we have a roll call Mr Gorski Mrs kapano here Mr tesler here miss antelis here Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella here Mr calman here Mr Masters here Mr poy Mr proso yeah areski here Madame board president you have a quorum 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 February 22nd 2013 one
002at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality and at this time we will have reports from our student board members good evening ladies and gentlemen um the events that um will take place in March are uh the hespa testing will be take will take place this week from today until Thursday and hespa makeups will be next week from Tuesday to Thursday also and the monor township college fair will be on Thursday March 14th good evening ladies and gentlemen Mr Monroe will take place at the high school on Friday March 15th where eight senior boys are chosen to participate in different categories coffee house will take place in mths Commons area at 6:30 March 19th spring break begins Tuesday March 26 and ends Sunday March
00320 31st thank you thank you this time we have a couple of um presentations to to give uh the first one will be to Courtney pepy I don't know if you'd like to go up there and and just stand with me this out so I'd like to ask her to come [Applause] up tonight we'd like to congratulate Miss Courtney pepy who is being recognized by the mono Township Board of Education for becoming part of the 2013 Apple distinguished Educators or ad program ades are part of the global community of Education leaders recognized for doing amazing things with technology in and out of the classroom they explore new ideas seek New Paths and embrace new opportunities that includes working with each other to bring the freshest most innovative ideas to students everywhere ad advise educ ational
004leaders on integrating technology into learning environments and share their expertise with other Educators and policymakers they author original content about their work they Advocate the use of technologies that help engage students in new ways and they are ambassadors of innovation participating in and presenting at education events around the world being part of the ad Community is much more than an honor it is an opportunity to make a difference Courtney is now among an elite group of 2,000 ades worldwide from the United States to China from New Zealand to Turkey she will be fortunate to continue to help better our district by attending institutes and education events around the world as well as online to collaborate on solutions to the global education challenges of today and tomorrow so at this time Dr Hamilton would like to
005so on behalf of the administration and the Board of Education the certificate of appreciation is presented to Courtney Pepe and recognition of Apple distinguished educator award class of 2013 congratulations Courtney thank you you're very welcome want have a few words I just wanted to say it's a um a pleasure to work in a building in a district with um such a wonderful group of professionals thank you [Applause] and at this time we have an honor to congratulate and acknowledge our boys soccer team for winning the greater middle sex County Conference champions the njsiaa central New Jersey group four sectional Champions and the njs AA State finalists and we honored them on Friday in a ring ceremony and um we had a we invited them here today so that we can get more of our community
006to to see their accomplishments and we're very proud of what they've done so we'd like you to come up or Dr Hamilton will will um handle the I want to First acknowledge the support behind the boys for doing such an outstanding job this year and I want to start with our supervisor Mr Greg berer [Applause] and Greg if you could just stay up here because I'm ask you to call the boys up John Jensen the assistant [Applause] coach and our head coach Steve McKenzie congratulations sir conat thank you and Greg have you will call the boys up uh Bryce [Applause] horn Sharif Ali [Applause] Matt Anderson Kevin [Applause] bricks Luigi buffalino [Applause] Andre [Applause] Carval Christian corbesero [Applause] John cenza [Applause] Kosik Sean [Applause] Doyle Kyle Kaplan Cory [Applause] clasen twice Kyle knots [Applause] an
007Mo [Applause] Madan Fletcher [Applause] marklin Mark Martin Mike mler [Applause] Don Paul [Applause] adoro Taran Reed Sean [Applause] Reynolds Ryan snik [Applause] Tyler UAM and Alec [Applause] vardis on behalf of our program we'd like to thank Dr Hamilton and the rest the Board of Education thank you thank [Applause] you I think this was a fantastic year um I've been in the school district for 26 years we have seven gold banners hanging in the gym which represent sectional championships and one state championship the things that these guys went through um we came very close to being the first team in the greater middle sex conference to win the GMC championship and the state championship one goal short guys and a bad call um these guys will have memories for a long long time I can I
008was on the field at the last state championship game in 1987 and I still remember the names of some of the boys on that team and you've created a lasting memory for our Township thanks let's hear your hand for these boys again I just like to um acknowledge two individuals um first Sean Doyle he is the he is the nscaa academic allamerican third Team all state and First Team all [Music] GMC and the second individual Luigi buffalino he is the nscaa regional allamerican the first team All State and the first team all GMC so we should be very proud of these and the whole soccer team thank you just take this tour Jeff just take a tour okay we'll go to the public forum at this time we will go to the public forum anyone
009from the public wishing to speak to the agenda except for the budget presentation please come to the microphone and give your name and address for the record and we will adhere to the three minute time limit and ask that you only speak once and we will also have another public forum for the budget presentation after the budget presentation so at this time is there anyone from the public wishing to speak to the agenda okay seeing no one we will go to the budget presentation and before we do i' just like to um make a statement last evening we had a finance committee meeting where Dr Hamilton and Mr Gorski gave a presentation of the preliminary budget to the committee members this budget was constructed with a lot of thought and difficult decisions were made and
010personally I am very proud of this year's budget in spite of the many unfunded mandates the administration presented a budget to the committee which makes Provisions for 225 additional students includes programs and services that we have fought so hard to infuse over the past years and addresses much needed Capital Improvement projects which have been impossible to accomplish in the past in an operating budget and which Almost Is Never Done in an operating budget in other districts the Administration has renegotiated insurance premiums which meant changing Brokers after 25 years the budget includes expanding shared services increasing fees for building usage and applying solar energy credits there has been a concerted effort to try to hire novice teachers to reduce salary expenditures and slowly bringing Full transportation services back inhouse while still maintaining the highest deficiency rating
011in the county it includes telephone and security upgrades to improve safety in our district this budget includes savings from the refinancing of bonds and actualizing tremendous savings from the negotiated contracts with the various associations for health insurance optout provisions and employee contributions we are seeing great cost Savings in professional development by training more and more of our staff to do in-house professional development which eliminates the need to go outside the district for training and workshops and we continue to develop alternative Source revenues from program like from programs like Basque all of this has been accomplished within the 2% cap and with the lowest tax consequence in our district in 15 years I applaud our administrative team for working so hard to find the delicate balance between reducing the tax burden of our community and continuing
012to maintain a quality School District without sacrificing our students and staff in the process so at this time I will turn it over to Dr Hamilton for the presentation of the 20134 school budget thank you Mrs Tano you may need to di light it will come uh this evening's budget will be divided into three parts um I will give a brief overview Dr Gorman will come and do the curriculum aspects of the budget and Mr Gorski will come and do the revenue uh Revenue sources and the expenditures uh you have copies of this the slide will later on refer to uh attachments a b and c which are separate handouts members of our Board of Education are present this evening with the exception of Mr poy who is who was absent but we like to
013make certain that we acknowledge the people who who make it possible for us to do the work that we do um in addition to that our finance committee is chaired by Mrs anelis Lou Master serves as the vice chair Kathy kapano which is a member of this committee Luke Hoffman Anthony proso and Ira Tesla serves as an alternate our district Mission vision statement and our mission statements are the the Catalyst behind how we develop our budget and it provides us with the framework to help us understand why it is important for us to develop the budget in the manner in which we have and this vision statement encompasses our belief that the Monroe Township Board of Education commits itself to all children by preparing them to reach their full potential and to function in a
014global Society through a pre-eminent education and that's accomplished through the District mission statement that 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 environment so as we develop our budget we try to make sure that our core beliefs our district vision and mission statements Remain the focus of the Catalyst behind how we develop our budget this year the board developed new board goals for the for the 2012 2013 school year the first goal is to develop a strategic plan around the following six key principles and they are Communications Community engagement and business Partnerships instruction facilities technology and Fine Arts and fiscal accountabilities this past Saturday I'll talk about this a little more in uh the
015superintendent's report on the agenda but this past Saturday we had a workshop provided by the New Jersey school boards Association around these six design teams our second board goal is to review eval and assess current programs and structures and that's are that's divided into two key steps to First identify and develop a schedule for review and secondly the initial Focus for the assessment of programs and services this year would be around technology and structures specifically associated with creating standard operating procedures and lastly to develop a budget philosophy parameters and framework for the development of the 2013 2014 budget budget our executive summary for this budget the school budget has been carefully developed with some extraordinary constraints this year as Mrs kapano has already indicated the mandated budget caps make it very challenging to implement many
016of the required budgetary items that items that need to be included within the spending plan this includes our contractual obligations increase in health benefits student enr rment which requires additional Staffing teaching sections and support service including a high demand for students with exceptional needs those students who are either in the process of being classified or being determined to be eligible for special education or those youngsters who are already in our system and this is all done within the 2% cap which we're mandated to do additionally it is imperative that we continue to address Capital needs in the district oftentimes what school districts will do is they take that that which they can kind of kick down the road which is often uh facilities facility maintenance or Capital Improvement projects and that thing that eventually catches
017up with us and that requires referendums uh in order to to accomplish we've been able to do that uh to at least begin to do that in this budget and the uh second part of this budget uh executive summary for this budget is that while the budget is increasing proportionately the tax impact is the lowest it's been in 15 years and we're very proud of that because we we have worked very hard to maintain a very delicate balance between uh preserving the programs and services that the board has fought for so many years to develop and Implement with Fidelity and to be sensitive to the fact that we recognize we're in a community that because of of the the lack of the inadequacy in our state funding formula our taxpayers have been over taxed so
018our budget overview focuses on the following areas our district priorities our edict has been how do we maintain quality educational programs and do so in a way that we are effectively monitoring assessing and making certain that when we make a commitment to a program or a project or an initiative that it is in fact a high yield that we are getting results from that that process will be ongoing but we have started to look at that in the development of this project and this budget and we also want to make sure that while we're doing this we keep our eyes on the future we cannot be shortsighted when we develop the budget and think only about today and only about the conditions or circumstances under which we live today the but planning process has to
019include long range Vision what do we want our district to look for look like three years from now four years from now five years from now what kinds of programs do we want our middle school students to be exposed to so so that they maximize their experiences when they get into high school and the same thing with our elementary students and we want to do so in a way that is fiscally responsible in a way that when we say for example that we're implementing this program or that we're making a commitment to this initiative that we are in fact theistically responsible and have an accountability system in place to ensure that we are on the right track and lastly as it relates to one of the most important pieces of this budget is the increased
020student enrollment we are projecting about 225 students and the truth of the matter is there is some development going on in our community that may actually exceed that projection but we're planning for 225 students and our Capital Improvement projects and Mike Gorski will talk a little more about that when when he comes up to the mic and we have got to invest in our teachers just as in any profession in order to get the biggest bang for your buck we have to ensure that we are providing our teachers with the most relevant professional development in the field that they can get that we can identify and we've done that in a way that we are now limiting significantly limiting the number of professional development opportunities that occur outside of our district and providing that training
021in districts so we're building a Cadre of teachers who are becoming professional developers themselves and providing those services in District and this is saving us tremendous amounts of money some key budgetary considerations are cap limitations our ability to budget within the 2% cap and including those things within that 2% cap that in many instances have in the past been able to be budgeted outside of that cap particularly as it relates to student enrollment we're also very concerned about Community impact what will our schools how will our schools and our budget impact our community not just this year but in years to come and the quality of services how well do we Implement what is the the efficacy with which we Implement these programs and services that we have made a commitment to not just in
022terms of our financial resources but even in our human resources how we develop and and and and help our teachers become experts in their craft as well and lastly looking at District history what are the trends that we have established in our district what has the district and and the board made a commitment to and what will that commitment look like in the future so these five key budgetary considerations have provided the framework upon which our budget is built now this slide gives you a a picture of what our enrollment patterns we anticipate our enrollment patterns to look like La next year and it's done very simply we look at the number of students that are in the previous grade how they will roll over into the next grade then we look at certain demographic
023information and it helps us identify and make reasonable intelligent predictions about what our student enrollment will look like and this is a very modest um estimate uh currently we have 6,111 students in our district we anticipate at the opening of our schools in September 2013 we will have 6,336 students so there are certain steps that we go through in developing our budget by the time the public hears this this feeli we have gone through several steps in the development of our budget this year we actually added a preliminary step and that was the establishment of a budget philosophy where we asked the board to come together and give us some direction what do you want from us in this budget what are the parameters upon which you want us to create this budget so that
024we have our marching orders on the at the onset and then of course the most important thing we have to do is look at historical enrollment patterns and develop our sta needs and that helps us identify how many teachers will we need what will those teachers be required to do and what supports will they need in order to be successful then we go through a process that we called OE or orchestrating effective effort and that's where we look at those items that are in the budget and we make connections to the board goals we use this process to help us determine if we are making a commitment to something that is consistent with our core beliefs those things that we say we value those things that are important to our community and if it does
025then we proceed if it doesn't then we make a determination as to whether or not that's something we want to continue to invest our time and resources in once that's done our principles and supervisors department leaders they present what we refer to as a budget defense round where we go item for item in their preliminary budgets and we ask them to offer justifications how many books are you ordering why are you ordering these books are these third grade books being used in one building the same books that are being used in another building building um have you taken an inventory of your paper Supply um How many desks and chairs do you need do we have a surplus of these items so this all happens during the budget defense rounds Dr Gorman Mr Gorski and
026I sit with which e with each of our principles and almost always there are revisions that happen in the budget defense rounds and then they are resubmitted before they are then uh approved for submission then we sit and we wait patiently for the governor to get his budget address when the governor gives his budget address he gives us some kind of indication of what his commitment will be to public education almost immediately after that a day or two after that the state aid numbers come out we look at those state aid numbers and we plug that information into our budget and then that is the final piece to how we calculate what our budget will look like and what the impact will be and it also helps us determine if we need to make further
027uh delineations in our budget or further deletions then there is the adoption of the tentative budget which is what this process is is for this evening we are required to do by law and then there is the public hearing so as you can see we have gone through several steps this also includes conversations with the board the various committees um having conversations with administrators uh within the district or teaching staff around those things that are necessary in order to effectively implement the programs and services that we provide to our students all right at this time Jeff will come and he'll talk about some curricular items thank you good evening everyone okay so I just want to uh give you an overview of some budget highlights in curriculum and instruction um if you are not aware
028the the um National is a national movement for new Common Core national state standards um we've New Jersey has adopted the common core and that has led to a series of curriculum revisions and in preparation for new um assessments coming down the line in 2014 2015 these assessments are tied into um a partnership for College and Career Readiness standards and these Park assessments will replace the current njs statements and it'll be more of a national-based assessment and it'll be based on each individual kid and hopefully reaching their potential so these assessments will inform us and guide us in our instructing and in our curriculum um and just to give you an overview instead of reading all of these to you um and we'll make this presentation public of course right so um these are basically
029our operating procedures in curriculum instruction ranging from anti-bullying programs to basic skills in um instruction to different assessments to math programs toward our senior option student awards obviously in athletics as you witnessed this evening our Wilson program our adult education program safety training for all of our staff and students our English as a l second language program our extended school year summer program our extended school year summer program is for our um our for our special needs students and these kids are severely um disabled and have some real intensive needs that we provide past the school year into the summer program I think we've been doing this for close to um four or five years I do believe uh also um our integrated preschool program our assist of Technologies for some of our special needs
030students um our preschool screenings and uh as you if you are aware or not aware there is a new teacher and principal and administrator evaluation system so we're committing ourselves to a high level of professional development to make sure that we are implementing towards its Fidelity RTI uh RTI is a primary um intervention so we want to identify students at early years when they're reading or and we want to make sure that kids are reading because it has been a shown research based study and all research shows that if kids read early then the Gap closes so we want to make sure we identify our struggling readers at a really early age give them the right interventions get them to where they need in the past without these interventions it's very possible that the Gap
031gets bigger and then it's really hard to close the achievement Gap with readers and comprehend so this response to intervention is a state mandator program and um this is um and I think we're doing an outstanding job at providing high level interventions for all of our students we're really moving towards meeting the needs of every one of our students in the district along with our Science and Arts programs um our High School Technology lease payment that is um our next uh payment or our first our first payment you will be on this budget um for the iPad learning tools and I'll go into that um in the next slide along with our existing technologies that we have if you go to the next slide Dr Hamilton so the National Education technology plan um presented by
032Arnie Duncan the United States Secretary of Education um makes some serious goals and recommendations the world has drastically changed due to technology everybody carries a smartphone these days um the global Community is truly a global Community we can FaceTime people the other side of the world today um the world is drastically changing and we have to stay up with that with our schools so our kids are prepared when they go out into the real world and they leave us and we should be giving them what they need technology-wise in this evolving um um world so here are five major recommendations from this plan number one that learning that we engage and we Empower we revise we create and Implement 21st century expertise for all of our students uh my little guys um grow up on
033smartphones and tablets and computers number two we provide assessments assessments that matter we design develop and Implement electronic assessments that give students Educators and other stakeholders feedback about student learning to improve achievement and instructional practices shift has truly made a change from when we went to school when I went to school it was about the content here let me give it to you you learn it now the content is out on the internet anything you want to know you can ask you could you can get at a fingertip it's really how to think critically and how it to expand into major problem solving areas teaching preparing and connecting expand opportunities for educators to have access to Technology based content resources and tools where and when they need them the next piece um the infrastructure is
034a very powerful recommendation and I'm really proud of the work that we've done in this District ensure that every student and educator has at least one internet access device and appropriate software and resources for research communic iation multimedia content creation and collaboration for use in and out of school and that ties totally into the um the lease purchase uh payment on the previous slide and then lastly productivity to redesign and transform to th rethink basic assumptions in our education system that inhibit technology to improve learning so we really are trying to stay a breast of current learning Trends and be responsive with our schools to match Society good evening I'd like to begin with some key facts on Monroe's state aid the governor came out at the governor's uh budget address that Dr Hamilton referred
035to before and previewed record state aid funding for schools he said 400 districts were getting additional Aid this year and very few were going to get less unfortunately Monroe was one of the districts who net of our school construction Corp required payment actually received less again we receive zero Equalization Aid where our neighbor in South Brunswick gets over $17 million per year in this form of Aid and Monroe is not eligible because of two metrics property wealth and income levels we've talked about this at nauseum but imagine what our tax rate would look like with $17 million per year the second type of state aid is categorical Aid this is a non-discriminatory type of Aid that um enables students in various subdivisions to receive Aid such as special ed Transportation Aid security Aid um in
036various categories Monroe is eligible for at least four categories of categorical aid but we limited in this award due to our over adequacy status and to make things worse it's phased in over a 5-year installment period state aid is only 3.2 3.26% of our total revenues needed to support our school budget and one of the lowest state aid per pupil ratios in the county next I'm going to go to handout a sources of revenue this illustrates the various sources of revenue that um comprise our budget revenues Drive the size of the budget it's a revenu driven budget it's capped in the tax levy area and uh also fund balance starting with fund balance we have $1.5 million less fund balance carried over than the preceding year the reason for that is we used prior year
037Appropriations to renovate appleg Guard School within our School District budget when you talk about renovating a school and doing a roof those are all referendum type projects we've Incorporated a few of these into our School District budget now to save money but that has a constricting effect and we're starting off with $1.5 million less in revenues than last year the second item is transfers from other fund last year we were able to transfer $2 million of bond Surplus from the accounts that built this school currently there's $6 million of surplus in the bond referendum account and the board of education has directed Administration to appropriate $3.5 million of the $6 million for tax relief in the 1314 budget we would like to give it all and have a big impact this year but that would
038cause a major spike in tax next year returning the money on installments over three years like we've done corresponding with the increase in the rable base which we're experiencing this year is uh a wonderful plan method So to avoid spikes uh from one year to the next local taxes 83.7 n% of the budget is supported by local taxpayers this is unprecedented an action needs to be done and treatened to rectify this proc problem we've uh drafted legislation s237 that's to offer aid for one of the subcategories of residents in this community to seniors who are hurting the most from the property tax increases Senator Greenstein supported the legislation and we're expecting support from Senator Sweeney and hopefully that bill gains traction other revenues to the budget include tuition from Jamesburg included in this year's budget
039is an additional re Rue source of $615,000 from Jamesburg for interest to their proportionate share of enrollment which was required for the bonds to build this school we pick it up as a revenue Source Jamesburg has not picked it up as an appropriation this is going to for the first time cause the two budgets not to reconcile when they go to the county office and um although we expect our budget to be approved this is not going to be uh determined in until the commissioner of Education um hears our lawsuit against um our receiving District um transportation fees Jamesburg also pays us transportation fees for transporting their students and there's a category for miscellaneous income that we're going to get to a breakdown on shortly state aid again no increase from last year there's an
040expenditure that they take out of the aid to repay Bond issuance cost cost and attorney fees related to our section 15 Grant where the state gave us $15 million to build the school and when we repay that solve cost we're actually sliding backwards in state aid about $35,000 from last year federal aid is less than 1% of the budget and consists of Title One idea and other grants total revenue to support this year's budget is 9,433 and that includes all funds the next handout shows state aid history again our state aid per pupil ratio that Mr Klein brought up uh many times is actually sliding backwards we were at $400 this year now because we're receiving actually less state aid and we're increasing the number of students here we're receiving back into 300s probably in
041$370 per student uh R number some school districts received $9 $10,000 per student and finally there's an appropriation schedule designed with the chart of accounts that's created by the state of New Jersey Department of Education what's noteworthy from this sheet is the right column where you see increases to salaries which are contractually obligated for this year at 2.25% but there's a lot of decreases Administration has gone through every page in this budget and and cut anywhere that we possibly could that's handout C that's forthcoming this slide shows the miscellaneous Revenue breakdown over half of the miscellaneous Revenue 325,000 cycling rebates and miscellaneous grants before and after school program is an outside organization that pays us $100,000 a year to run our Basque program we have solar panels that belong to the school district at Oak
042Tree school and we sell solar renewable energy credits on the market and we recognize about $20,000 selling these Shreks back to the um utility companies adult education fees bring in about 30,000 Transportation trips with which used to be included in a budget and are now pulled out is about 75,000 that's being raised from students and we raise about $100,000 a year from a preschool integrated tuition program interest income uh has dropped at $5,000 admission from Sports $20,000 and that's the breakup of our miscellaneous Revenue section next slide where does the money go 51% of the budget goes to instruction in some form 5% Transportation 19% benefits 1 and a half% athletic co-curricular 9% Debt Service 2.9% Administration less than 1% capital projects less than 1% Grant and about 9% other we're very proud of this
043next slide it shows how the district has made great strides over the last three years reducing our over adequacy spending the adequacy budget calculation changed for this year and those districts who were under adequacy received under adequacy Aid those districts who are above adequacy were to have dramatic Cuts in their state aid the governor has decided to hold districts harmless this year with the exception of the payment that I mentioned before otherwise we would have been slated to have a decrease in state aid but you could see that we've gone from $ 13.7 million above the state's adequacy budget to S and a half last year and now it's 6.9 million so we're on a a positive trend reducing our over adequacy eliminating the liability that our Aid could be cut even further and positioning
044oursel for better efficiency the next slide shows administrative costs in Monroe the red shows the county limit which is increasing every year with the new budget software and the green shows Monroe's uh administrative costs per pupil which have remained fairly linear through reductions of administrative positions the next schedule shows what's new in this year budget most of what you see on this page is mandated or driven by student enrollment impact Monroe has two charter school students that we have to pay for to go to a private Charter School the cost for that is over $225,000 this year's increase is about $5,800 new monra Township Middle School gifted and talented program additional teaching sections at the middle school and high school due to enrollment growth Applegarth program art music and fed which had not been in
045existence before since the school reopened 17 additional staff and I have a schedule for that um about half of those staff members are special ed and are driven by individual educational placements IEPs requirements for staff per pupil we have a new iPad lease obligation $438,000 this is the first year with the payment next year is the last according to the lease we we have a new technology lease for servers laptops and five computers that are desperately needed one of the I'm sorry copers one of the largest liaison complaints we have is nonfunctioning copers which waste teachers time and productivity we have a new telephone and security upgrade going forward Dr Hamilton should be able to hit one button and speak to all principles and and all everybody who's outside of the school district perhaps an
046athletic director with students on a field with a walkie-talkie in invent of a lockdown chemical spill or um terrible event currently we don't have that and when our building lost power recently it took us over half an hour to find out what other schools still had power uh Monroe Township High School increase in two social workers contracts from 72% to 120% due to increased needs for social work for students transportation we have a requirement by the state to replace two 54 passenger buses and two Vans because they're aging out of the state's retirement schedule and we're buying one additional bus to bring routes back in inhouse replacement of the Monro Township Middle School morasco Center roof Mr T identified this as the most um hazardous situation right now that if that roof leaks and we
047follow our traditional method of getting out buckets and dealing with it as it as the problem progresses that would cause the acoustic panels in the building to saturate and collapse leaving us with several $100,000 of additional billing so we're working on that now $500,000 of cost that's fit in our cap increase in health benefits and mandatory contribution um this year our health care rates that were furnished to us in January were for an increase of $3.5 million aone that's more money than we can grow the entire budget through uh very tough negotiations and a difficult 30 days including having to change Insurance Brokers we're able to reduce that to $1 million including the mandatory contributions that are required by staff the state of New Jersey is pushing pension costs on the local school districts now
048tpaf used to be paid for by the state now purs requires a contribution by The Local District and anybody coming into a pension um recently is in dcrp which is like a 401k plan and guess who has to pay for those costs the local school district now and salary this is the last year of the contract in the 134 school year for uh many organizations and the contractual salary increases are 2.25 appropriation detail C handout SE that's what I referred to before you'll see a lot of decreases through that that uh sheet and the climax of our whole presentation what factors influence the tax rate what are all these new marvelous programs in add conditions and roofs and students and buses and computers that you're buying have to do with our pocketbooks going forward the
049most influential factors in the tax rate are number one state aid number two fund balance applied from last year number three a very important factor is the rateable base last year we we experienced a $78 million decrease in ratables that means everybody's taxes in Monroe are going up 5 cents automatically due to that decrease the preceding year 71 million ion fortunately due to the recovery in the economy or the ceasing appeals um ratables have actually grown 3.1 million which stabilized our tax calculation and we're very proud of this next slide for the 1314 budget we're rolling out a budget that serves all stakeholders in this District provides for so many does so much for so little of a cost 25 cent increase that's the lowest tax increase in 15 years that's a $41 increase per
050average assessed home in Monroe Township and the next slide shows it in dollars two years ago it was $316 increase for a home assessed at about 165,000 last year it was $144 this year 41 we expect this trend to continue thank you um before I go back to my seat I want to take a moment to thank the finance committee for your countless calls and emails and back and forth and all the work that it takes to go into this budget Kathy K thank you very much for that that statement at the beginning of our presentation um solidifying your continued support for this budget again Mike and Jeff for your contribution this has been a huge undertaking to try to create a budget that in our estimation satisfies the needs of our entire community and
051ultimately uh which is my charge as a superintendent it keeps kids first thank you [Applause] Madame board president members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that the members of the board of Board of Education approve the following amounts and resolution for the 2014 tenative budget be it resolved by the Monroe Township Board of Education that the 20134 tenative general fund budget be adopted in the amount of 98,2 12,874 and a tenative general fund local tax levy in the amount of 85,86 172 and a tenative special Revenue Fund in the amount of $978 8,71 and a tenative Debt Service budget in the amount of 10,233 438 and a tenative Debt Service local tax levy in the amount of 5,875 N3 whereby the tenative 201314 budget total is 109,8 amounts are for 201314
052the categorical special education Aid is 2,485 2017 and for the 201314 the categorical security Aid is $ 92501 and for the 201314 the categorical Transportation Aid is 49651 and for the 201314 The Debt Service Aid is $684,500 and whereas the monra Township Board of Education has estimated a state aid amount pursuant to application and for 201314 the estimated extraordinary Aid amount is $214,400 and whereas School District bylaw 0147 policy 3440 policy 4440 and njac 6A colon 23 B- 1.2b provides that the Board of Education shall establish in the annual school budget a maximum expend amount that may be allocated for such travel and expense reimbursement for the 20134 school year now therefore be it resolve that the Monro Township Board of Education hereby establishes the school district travel maximum for the 2013 2014 school year
053at the tenant of sum of $158,400 and be it further resolved that the school business administrator shall track and record these costs to ensure the maximum amount is not exceeded and now therefore let it be resolved that the superintendent of schools and the business administrator board secretary file the required documents with the county executive superintendent moved by Mr Chella second by Mr Kaufman is there any comments or questions by members of the Board of Education Miss anelis i' like to take this opportunity to thank Dr Hamilton Mr korski and the administrative team for this budget very pleased about this budget this year while keeping under cap we can continue our programs we're addressing facilities um and we're giving money back to the taxpayers two $3.5 million left over from this Bond referendum is going back
054to the taxpayers next year another 2.5 million um I believe that this is diligence on the part of the administration and I thank you for it and I will be supporting this budget thank you anyone else from the board Mr tesler like I said to Luke Hoffman a little before the meeting I remember sitting here a year ago when we talked about reducing our adequacy and he and we started taking things out and and hope we got more state aid this year and guess what we still lost $34,000 so just in the future um our goal here is to educate children at a reasonable cost and you know get our most bang for the buck so let's just keep it in mind I'll be supporting the budget and I think the administration did an excellent
055job this year controlling cost and providing programs and improving our buildings and maintaining our buildings anyone else well before I open it up to the public I I'd just like to say that we continue to be a growing District in the last 10 years we've added more than 2200 students to our district we have eight schools we have 6,100 students we have 800 employees or thereabouts um this budget focused on the needs of everyone and serves everyone fairly the students the staff and the community we keep trending in the right direction we keep going down and it's the lowest tax increase in 15 years we haven't had anything below 4 cents in 15 years and I think it's also important to note that every penny is worth $723,000 so for any every penny that we
056would cut or add we would either have to find $723,000 in our in our budget or find a way to cut that much out for every penny we needed so if there's no further comments or questions from the members of the Board of Education and I see none we will open it up to the public for their input on the budget we will again adhere to our three minute limit and we ask that you only speak once we have to vote on excuse me we have a motion to vote on the well we're getting public input before we vote all cin 53 turnburry got as far as the increase you're you're touting how small the increase is and how great it is for us last year's budget you put $2 million in from the referendum
057to keep it lower this you're putting 3.5 in to make it lower what happens when the other 3 million is gone where you're going to have your real increase and we'll be back up to 18 cents um the baloney about us being a wealthy community I have handouts that I'm going to give all you when I finish my three minutes man alipin has got to be wealthier than we are they get n last year they got 19.3 million marbo wealthier than we are 10.7 million East Brunswick wealthier than we are 165 million Oldbridge 43 million Jamesburg got 4.6 million South Brunswick 21.5 South planfield 8.3 you see where I'm going Woodbridge 21.1 where I'm going now is the fact that something that I've complained about for three years that this board finally woke up last
058year and see that we're shortfall what I see going on in this Administration is what Muhammad Ali did as a boxer it's called The Rope a doe he laid on a rope and let in our case the state just pounds the crap out of us but Muhammad Ali would come back and fight there is no fight from this Administration we get kicked in the face year after year including two years when they did not pay us the $500,000 that they owed us in state aid that they promised us and they beat us out the end of the year here nothing was done no fights were done now we get hit again the administration doesn't do a damn thing I said to sue you people refuse to sue we have a right to sue and I
059don't know what you have to do to light a fire under you but come the end of the other $3 million when you got to start coming up with the full increase that you can't take other monies to put in where's it all going to come from these people can't keep paying it it's not only the retired people the families can't pay it and there's no fight if Dr Ferry was still here he would have fought he for for the new You know what last month I sat here and I listened to you pontificate when you knew nothing you you know good and well what this Administration has done to get more funding from the state you've seen every letter you've haded every phone call and you do nothing but stand here at that microphone
060and picate and you don't know what you're talking about you're empty can making a lot of noise and I'm sick of it I'm sick and tired of it you don't know what you're talking about and you have intentionally misuse this form Mr K been in the papers you put it in the pap and you mesent everything that's in there what have you done good well what I've done I'm tired of you standing there misrepresenting the facts you know the facts know what I Mr clein I'm asking you to please take your seat I would step down and I would quit if I with you you don't like not me that's the difference then you fight for us have been fighting and you know it Mr K I'm asking you to please take your seat I
061had my minutes he put into yeah you're right Mr Klein Mr Klein and so am I I'm entitled to not let you stand at that microphone and trash this Administration when you don't know what you're talking about seen the lack of what you've done you haven't seen anything you've seen what you wanted to see you want talk about ethics also yeah I want to talk about ethics bring it bring it let's bring it up you want me to call I don't need a recess okay sorry about thater 29 Spruce meow Drive um Madame President I think we do need a recess that was a bit much for the public okay at this time we'll take a 10-minute recess we need a first and second a motion to take who's who's the first Master first Mr
062Masters and Mr T tesler all in favor I opposed okay at this time we'll take a 10-minute recess at this time the board will reconvene into public session and we will try public forum again anyone wishing to speak to the budget please come to the microphone state your name and address you have 3 minutes and you will only be able to speak once Robert roach at mfield Boulevard Monroe uh just a couple issues um it was indicated by a board member that they're giving back the $3.5 million uh to us I think that is not something the board is giving back I think that's a required under state law when all B Bond money is not expended so that is not a give back that is a requirement that's my understanding if I'm wrong you
063can correct me not um well once it's not spent if the money is not spent and this money was not spent so therefore under the law it has to go back to us it's not a gift in other words you could not use it for something else once it's not used we could have spent all the money correct uh you let we'll just give him his Amy we'll just give him his three minutes yes yeah uh second all I Dr Hamilton was indicating uh and correct me if I'm wrong that the U uh about the student enrollment having an effect and he indicated that the uh student enrollment is within the cap student enrollment cost increases are outside of the cap so if you have 225 students there's a there's a factor in there that
064shows increase in student enrollment right under the uh the but the uh if you Mike look at the cap computation you'll see it in there and the third thing that I want to mention is that um there is a big emphasis on the increase in ratables uh after this new evaluation and how it's going to reduce the tax rate I think if you think about it and compute it uh an increase in ratables based on a reassessment is not going to change what the taxpayers have to pay in the amount of taxes it is only going to increase because the tax taxpayers assuming an increase the taxpayers property assessment is going to go up so if the assessment is the rate goes down we're just going to pay more the same amount of money on
065the same on on a different rateable base the third thing I'd like to or fourth thing actually uh today I looked at the New Jersey School Board Association and one of the things I always hear in the budget and I've heard it for years and years and years is the students yes we do want to provide for it's our It's Our obligation to provide a good education for the students but one of the things that is required according to the uh School Board Association says the uh and may I read it the board has a dual responsibility when approving a budget to provide for uh student education with a placing it without placing an unreasonable burden on the taxpayers and I never hear the board talk about the burden that is being placed on the
066taxpayers which is very very substantial thank you thank you did you want to respond Mr Gorski yeah I um point point of correction on the student enrollment and the cap uh statement the student enrollment adjustment to the budget that is allowed to increase the cap was $971,000 the cost associated with an average per pupil cost for 225 students is 3.4 million quite a far stretch from the 971 that the state gives you a budget adjustment for well I think that should be explained that they don't the budget the the portion within the cap is doesn't fully cover the uh the cost that is incurred thank you anyone else from the public wishing to speak take a good evening Karen castaldo MTA president thank you chat for walking me up he's our security guy and I'd
067like to break the ice a bit um the Miriam Webster di I just wrote this speech actually a half hour ago so I don't know the Miriam Webster dictionary defines scapegoat as one who Bears the blame for others or one who's the object of irrational hostility those of us in education in the education profession would Define scapegoating this way scapegoating Educators has been so popular with policy makers politicians the media and even members in our own community that the reality of what really happens in education has become blurry scapegoating brods a noble profession and reeks havoc on student learning scapegoating public Educators the Board of Education Central Administration and anyone else for that matter here makes the real systemic problems in education we need to reform the debate and remove the mask one of the
068systemic problems that is being masked is funding because so much of school funding is based on local property taxes the historic the historically vast wealth Gap in our nation makes it easy to see why funding is not Equitable Mark Klein was on this board and Mark I have to say you did a great job with the legislation that you and Mike and Dr Hamilton work together that's on the website that's the fight that should be happening what's going on in TR and the piece of legislation that's here uh I go to treaton often and that's how you get things done not pointing fingers at each other in our own Community um we need to build a movement in this community to get get us to think differently about the problems and possibilities of public education
069every one of us can push the conversation every one of us needs to become involved in the community so that everyone sees the role Educators play in shaping our children's education in our community at large so on behalf of the mte we support the budget I would like to thank Mr Michael Gorski I know Wayne holiday is so excited you are doing one standup job Mike uh I'd like to thank Central Administration and the Board of Education the finance committee for their hard work for creating this budget under these most difficult circumstances while maintaining a quality education program that will advance student achievement and also thinking and putting our senior community in terms of saving them money etc etc thank you anyone else from the public seeing no one we will close the public forum
070and at this time we will have a roll call to adopt the tenative budget 2013 2014 school year Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr Masters yes Mr precioso no Mr tesler yes Mrs kapano yes madame board president preliminary budget adoption passes thank you very much at this time we will move to the superintendent's report Dr Hamilton thank you at this time I want to take a moment before I get into my report to thank everyone who came out Saturday to the strategic planning session it was a great session uh especially to hear from our students who had such a tremendous contribution to that process I'm very excited um that this process is underway and again thank you for giving giving up your Saturday and again
071I want to thank Jeff and Mike for their contribution to the development of this budget which I think is one of the best budgets we've done in recent years I'm moving on to the superintendent report Madam bort president and members of the board of education is recommended by the superintendent of schools that Personnel items a through p approved by roll call vote moved by Mr cheris second by Mr Kaufman comments or questions from the board seeing none we will have a roll call Miss antelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr cman which numbers are we doing here personel a through p are are you still otherwise that's a yes with the reu on o okay Mr Masters yes Mr precioso yes on everything but M that's a no on M
072as in Michael yes so noted Mr tesler yes M K Pano yes madame board president Personnel items a through P passes thank you moving on to board action items Madame board president members of the board of education is recommended by the superintendent that board action items a through F be approved by roll call vote Mr Chella was that a second or was that a question question oh Mr Mr Kaufman comments or questions Mr presiosa item e on board action uh what exactly is that uh the new teacher evaluation system requires that we have school Improvement panels in place this is a mandate it's non-compensated does this cost us anything it's non-compensated anyone else Mr Masters same item under Apple the supervisor better Michelle all right uh Applegarth the supervisor new assistant principal what is that
073it's an either or right now um there's a supervisor in that place but when we once we hire uh the new Vice then that person will fill in that Gap that's the O the oak tree correct correct thank you anyone else then we will have a roll call Mr tesler Mr just I'm sorry Mr just note we're approving a revised school calendar there's some changes to uh uh vacation days so just make a note that I assume that will be distributed out to the public that uh you kids will get that uh first day of spring break off now it's not a half a day just a note depending on tomorrow depending on tomorrow's weather I guess cross the figes Mr Masters could we have Ira maybe read through the entire calendar maybe just June
074anyone else thanks we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr cman yes Mr Master yes Mr proso yes on everything but F no on F is in Frank cor Mr tesler yes Co Pano yes Madam board president board action items a through F pass thank you and that concludes the superintendent's report and we will go to the business administ business administrator report Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through C be approved by consent roll call so move second Mr cherella Mr Masters any comments or questions for Mr Gorski seeing none we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes yes Mr zareski
075yes Mr calman Mr Masters yes Mr precioso yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Kap Pono on board president board action items a through C passes thank you and that concludes my report okay we will go on to the board president's report and mine is going to be short I just want to read what the responsibilities of a school board member are because I know there's been a lot of questions coming out lately about what the role of the board is especially in the budget process so I'm going to read this it's from New Jersey school boards the Board of Education adopts policies under which the school district operates oversees the budget approves the curriculum hires and evaluates the superintendent represents the public during contract negotiations and serves at a as a Communications link between the community
076and the school system school board members must remember that they have no Authority except which results from participation in decisions of the board during an official meeting actions promises or commitments made by individual board members are without legal basis and have no binding commitment upon the District board members should be aware that they are elected to represent the entire District in all manners pertaining to education and not anyone segment and in regard to the budget the board do do not get involved in the creation of a budget but we have input into the budget and we do this through the um what did we have in October the um budget philosophy development budget philosophy development meeting and when we go through committees every time there's a committee meeting whether it's a Personnel committee a buildings
077and finance committee um uh curriculum we're always approving something or not approving something and that is always a budget consideration um individual wise if I wanted something in the budget or Amy wanted something in the budget or Lou wanted something in the budget it it can't happen because everybody wants something different so we do it together as a board um even committees they recommend to the board what they would like to have and the board votes as a whole so that's the board's role in budget preparation so at this time we're going to go to committee reports are there any committees that would like to report this evening Mr Kaufman uh thanks um we had a curriculum meeting this evening and we covered a few items uh the first item was a uh presentation by
078uh one of our um let me get the title correct learning disabilities teacher consultant uh over at the high school here for a uh program that is uh is is outstanding jefff I think we actually have to have a presentation in the public for this particular program it's a um I guess the best way to talk about it it's a um collaborative effort with the special education department both at the high school and the middle school to get students who have special needs acclimated to the high school and all the things that they will be seeing in the coming years once they move over uh across the street um I I I would love to be able to tell everybody about all the components about this but it really is such an incredible program I
079think it would be best served to have the uh folks who have put this program together uh come before the public and and give everybody a a vision into what this program is it's absolutely outstanding so if Jeff can set that up for the next board meeting that' be great um we also reviewed an independent study that's going on to uh bring the success that we've had at the Avid uh program the high school downt the Middle School level um we have things that are currently in place that we're going to um uh allow this to be a part of the curriculum so that students do not have to give up an elective which is what they have to do today um there's going to be a cost of around $9,000 to implement this for
080the uh school year um and I think it's well worth the effort um based on the information that we're seeing and and and moving in that direction for for students that are not at the high end of the spectrum not at the low end of the spectrum but students that are kind of like in the middle that really just need a little bit extra support to do things like get organized and and working on projects uh you know we we talk about all the time students at both ends of the spectrum having all kinds of resources and hearing currently we're reoccurring that students that are kind of in the middle ground are kind of left to to to do the best that they can the a program has been uh very successful here at the
081high school and we' like to filter that down into the middle school as helping to transition students once they get here as well uh one other thing that uh that we spoke about it's come up in a couple of other board meetings is uh dealing with the cost of AP testing um there there is a cost related to AP testing uh students at the high school do have a tendency to want to take the AP courses because they can get college credits uh saving their mom and dad a little bit of uh money once they get to College um um uh but there is a cost Associated to it it's an excess of $30,000 for all the testing so I'd like to thank Dr uh Hamilton for coming up with what I think it's really
082going to be a good plan to move forward of phasing in a collaborative effort between the school district and the parents to have the school pick up some of the costs in the first year and gradually have the parents pick up a little bit more of the cost we have some students that are taking uh one two three four AP classes and each one of them could be a 100 or so so much uh per pop and I don't know what the exact number is and it probably varies based on the test uh so being cognizant of trying to keep the costs manageable while at the same time keeping that opportunity open to our students we're going to investigate trying to have some type of phased in um collaborative approach to being able to offset
083some of the costs for AP exams um I'm good great anyone else from the board okay we will go to Other Board of Education business is there any other business from any member of the Board of Education Miss anelis couple of well first I'd like to congratulate Miss Nomi Mrs Nomi on her adult education program I see some very new and exciting programs in there and um just want to say about the program it's really more of a community service I don't believe that that cost us anything does it um over the past few years Administration has reviewed the adult Deb program and put it on a track to be self- sustaining hasn't reached that goal yet we put no money into this at all uh that's our objective in the next year or two
084um on April 14th at noon at the middle school the Henry rickless Holocaust committee will be having the annual Holocaust Memorial the yam showa if anyone is interested it is open to the public it is a free event again that's April 14th noon time at the middle school and on April 19th here at the high school the Monroe Education Foundation will be sponsoring the third annual teachers versus police basketball game that'll be at 7 p.m admission is $5 and it's a good time thank you Mr Masters I'm going to I guess add to what Karen was saying before um something was said at the meeting last meeting um about teachers and how much they work and how much they're getting paid so I write everything down I really bad memory and I started looking through
085all my notes and actually I see a a a trend um that it seems like anytime we start getting into budgets and Big Ticket items and everything it always falls upon the teachers um we demonize our teachers and it is it's some really nasty things that I write down um mainly because I have to tell my wife about it when I get home um or show yellow me the literacy rate in this the literacy rate of the United States actually is 26 in the world uh it's not anywhere close to the top um you can look it up it's it's a known fact in' 03 we were 19th so we're slipping down um and it's not like there's there's these great First World countries Kazakhstan is better than us in literacy rate who Pakistan Angola
086um some very I don't want to say third world countries but we're not talking UK or Ireland um it's a horrible Trend and I think what we're trying to do here we're investing a lot of the teachers and the administrators I'm not saying but um is I think we could fix it um or at least not fix the entire thing this could be the start of something um and again I'm not I don't have Rose col glasses I think we're going to change what's going on in the country but I think we have to I think we have to look at it and try to um figure out a way to do it and I think that's where trying to do uh we don't have all the answers uh we make mistakes on certain things
087Administration makes mistakes but that's what the board's here for we don't have to yell at the teachers we don't have to yell at the administrators if you think about it the buck stops with us so if you have a problem really don't sit here and complain about the administrators or complain about the teachers they only work 10 months or they get paid too much or they don't go home at 3:00 I know my wife was a teacher I first time we got married I don't think I saw her for dinner in a year um and then she'd come home and run back upstairs and start doing extra work or planning and all summer all these all she was doing and I know a lot of teachers do it is they plan for the upcoming year
088um it's a horrible thing that I think we're we're doing here we're kind of scapegoating Karen used that word and and I use demonizing I'm a little bit stronger with that um complaining about the money we spend on professional development they're interacting with our children don't we want them to have the best professional development the best education we can get them uh I mean what's going to get us out of this rut the kids uh I'm not doing it Congress isn't doing it the president's not doing it nobody's doing it everybody's bickering we're bickering now we have these these pockets of political agendas that are going on and I see it and everybody sees it and it'll happen but it seems to me that we can't get past it uh and it's taken a toll
089we're starting to cut stuff um there's this push which I disagree with towards mediocrity which is killing me our vision statement two things full potential of our kids and preeminent education how do we get that if we push towards mediocrity we can't and I think it's a major problem I think we just got to start talking and getting together yeah fiscal accountable that's fine I have a business degree and I know it um but also we can't Short change a generation of children and write them off and say we didn't want to fund that even though I had a great education I was funded by the people before me um or it was to to hard I hate that I hear that a lot it's too hard it's too difficult to do it's not too
090difficult to do if it's worth it I'm done enough had [Applause] it very well said anyone else from the board then we will go to a closed session resolution be resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in accordance with Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws was of 1975 njsa 10 column 4-6 through 10 column 4-21 to discuss the following subjects legal to seek advice attorney advice in relation to an employee suit against the District student harassment intimidation and bullying number 22 through 26 the discussion conducted in closed section can be discussed to the disclosed to the public at such time as the matters have been resolved and this should only take us about 15 minutes we need a motion motion by Mr
091Kaufman second by Mr Tesla all in favor opposed extensions then the board will move into Clos session at this time the board will reconvene into public session and we will go to the last public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone state your name and address for the record hello hello hi Jill Deo 48 Linwood Drive um I'm a member of Sav our schools New Jersey as some of you know and I've been very active in what's going on in Trenton and I wanted you to know what I've been doing in January I spoke at the State Board of Education meeting about Monroe's plight and our funding in February I spoke at a press conference as part of a coalition of our children our schools and I spoke about
092Monroe's plight and our funding and this morning at the budget and Appropriations Committee meeting I spoke again and I just want to read to you what I spoke and talk to them about um I wanted to thank the entire Senate budget and Appropriations Committee for allowing me to speak today my name is Jill Deo I'm a stay-at-home mom with two boys who are in the Monroe Township middle CeX County Public Schools I am here today because I'm concerned about the fiscal starvation of our schools since 2010 New Jersey schools have lost5 billion $1.2 billion this year alone double last year my district has lost $10 million because of the reduction in school state aid and based on the most recently released state aid numbers we are losing another $3 million things are not getting better
093Monroe is 43 square miles we are still 50% undeveloped but we are growing quickly Monroe has 40,000 residents onethird of our residents are over 65 years old and on fixed income it's these people who are making up the difference between what the state isn't given our schools and what we need the reduction in state aid puts a huge burden on the seniors of my community as well as the rest of the taxpayers in addition Monroe Township has a send and reive relationship with Jamesburg School District Jamesburg is a small town with one Elementary School and one middle Middle School they send their high school students to Monroe Township High School we've had this relationship since the 1970s as part of our arrangement with Jamesburg they agreed to pay part of the debt services for our
094high school that amounts to $600,000 per year because of the budget cuts Jamesburg can't afford to pay Monroe their cap doesn't cover the $600,000 and the state is underfunding Jamesburg by more than $2 million their toal total budget is only $10 million that's a huge shortfall for such a small District I don't know how the situation is going to resolve itself they don't have the money to pay Monroe and how can we ask our seniors to foot that bill I would like to emphasize that our administrators are very good stewards of the taxpayer dollars they are constantly trying to save money for example yet last year they switched insurance carriers to lower premiums they have paid employees not to participate in the health insurance plan with a net Savings of approximately $155,000 per person they
095were underc cap by $500,000 but this can't go on indefinitely we are seeing an influx of 250 new students each year because of the new housing developments being built that amounts to an additional 3.4 million needed each year to educate these children our cap is $2 million which results in a $1.4 million shortfall per year do you have a lot more to go because your three minutes are up uh no one more paragraph okay with that kind of growth and without proper funding of our children with without proper funding our children's education is going to decline we've already seen program Cuts staff reduction and increase class Sciences the reduction in state aid has put a huge financial burden on all the residents of my community along with hundreds of communities across the state I'm here
096to ask you chairman sarlo and the entire budget Appropriations Committee to put the state on the path to fully funding our great public schools and make sure that all New Jersey children have access to an excellent public education thank you very much and I just I just wanted to add that Greenstein was there she's part of the budget and Appropriations Committee and she was able to talk about the bill that you guys brought forward thanks okay great thank you anyone else from the public State underfunded the formula by a billion dollars this year would you mind that if I asked the question about the budget would you please state your name and address for the I'm sorry Bob zarski 162 Tournament Drive um you don't have to answer me now but after I leave maybe
097you could talk about the increase in other purchase Services uh for instruction I noticed in the budget while uh you were taking your break that that was one area of the budget that seemed to go up I noticed that your your supplies and textbooks in that same general account uh have gone down almost equally to the increase so maybe there's a correlation I don't know the the other thing I noticed in the budget was that uh your capital outlay is going down and they generally that's uh within that two so-called 2% cap uh it's gone down by about $74,000 and I think of that as money as uh for onetime items a roof a bus equipment things like that so as a long-term Trend uh what do you think about Capital outlay over the years
098now that that seems to be going down you have a 2% cap and uh I don't know what you're doing with uh your capital reserve I don't think you have very much uh and the fact that probably you're not going to be looking at referenda or a referendum in the near future uh the other thing is reconciling the fact that salaries are going up by 2 and a qu% and the cap is generally a 2% cap I know that the cap for this budget purposes is actually three almost three and a half% but that includes that increase for uh extra enrollment and things like that so maybe you can talk about those Trends how you reconcile the 2% cap with uh the two and two and a qu% increase in salaries thank you Mr corsky
099um the first question has to do with an account termed other purchase services for instruction this account is supposed to host such expenditures that include lease purchase payments for instructional um equipment such as Synthetic Turf Fields the lighting that was associated with that field those oblig ations just expired previous to this budget preparation but the U iPad lease obligation for about $440,000 is charged to that account as well as the new leases for computers five copy machines uh telephone and security upgrades all go to that account so that's why there is an increase in that account even though there's some room created from the Synthetic Turf and lighting um lease exploration Capital outlay account we did have a capital reserve at one point of $750,000 we we replaced roofs and with the residual amount that
100we had in there um that we saved under the architect's estimate for the roofs we appropriated I should say the board appropriated towards Applegarth school last year we currently only have a balance of $22,000 in the capital reserve account um there is a decrease in capital expenditures in the budget budget because last year the board took extra state aid money that we had not anticipated and appropriated it towards Brookside School roof replacement project it was over a million dollars Mr Tate completed that it was under budget this year unfortunately due to the demands of 225 new students buses the lease purchases that I mentioned previously um we could not afford to do a project for a roof of that size and keep taxes um at a respectable level which I believe they are for the
101public salaries are at 2.25% um and that's the final year in that contract it does exceed the 2% cap and some of the ways that the district was able to put about $4.8 million which you saw from a previous slide that was added to this budget in the cap was through the following efficiencies that we created just for this Budget Transportation Services we have transportation agreements with the middle sex County Regional ed Service Commission we we participate in eate um educational rate um discounts for telephone purchases and uh telephone line charges we also have an interlocal Services agreement with the municipality for communications equipment we entered a a collaborative purchasing system for the procurement of all supplies throughout the district we have another Cooperative purchasing service with the middle middx County Regional ed Service Commission
102technology Services we have an interlocal Services agreement with the township for TV video hosting service we have uh insurance we participate in New Jersey school board's Insurance Group which is a uh fund for um joined by other school districts in collaboration Food Services we have an interlocal Services agreement for Food Services with the middle sex Regional ed Service Commission we provide food for the Ed Services Commission we participate in a middlex county Improvement Authority recycling program where we generate a lot of money from Recycling and we budgeted for some more we have an increase in revenue from Jamesburg of $615,000 we spoke of previously we're offering more in District professional development cutting on that line item um we have a new insurance broker we're um anticipating significant Savings in that account the mandatory contributions for
103health insurance that was um required by law is increasing now for most staff who are in now the third phase of four phases of increases in contributions and insurance they're quite substantial now and I think we're recognizing about $2.4 million in the budget for anticipated collections from staff we have 95 people who have opted out a health insurance that's saving the district 1.5 million and it grows every day we're we're looking for transportation joint ches everywhere we can we're recognizing staff breakage as our more senior staff is retiring we're replacing them as Dr Hamilton mentioned before with uh more novice uh firststep teachers and in The Debt Service fund for this year we have a $400,000 decrease due to specifically for interest costs due to the refunding so that freed up all the room to
104absorb the $4.8 million that was outlined before thank you Mr Gorski is there anyone else from the public wishing to speak that was thank you Michelle arm min9 Nathaniel Street that's exactly why I'm getting up to speak because when people come in and give attaboys and say all the wonderful things about you which there are many um they get a lot of time to say that and they get over three minutes and people disagree with the board or have some criticisms that sometimes is is acceptable and sometimes is not as acceptable they don't they're shut down the the public portion uh you know we may not like what people say but we have to allow them to speak um it used to be that when people came to these well people didn't come to the
105board meetings members said well no one cares no one is here no one comes up to speak no one cares about what goes on in their school now that people show up people complain that they don't like people talking or that people are criticizing it's not a criticism I think we teach debate we think critical thinking in schools so if we're going to teach that kind of stuff to our children we should be grown-ups here and try to have a civilized debate sometimes people yell sometimes people yell back that's not really what my concern is my concern is people have a right to criticize especially um elected officials that's what you're here for that is what the public participation is all about um again not everything I would like to say thank you for the
106all the time that you spend and for the good intentions on for the most part but that doesn't mean well-intentioned action are always the right action so please understand that not everyone in the public is looking to bash either the teachers the Board of Education or anybody that puts their time in and I want to personally thank Jill I didn't know that she was involved in that I mean when parents do things like that it's essential and I'm grateful for everyone's participation even the people whose uh ideas and whose opinions I disagree with Because unless we have a mature and dynamic debate we can't move forward it can't be that you have a Divine gift of knowing exactly what's right in every circumstance we pay the bills it's it's our it's our civic duty to
107come here and speak our positions you may disagree which is fine but please respect the board as you would like to be respect the public as you would like to be respected thank you very much thank you anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we will close the public forum and our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting and budget hearing will be on Thursday March 21st 2013 7 o'clock p.m. at the high school motion to adjourn Mr Amy miss antelis Mr tesler all in favor opposed extensions meeting is adjourned yeah but there