001okay good evening the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of to 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 we have a roll call Mr bki miss antelis Mr armeno here Mr Braverman here Mr Chella here cman here Mrs kapano here Mr noin here Mr Po here Mr proso yeah Mr zareski here mam board president you have a quorum present this evening 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 April 18th 2014 one
002at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press four filed with the clerk of the municipality and at this time we will have reports from our student board member Mr poy could you oh I'm sorry daydreaming here good evening everyone so um first I'd like to say that the mono Township High School drama club just wrapped up its spring musical The Wedding Singer and we would like to congratulate all performers crew members and Mr bur Burns for their outstanding performance 16 Deca members will be departing for Atlanta Georgia on May 3rd to attend the international Career Development conference this year mths Deca has made school history with its most qualifiers yet we wish them the be best of luck in Georgia and would like and Deco would like to to thank the monre Township
003Board of Education for their continuous support and encouragement Tuesday May 6th and Wednesday May 7th students at the high school can pledge to never text and drive during their lunches mths is happy to promote safety to their students and encourage them to stay responsible on the roads after you pledge students can receive a free wristband May 9th is the Junior Prom and the high school will be closing at a halfday session oak trees work on their community garden will begin on May 10th The Fellowship of Christian athletes at the high school will be hosting a schoolwide Ultimate Frisbee tournament after school on May 15th teams are encouraged to join and 100% of the profits will go towards Mikey Nichols on his road to recovery and lastly AP testing starts at the high school next Monday
004and will continue until May 15th very much and at this time number six on the agenda the B budget the public budget hearing and final adoption of the 2014 2015 school budget uh Dr Hamilton Dr Gorman and Mr Gorski present good evening thank you we're going to just ask Mike Gorski if he will summize where we are in our current status with our public budget and then ask the board to approve it accordingly thank you Doctor um the feedback from the preliminary budget hearing was such to make no changes to the preliminary budget and to recommend that to the board of education for adoption tonight as the final budget some highlights are as follows uh the budget process began late last summer with a board philosophy meeting on what's important to maintain in the budget
005what considerations should be taken into consideration for next year certainly taxes and the community's sensitivity to taxation is is among the top and we also had to consider about 200 kids additional expected in the district for 145 at least six buildings that need significant roof address State mandates for additional buses Vans Park Readiness for a new series of testing coming forward all of which had to be um worked into this budget unfortunately Monroe state aid award came in only very slightly higher but the same small percentage of the overall budget as the prior year and that's that's approximately 3.25% of all revenues comes from state aid the district is receiving 60% of our Aid award from the 200920 school year but yet is educating over 800 additional students that's approximately another school to educate with
00660% of the revenues we had from the state five years ago the the board's been on a vision to reduce over adequacy spending we presented slides last time that showed a significant slope downward over the last four years in over adequacy spending administrative costs have been linear while the state allows an increase every year due to um inflation but the district has towed the line there and the best one of the best highlights um is the tax consequence of all these additions we have for the first time in 17 years a tax reduction comparing the average assessed home for 1415 to the average assessed home for 1314 taxes are going down on that average assessed home by over $114 even if there was no bond referendum money used the as the board recommended $2.5 million
007of bond Surplus be applied Against The Debt Service tax levy to reduce taxes taxes still would be going down about $60 this is not a a blip in the pan so to speak um this has been the board's vision for the last four years you can do a lot of different things to manipulate any one particular budget year but when you have four years of steady decreases in the amount of taxes um that are being raised and you have four years of steady decreases in over adequacy spending and you and you responsibly address the needs of facilities and bus Replacements that can easily be kick down the road uh for someone else to worry about that's responsible stewardship of the uh community's tax dollars and a A very wise strategic plan in place by the
008superintendent and the Board of Education so if there's no questions by the board um ition I will go ahead and read the resolution and um take it it is recommended that the members of the Board of Education approve the following amounts and resolution for the 1415 final budget be it resolved by the Monro Township Board of Education that the 145 final general fund budget be adopted in the amount of 101, 67 $3,515 and a final general fund local tax levy in the amount of $88 m859 549 inclusive of the allowable adjustment for health care costs of $ 56,7 and a final special Revenue Fund in the amount of $953,000 and a final debt service budget in the amount of 10,477 1116 and a final debt service local tax levy in the amount of 7,139 140
009whereby the final 1415 budget totals 113 m1415 and whereas the mon Township Board of Education has been notified of state aid amounts and whereas such state aid amounts are for the 1415 categorical special education Aid 2,485 $7 and for the 1415 categorical security Aid is $92,500 and for the 1415 death service Aid is $682,500 other state aid consisting of Park Readiness Aid of 589 $80 and per pupil Grant Aid of $58,900 and whereas the Mona Township Board of Education has estimated a state aid amount pursuant to application and for the 1415 the estimated extraordinary Aid amount is $14,455 and where is the state's failure to fully fund the school funding Reform Act of 2018 as well as other factors has provided insufficient financial support for programs and services contained in the base budget necessitating the
010application of $84,900 147 policy 3440 policy 4440 and njac 6A 23b 1.2b provides the that the Board of Education shall establish in the annual school budget a maximum expenditure amount that may be allotted for such travel and expense reimbursement for the 1415 school year now therefore be it resolved that the Monro Township Board of Education hereby establishes the school district travel maximum for the 1415 school year at the final sum of $158,400 and be it further resolved that the school business administrator shall track and record these costs to ensure that the maximum amount is not exceeded and now therefore let it be resolved that the superintendent of schools and the business administrator board secretary file the required documents with the executive County Superintendent Mr Chella second by Mr cofman is there any comments or questions
011by any member of the Board of Education I can't see you okay it's fine um the total revenue increase or the change is that 3174 uh 3.17 Mr Gorski one moment the total increase in the budget from last year for all funds is 3,477 58 okay and is that a 3.17% increase it is and the um so we're going from a local tax levy uh from 2013 to 14 of 885 m818 1172 yes ma'am to 88 milon 5 859 549 million yes ma'am that's correct okay and most of the fortunately we had some Bond money about $2.5 million that has been put into this budget as well as a surplus of approximately 900,000 or a little under 900,000 I think it was eight um the Surplus is for the general fund 4,987 1830 and that's
012mandated by Statute to be applied to the 1415 school year and for The Debt Service fund 155,156 anyone else okay since this is the public budget hearing we will open the floor to any comments that you might have in regard to the budget it will be just on the budget public forum and we will adhere to our three-minute limit so if anybody would like to come to speak about the budget please come up to the microphone state your name and address for the record hi there Bob zagari 162 Tournament Drive um actually I wish to express my concern regard something that's not in the school budget as far as I can determine from the uh handouts that I've seen and the userfriendly budget by the way there are no handouts right for the budget tonight
013um it's it's something that um should not Rel have a negative effect on taxes but it is something that should have a positive effect on the learning environment for students at the last board meeting we all learned from a conversation between uh board member Po and school business administrator Gorski that a project which would have been funded in great part by the state of New Jersey through reg a regular operating Grant or a rod Grant would have would not be pursued at least at this time and I'm not sure uh which is the case whether it's going to be pursued later or we're just giving up on that project Mr Gorski explained the project was not a high priority or it wasn't as a uh High a priority as the other projects which are actually
014in the budget and I fully understand that position and maybe after I speak Mr Gorski can tell us what projects are actually in the budget I understand that other facilities projects especially those concerning the expansion of classroom space are more urgent however uh the project I'm talking about is entitled partial window replacement and Associated hazardous abatement at Monroe Township Middle School uh with the total project cost of over a million dollars however since uh the state has not committed to the grant to uh I'm sorry however since the state has committed to Grant the district $400,000 the cost to the district is really only $600,000 so students win because the Integrity of the envelope of the building is improved and taxpayers win because the state is willing to give us an additional $400,000 in state
015aid if we can come up with that local share of $600,000 and I understand why you can't I hope we do not lose the funding because we cannot come up with that local share at least at this time as I have mentioned before uh if mayor and Council would only share with the Board of Education a small portion of the millions of dollars in sore connection fee Surplus this project could get done this summer the township will be using $5.3 million I repeat $5.3 million of sore connection fee Surplus in their 2014 budget not for any specific purpose but as a miscellaneous Revenue the total amount used by the township over the past five years exceeds $46 million it is a shame that the township could not have shared 600,000 with the Board of Education
016this year so that the window project could have been completed this summer I recommend that that I recommend that the board pursue this issue with mayor and councel and let's not leave $400,000 of state aid for our children on the table thank you unless it's in the budget already Mr corsky would you like to respond to that evening Mr zagari um the projects that are in the budget from a facility standpoint are as follows consistent with the board's installment approach to fixing roofs within the budget we are going to replace the the Monroe Township Middle School instructional Wing roof that is a net cost to the district of $1,322 taking it full advantage of a state Rod grant for a 40% share contribution from the state uh as you probably know that is on a
017reimbursement basis the district has to expend the money and then fill out a a great deal of paperwork to get reimbursed from the state the other projects are to create internal space at the Monro Township Middle School this is what we've referred to as stop Gap measures $250,000 is appropriated for that purpose those stop Gap measures were a district high priority facilities item we applied for a a rod grant for those and unfortunately despite all the hype that came out from the state about these Rod grants encouraging districts to apply those were tier 2 classified and denied um in the building grounds Transportation committee meeting many months ago we discussed the longrange facility plan in part and some of the more pressing projects in the district uh it was through the facility directors uh recommendation
018that we applied for and the committee recommended to the board several different projects um one of them was more extravagant than than the more critical needs of the others and that was the window replacement project at the Mund Township Middle School these windows are not very energy efficient but are still suitable for use any hazardous material is contained within the CLA and if it it's not Disturbed will not be released according to experts and unfortunately um there was just not enough budget Resources with the tight cap to consider that project uh for the 1415 budget however we are optimistic from what we're hearing that more money will be available for state grants um next year and we will certainly review with the building grounds Transportation committee and then recommend to the full board any other
019grants that we deem feasible for the 15 16 school year so if I understand you correctly we we will lose that $400,000 that we could have gotten if had we completed that project and I fully understand and agree with what you're saying I'm not in any way shape or form criticizing it but I think it's just the fact that we lose that money because we don't have the local share I want to say yes but I'm a little uncomfortable with lose because we probably will be able to reapply in 15 16 even if it's for that same project thank you um on one other one other topic that you brought up the sewer connection fees um the board recognizes and appreciates your passion about this project and um oh I see you have a prepared
020statement very good just a few notes that uh I I've received today um from an attorney not a very elaborate uh piece but um the board um in recognizing and overturning every stone to address the facility needs here in the district whether it be Rod grants as you brought up or collaboration with the township um in the past the township has donated a parts of of land where oak tree school um exists Dr Hamilton um board president Kathy kapano and I contacted Wayne Hamilton from the municipal um he's the uh Municipal business official and we expressed your recommendation that some of the sewer connection fees be shared with the Board of Education to offset future Capital needs um either Renovations or perhaps potential Bond referendum in the future or reconfigurations of that nature Mr Hamilton
021um said that he did not feel that that was a possibility because of the local Finance board statutes that govern the use of sewer connection fees he then was kind enough to refer the matter to the mtuu Monro Township utility authorities attorneys a gentleman by the name of Greg pasquali from The Firm of shayen sh i n schaer and rafanello yeah that's that's Township attorney yes yes sir Jo Shane yes sir um Mr Pasqual was kind enough to call me today and share some of his time on this topic with me and Accord to Mr pasquali um the school district is not eligible for any of that money and he referenced the following statutes and I'll be happy to email this to you later njsa 40a colon 4- 62 which states in part sewer connection
022fees must be used by the MTU and njsa 4A colon 4-35 Township must book Surplus in budget as miscellaneous income according to this attorney the use of those fees if they were to be shared for the to the school district for the purposes that you outlined as creative as they are it would be a circumvention of what you probably know as an impact fee and the attorney said these particulars two statutes prevent it so we were disappointed to hear that but uh that's that's the advice that we were provided by the Township's attorney well I'm not surprised that they can come up with some legal jargon to prevent it but I'd like to say that when I was a school business administrator the township government helped the school district with construction projects that especially had
023to do with health and safety one was a project where they funded the repair of a pedestrian bridge that was on Board of Education property to the tune of $100,000 we also and they chent sent a check to the Board of Education from the township government they also sent another $1,000 for uh a project that had to do with the renovations of a soccer field so money can move from Township to Board of Education it can thank you is there anyone else from the public uh Joe calucho uh 20 Ashley Court Monro Township good evening everyone um again I I want to understand this you went to 2% cap on the budget but because of exemptions it's probably somewhere around 3 and a half% or maybe a little bit more than that and you know
024back in August when people were talking about the budget what I don't understand is why when we know that we have exemptions why we don't just go to a 2% cap including the exemptions the exemptions just allow us to do things to make us go higher but on the other hand it would make more sense to me if we were really trying to tighten up the pur per strings and help the taxpayers we would go just to a 2% cap including exemptions now again I'm throwing that number out there if I'm incorrect then tell me but that's the way I understand it the second while you're checking I just throw this out because I want to stay within my three minutes um the Mt the muta the the Maro Township Utility Authority that you were
025just mentioning it's not part of my question but doesn't the township own them so if the township own them why can't it goes back to U um Bob's question about why that money is so segregated it's part of the Township's money but I don't want to waste my time on that I just want to throw that out you the last thing is that um and I've mentioned this before what I don't understand is that we have a state of New Jersey that apparently gives money back to certain uh areas of middle sex County that are comparable to us as far as I'm concerned South Brunswick East Brunswick Oldbridge um they're giving back some $4,000 per student I believe in Oldbridge and you so similar numbers across other towns we have a 14th amendment that says
026equal protection under the law that's the US Constitution if we have equal protection under the law why are the children of Monroe Township not given the same amount of money as somebody in Oldbridge East Brunswick and no one's been able to explain that sidestep it you're going to get legal jar here and there but it's all nonsense because what we need to do is get someone someone in the community someone to do you know some Pro boner work and tell why tell the state why we're not getting the same amount of funds back per student in Monroe Township under the Constitution that tells them equal protection and that's what it's for everybody's supposed to get the same amount back it has nothing to do with whether you know you're talking about underdeveloped areas or you
027know poverty stricken areas I'm talking about socioeconomic areas that are comparable to monal Township and and we really need to look at that because every year when we come here we have a budget meeting and we say the same excuses the state's not giving us money so we have to do this and the States's not giving us money we have to do that we have those laws in place why are we not going after them actually Mr gski has a um report on that later in his business report the 14 the equal protection well is why our our it has to do with our Quests for getting more Equitable funding but this is very specific this is the the quest is there already we already have the the the ammunition for the quest we don't
028need to make up a new one and we we have it right right there it's called the US Constitution okay um sir the time is up but I did want to discuss and answer your questions about the cap the way the cap calculation works is it takes your preceding year general fund tax levy which is 85 m818 172 it adds to it an automatic cap adjustment for enrollment that's the 2% no not yet not yet okay bear with me so it takes your preceding year general fund Levy automatically adjusted for enrollment increases this year despite having 200 additional students the state does the trend line and we got $3,895 additional cap relief for all the enrollment here in the day District so that the two the sum of last year's Levy plus the 13,890 comes
029to 85 mil8 32067 that then gets adjusted by 2% that comes to 87 mil5 48708 then there is another cap adjustment for health care costs above what's been experienced in the state health benefits plan the district was eligible for 56740 leaving the total cap to be 88 m055 451 so as you can see these these cap adjustments are really very immaterial um we're not getting anything nearly for automatic enrollment adjustment even though this District at 200 additional students spends well in excess of $3 million for that line item and the health insurance increase is a whole another issue that we could talk about for a while but for for the last few years you know chapter 78 and prior to that was the 1.5% of salary that was mandated be to be collected from employees
030all that money that was collected from employees has gone towards health insurance increases so you know there's certainly an eligibility for that 56,000 to offer cap relief and uh that takes us to the cap as we disc my only question was I know I know about the caps and the cap reliefs my point is you don't have to take them they're there doesn't mean you have to take them I disagree with that comment the one's automatic you have to take them the one is automatic you can turn down the health insurance uh costs and um one of the biggest could but again the board philosophy meeting was to go to cap okay the second topic was you wanted to talk about state aid the Constitutional requirements for uh thorough and efficient education we'll get to
031that a little bit later okay because I'm you know the the thing is it's the US Constitution and and as far as I know you can make all the laws you want on the state level you can't circumvent the US Constitution that's what it disagree the US Constitution um uh yields to the state on this particular issue well it can but you could also make a case why it shouldn't you know you have to make those cases you just can't Buckle to you like a cheap camera every time somebody comes across well you can't do that can't is the word that's the most motivating word can't means you can thank anyone else from the public wishing to speak on the budget good evening Dr Hamilton members of the board my name is Mikey charski I
032currently reside at 25 Avenue K I'm here just to clarify an issue uh my daughter currently attends Monroe Township Middle School in the seventh grade and what I'm trying to clarify is at the beginning of the school year uh she has a 504 plan that currently requires her to have an FM system in her classes now the seventh grade classes are currently wired for the a budget issue what what I'm getting at is that I'm trying to find out if the budget that's coming up will re uh allow funding for the FM system to be installed in the eighth grade classes am I on in part with that you are in part Madam president oh sure you are in part and yes that is accounted for in the special services budget yes and that's where
033I'm going with this doctor uh we have been communicating with M Ruel since the beginning of the school year and our last communication was that the FM system will be placed at Monroe Township Middle School uh for the 2014 school budget and is that still correct yes so the eighth grade classrooms will be wired with the FM system which would prevent my child to have what with the FM system is it's a system that allows my daughter to overcome a hearing disability so that's what what I'm talking I'm sorry if I didn't explain that to every member of the board and uh what I'm trying to find out in lie of that system we were informed that my daughter would have to push a cart around the hallways if that system was not wired into
034the eighth grade classes with in the seventh grade she does not have to do that but where our issue is we want to make sure that the funding is in place for the next coming school year so she will not have to be pushing around a cart the hallways and that the classrooms will be wired with that Madam yes sir I can assure you that funding is in place without restriction for that purpose that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to find out thank you very much any anyone else from the [Music] public okay seeing none we will close the public forum on the um budget Miss armino just just before we go ahead I have a question why would anyone think that the township would share some money money with us when they charged
035us $2 million to hook up this high school they charged us over a million dollars to hook up our elementary schools and at the time that that happened we did a survey of communities where there were recent school buildings opened and those communities charged their schools nothing so I don't understand why you think the township would supplement supplement anything would you like no no I I we would not thank I'd be happy no that's okay um Miss sarmo well I I think um I can sort of answer we we think we can hope that the township would consider it at the very least um we often talked of shared services and when shared services are a nice fluffy euphemism um it works in some cases so I think that we should still start talking about
036shared Services again um in in that regard I think Mr zagari has a very interesting um idea and we should pursue good ideas that after all we are an educational institution um the other thing is if we're talking about and I don't know the statute that Mr Gorski said um for they talked about the Monroe Township Utilities Authority if that statute represents the authority that no longer exists so that's statute might not apply in this case because the authority has been disbanded and we now have a Monroe Township utility department which is very much a department within the township so that might change the equation a little bit I'm not sure but if if if it's statute only covers the authority we don't have one anymore in fact there is about 44 million to 46
037million in the Monroe Township Utility Authority and when it was absorbed by the township they absorbed all that money and it has since been used and I believe Mr zarski is correct for miscellaneous things in some cases there there are other uses but most of that money has been used to support the municipal budget thank you Mr Gorski did you have to you want in in that regard um Mr pasquali who is the attorney for the Township's uh utility department referred to these statutes today and um you know I'm going to have to assume that he understands the relevance of these statutes to this particular issue at hand having that be his client um I can't I'm not an attorney I don't want to represent anything more than that I'm glad you brought up shared
038services because we're always eager to save money um share with other districts and create efficiencies wherever possible in this budget which is available on the monra Township District website if you look under the 1415 budget tab we have a plethora of information on the budget more than is required by law we have What's called the user-friendly budget we have uh Revenue information um appropriation information state aid information more than you probably care to uh go into but some of the the shared services that are in this budget are as follows under Food Services we have an interlocal service agreement to share food services with the middle sex Regional ed Service Commission we provide lunches for the academy uh Learning Center and we make a profit sharing that we do a great deal of recycling with
039middle sex County Improvement Authority recycling cardboard glass paper Metals transport transportation services uh we have transportation agreements with the middle sex County Regional ed Service Commission we also utilize a great amount of joint ches and that's a fancy term for sharing a bus ride with another District bus who's probably going the same way and you share the cost based upon how many per P per how many pupils you have out of the percentage on the total on the bus um purchasing we the monen Board of Education joined a Cooperative purchasing agreement with the middle sex Regional and service commission for the procurement of goods and services and the savings on that since the year and a half Inception is over $750,000 as documented um savings under are buying on state contract or bids uh we
040also have an interlocal service agreement with the municipality for communications equipment we purchase with a federal we participate with a federal e- rate program that's where uh monies are charged as a tax on telecommunication charges and the district benefits by reaping uh rebates for purchasing certain um technology Services um we also have insurance coverage participation in New Jersey school boards Association Insurance Group ER I North which saves a great deal of money by um sharing Property and Casualty Insurance rates with our our colleagues throughout the county and there's many more you know smaller issues but those are the ones that we represented in the budget Mr tiella yes I just wanted to address this because from what I understand and you can correct me if I'm wrong Mr Gorski is that the issue here is
041that there are state laws on the B books that do not allow municipalities to assess impact fees to developers right we could we could we could agree or disagree that those rules are good or bad I think that they're not great but they're there from what I understand so by doing this and asking for that money what we're really doing in a circuitous route is assessing developers with impact fees and those developers could easily then just go to court say that we're violating the law and then we're in trouble so I think that's where we're we're going with this and that's what that's the point that the attorneys are making and the point I think that you're making Wayne Hamilton did make that very point and it's and it's a logical argument I do understand
042it okay there any other questions by the Board of Education regarding the budget seeing none then we will have a roll call on accepting the 2014 2015 school budget Miss armeno no Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs colano yes madame board president motion passes and I would like to thank all the board members for their collaboration and and vision with this year's budget and a lot of it goes back to Dr Hamilton um Dr Morman and Mr Gorski and your business office and all of our staff members who had a a say in this budget and I will have something more about the budget in my uh board president's report so at this time we'll open public forum to
043anything on the agenda again anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone give your name and address for the record and we will continue to adhere to our 3 minute time limit I just waiting for you to finish it so Jo calucho 20 as Court Monroe I wanted to ask if there is a cell phone policy that the board has both in public and private session uh are the are are cell phones being used by the board members uh in the public session uh for any text messaging things like that and certainly are they being used or allowed to be brought into the uh the close session we do not have um we are not supposed to be using public uh have cell phones out during either public or closed session
044uh time are are the cell phones brought into Clos session if they're on somebody's person but I've never seen anybody have one on a table or can any of the board members answer that have any of the board members ever brought in a cell phone to the closed session we're we're not supposed to be polling the board I'll just ask you then the policy or the statement is that the board members are not supposed to be using cell phones during meeting whether it's public meeting or a closed session to be texting either themselves or anyone else okay perhaps you should just take a look at it because it can become an interesting matter for someone to have a cell phone in a public session certainly in a private session public we're all hearing it but
045in a private session someone could pocket dial somehow if you know what a pocket dial is where you don't know it's being uh dialed and that number that number would be open and certainly if somebody's texting during during that public uh close session I would imagine that's inappropriate it would be and um and I just want you to know that I mean based on what's been uh looked at is that anyone who does use that uh cell phone for texting or anything it becomes a Freedom of Information law and it does become public information at that point so if anyone is using it they should be aware of that I believe the board has been told that and they should be aware of that okay and and just the uh the last thing about the
046uh just gentleman's I don't really recall his name but he just mentioned about the municipal Authority we we uh when he Mr Chella yeah Mr Chella um when you're on the zoning board or someone's on the zoning board and if you have a builder come in and someone wants a to build in Monro Township you can easily say no they can voluntarily make a contribution to the township for their their use so you don't have to compel anybody you don't have to uh tell anybody they have to but you can't say you can't build here and that would bring another question whether they would like to voluntarily perhaps help the township out so that that there are methods and ways you can discuss it without compelling anybody to do it thank you thank you is
047there anyone else from the public please come up to the microphone give your name and address for the record Mar and Lester 44 Avenue I I just have two quick questions on the attachments on uh page 23 for the legal bills the 17655 is that just for this month for the will and Goldman and Spitzer legal bees one moment because I thought I saw something similar to that last month what page 23 on the attachments sorry yes I do recognize that as being a monthly billing okay so where are we um in the total for that Jamesburg litigation then including that because I know the figure was pretty similar last month you know we spoke to um the attorney recently who gave us a figure of approximately $90,000 that Monroe has expended on the Jamesburg
048litigation and is that just um what do they call it the initial Gathering of information because they said it was going to be very um large amount of gathering of yes ma'am we are still in the the um Discovery stage okay I have one other question on page um 41 um you have $10,000 for Discovery benefits and um I looked it up those are flexible savings accounts uh um it says it works like an expense account uh you can set aside part of your salary before taxes to pay for medical expenses and you can use it to pay for daycare medical and prescription costs that are not covered by insurance so if those are flexible accounts what are we paying Discovery for the 10,000 I believe um that represents a deposit that the board has
049to place kind of like in an ES account to fund the um employees participation debit cards and then though that money is collected through payroll deduct to I've set that through the year so that's not an expense to the board okay it's merely a deposit we did conclude last year with a surplus U this is just an initial deposit to fund everybody's escrow card at the beginning of the year okay so we'll be getting that back then that's not expens okay thank you anyone else from the [Applause] public blue Masters n Mela cour uh bit uh board action F uh advertise for and solicit bids for maintenance and repair work that's not a specific bid or any specific group of bids right that's just the ability for you to do that yes your experience on
050the board serves you well Mr Masters that's exactly what that is that is asking the board for authorization to solicit time and material rates from different trades um so that if an emerg sit situation arose we have permission from the board already to utilize certain contractors within those approved rates there's no cost with that correct no so far I didn't see on the something I didn't see a positive thing on the agenda was something about the high school came out about the rating in the state I if you want to thought that would be predominant on here that'll that'll actually be a part of the superintendent report um and uh the cell phone policy that's actually a really good question if I wanted to Oprah text messages from board members to to staff how would
051I go about doing that because once it becomes part of your phone right I can open it even if it's on a personal device I believe that you can Oprah the text messages of board members if they're using their phones during a board meeting even personal phones right yes okay that's it and and I believe administration too not just the board members but okay and I invite everybody to come out to the Oak Tree Garden on uh May 10th we could use to help otherwise I have to dig a lot of things and it's hot M Mr Masters uh believe congratulations to you on being appointed by the mayor to the zoning board and it's nice to have a former board member who allow be sitting on the board thank you very much just trying
052to help out I'm sure you will thanks anyone else from the public okay seeing no one we will close public forum and at this time we will have a board discussion of space for special services and professional development needs you want to take that might we need a roll call on the budget okay thanks checking anyway okay um Michael okay thank you doct um Mr T would you kindly join me at the microphone uh we'll do all the talking tonight as Dr Hamilton has a fever and it's well K kiss I'm going away tomorrow okay how I got two these I believe all the board members have a handout um it's a comparative chart on the different properties that we looked at I'll ask Mr P to start with this present presentation on page two
053good evening Jerry T from the board office a document titled office space lease options two page document we look at the second page which is in red just to give you some information on some properties that we were asked to look into either for purchase or lease you'll see the property address square footage information listed cost for either sale or lease and then just our notes about why the properties didn't work for our needs if you then go to the first page you'll see again names and addresses of properties sizes approximate cost and some miscellaneous notes we've essentially narrowed down lease options for special services and staff development to three sites and it's broken down to the Monroe Commons which is located at 239 Prospect Plains Road you see an A B and C which
054are different Suites that are available within that space the next is seven Center Drive which is over by the forestgate Country Club in the office complex across from there you'll see two Suites listed there and then finally the Cedarbrook Corporate Center located at Clark Drive and that is in Cranberry New Jersey but right on the outer edge of Monroe we toured these spaces with Dr Hamilton Mr Gorski Mr well and her staff uh to see if they would work for their setup and give consideration to some options I'll highlight a few things for you when you look at the Monro Commons offerings that building first off is for sale the asking price is $2 million and the board had talked about possibly purchasing a site or a site that would give us a lease with
055option to buy the Monroe Commons is the only of the three that gives you that option lease with option to buy or just simply lease the property moving down to Center Drive those are simply for lease as is Cedarbrook also simply for lease at Monro Commons we looked at three indiv ual spaces that are currently available one of 1322 ft one of 977 ft which are on the second floor and the right next to each other both would be available to us when we looked at those Miss Rell thought we could make her operation work in that location with the exception of the central registration which is also housed currently with M Rella if you look at item C which is down on the first floor the thought was we could use that location for
056Central registration and then mr's operations on the second floor something to keep in mind when you think about Central registration is as you know we've talked about the stop Gap measures for the Middle School to create space over there part of that work that's going to happen there is going to free up two rooms on the outside of the building it's a former Garage in the back of the buildings currently used as classrooms with the renovations that we're doing inside the building we're moving the technology staff out to that location and it leaves another office open there the long-term objective is to move Central registration to that location it's an ideal location obviously centrally located here it provides direct access into the space without having to enter a school but also keeps uh Miss McCoy
057who runs the central registration at a school site and accessible for us so the fact that we looked at three different Suites in Monroe Commons the thought was the board has the ability to lease for up to 5 years we could lease the two spaces that would house Mr for a 5-year period and consider a shorter term little longer than a year for the central registration with the potential that that could then move into the Stop Gap that then leaves uh consideration we must give for the staff development staff development is not an immediate need in terms of in June when the trailer goes Mr re is on the street staff development will be finished for the school year and won't resume their operations until start of next school year so you have a couple
058months there where if possible we'd like to be able to avoid some lease payments uh Dr Hamilton also alluded to the fact that we have some spare classrooms at locations and maybe temporarily those classrooms could kind of fill the gap for us uh to save some monies so that's the Monro Commons uh three offerings again two we would consider immediately for Mella and the one for shorter term for central registration uh the property is to give people bearings of where that is if you know where the waa is on Applegarth Road um crossover Prospect Plains Monroe Commons is the name of the building and it's on the right hand side couple hundred yards past the Chabad house that's on the corner of prospect Plains and uh Apple Road going south or going north from South
059South my bearings yes and can I ask how old is the building I can't I'm sorry Michelle I can't see you how old is the building um I don't have the date off hand I would I would guess it to be probably late 80s early 990s in that range does it require and maybe you can answer this for all of them afterwards sure like how much renovation would each when and you can go through it I'll stop but if you can keep in mind to talk about how much renovation each project each specific building would use and the that um triple net situation at Monroe Commons we don't really anticipate any uh renovations to the structure other than finishes just old dirty carpet uh carpet and paint would be the only thing that we would
060accommodate there um at 7 Center Drive again we don't anticipate Renovations other than um carbon and paint at cedor Corporate Center there are two options that we looked at it's a rather large space there and best case scenario the entire space of 7200 square fet would accommodate Mr Well's operation Dr Gorman's operation and even give some space for growth um we asked them to price that down to an option where we could shorten the space and that's why you see two there at 7200 and they had a cut off point where they could go to 5,000 ft you mentioned um what they refer to as the cam charges which are the common area maintenance charges the pass throughs those are all included in these prices that you see here we work those in rather than
061just confusing the issue thank um so that's Monro Commons again what's different about that is if the board wants to consider lease with option to buy that is the site that has that offering for you and then also it allows you should you want to continue with the plan to move Central registration um it allows you to then reduce some of the cost there at 7 Center Drive both locations site 910 and sweet 6 uh would be needed for Mr Ella's operations it would be a little tight keeping Central registration there but the thought that it would be there for a year we could get by there would be no space at that site currently for the staff development however um the placement of these two you can see numerically they're not in order it
062goes from 6 to 910 there is a suite currently in between these the leasing agent has talked that the company that occupies the Center Suite would consider moving down then we could make our two spaces contiguous that would be the ultimate desire uh but that's not factored into here Mr R thought she could continue her operation since they are so close um if they had to remain separated that again also centrally located uh but would require staff development to use an interim location and then finally the Third location Cedarbrook Corporate Center um beautiful facility lovely space it is in Cranberry though uh a little bit further out closer to 130 um so the travel issue comes into play there it is the most costly um but it does give you the most space questions Mr
063P how many people are in the trailer right now Traer right now use the microphone uh we are looking somewhere between 13 and 15 including staff uh secretarial myself and a supervisor Che does the fire department have an occupancy number on those places that you're that you're according to leing agents the leing agents indicated that we can accommodate uh the numbers that we talked about our our bigger concern was actually parking do you know how many the occup the fire limit occup for these no I do not have information handy Mr with regard to um uh professional development is that something that's used um you know five days a week you know six hours a day or is that something that's intermittently used I believe it's intermittent but I'll defer to Dr Gorman on that
064it could be depending on the different content areas the different needs so there are sometimes when it's booked every day and then there are other times when it's not is there any way of you utilizing um classrooms that aren't in use at the time in other words obviously throughout the day I'm sure every classroom isn't used consistently there's some uh downtime with certain classes especially at the high school where you might have a classroom empty from two to three or something or from 1 to two um is there any way to come up with uh a room utilization uh chart for example to say um we can do PD in these rooms that would be difficult to do there are some other options excuse me there are some other options that we can explore in
065terms of utilizing classroom space but the PD space really needs to be consistent so folks know if you're having PD this is where you go and this is when you go um I would not want to infringe on the the school scheduling frankly to AC make that kind of accommodation but in some of the other areas like M Lake for instance we we have some space there that we can use for PD until begin to utilize it in class space again we've actually brought the PD um more back inh housee is that that's Absol so that's and that's actually uh a benefit to the teachers and to the students correct absolutely Miss Armenia okay um I thought it one of the ad hoc meet committee meetings um that the mil Lake School has five empty
066classrooms at this time yes or approximately so can that can one of those be set up for a temporary permanent um classroom for staff development yes so I mean you can keep everything and it could be consistent like for the next year or so yes okay thank you anyone else from the board Mr boy uh I'm not quite sure how to phrase this because uh we just got this information uh you know tonight uh and we're not making any decision tonight anyway are we I believe we are oh we are okay um well one of the things that I that I've uh feel is that sometimes we don't we haven't looked far enough down the road uh when some decisions have been made uh and I give you as an example the fact that we
067moved the pupil and Personnel Services out of the mil Lake School annex to the trailers uh and now uh and that was just a couple of years ago we knew that the trailers were going to probably be going and so that then created the problem of where we were going to put the pupil and Personnel Services and we wouldn't have had that problem had they simply stayed in the mil Lake School annex uh so I think there's a couple of things that we have to look at in terms of down the road um if and when we expand one of our schools or build a new school uh to me that would be an appropriate time to consider providing space for uh pupil and Personnel Services the central registration even professional development uh so that's
068not really that far away uh and that could be part of that plan uh the other thing that concerns me and these are just calculations that I did this evening after getting this information but um if we're paying off if if the mecca program is repaying its loan at the rate of $5,000 a month uh then as of July the 1 it would strike me that we have about five more years of payments to go is that correct Mr okay like I said I just quickly ran through these things that that's correct with one exception if if profitability Rises then the board could utilize more of the cash Surplus and um expedite the payment of the loan but the only way that Prof profitability could rise would be to do what if some of the
069more profitable uh student services are used in kindergarten enrichment for example um as opposed to some of the less profitable Mecca rates um or or if the board should choose to raise the rates down the line either one of those could make the pro the program more profitable as could curtailing some of the expenses that you see on the financial statements okay uh well it as I said it struck me that it would take about five years at at the present uh uh repayment uh rate now I I looked at the Monroe Commons and um According to some calculations that I've done here it would strike me in that same amount of time that we're getting that loan repaid we would be paying for leasing Services uh approximately $261,000 and a loan of about $284,000
070is what's going to get repaid over that period of time so that's a difference of about $23,000 and all I'm saying is I I think we need to look at this carefully we need to look at this at these figures we we need to see how this plays out monetarily not just for next year but for a longer period of time uh to to see what the best course of action is I understand from the last meeting we had that uh pupil and Personnel Services needs a place to go as of June I completely understand that I also understand that uh that there that there are people on the board that want to maintain the mecca program yet we have no legal obligation to do that uh these are uh pre kindergarten students uh we
071are not required to provide them with any Services uh and I know that the intention o of the program was to encourage uh staff members who go out on maternity leave to return earlier and yet I seriously doubt that it has been very successful in accomplishing that aim uh and and so what we did is we then went into the Early Childhood uh Child Care Program uh to to try to get this thing to float and it is floating there's no question about that uh but how much revenue it's actually bringing in uh I I would say over a long period of time I'd say that's questionable and I know some people have have uh expressed the thought of expanding the program to more students well you cannot expand the program to more students without
072a different facility so so I I just say my sense is we cannot rush into this decision without knowing where it's taking us so that a year or two down the road we don't find we don't see ourselves faced with what we saw with the implementation of the iPads the first year out one year later we found out that they were no longer adequate and then we had the implementation of the mecca program which we found out was not succeeding very well it is now but I still question how much revenue are we really going to be getting from this uh and I guess to sum it up is it seems reasonable to me that we consider uh we consider ending this Mecca program and it's a good program there's no question in my mind
073that it's probably serving those children quite well and I think the parents who use it are probably just you know so glad to have it uh because I think it's it's probably from everything I've heard a good quality program but uh we're going out to rent space when when we actually have a space available if we did not have the mecca program a and and I I I really wonder if the mecca program had to be somewhere else if we were having to rent space for the Mecha program somewhere else is there any way in the world that that Mecha program would be profitable I don't think so so we're going out to rent space for pupil and Personnel Services in order to maintain the Mecha program which is using facilities that pupil and Personnel
074Services could use that's that's simply my view on this whole thing and that's really kind of two different questions the first would be do you want to keep the mecca program or not and the second which is what we're here supposed to be talking about is where are we going to put special services as of June but I don't think you can answer those questions separately I think that gets us into trouble when we don't take a larger view of the situation that we're facing as long as you compartmentalize everything and make the decision just based on that one thing well yeah it may be good for that one thing but it may not be good overall and I I'm simply saying I think we need to exercise some caution because of that anyone else
075from the board Mr knin [Music] Mr Po brings up some excellent points and um it kind of goes along with some of the questions that I asked at the last meeting where we basically said that if we were not doing a Mecca program um we would not be incurring this cost for pupil services and professional development and I I I imagine that's still an accurate assessment um I understand that from an accounting standpoint that these numbers are being taken from the pupil Serv services and the professional development line items for their budget but at the end of the day if we said let's put pupil services and let's put professional development back in where the Mecca and the uh uh KP are currently located and went out and actually looked for space for the Basque
076I'm not for Bas for KP and uh and uh Mecca in these facilities then the line items for their budget these costs would be coming off the me the mecca program and it would actually show more of a true profit and loss statement than we're currently seeing is that accurate uh Mr Gorski yes that's an accurate statement um if at the time that the original budget for Mecca was constructed a lease expense had to be considered in that initial budget perhaps the rates then at that time would have been adjusted accordingly but under the scenario that you just raised whereas if pupil Personnel Services was to move back into the annex and if the mecca program was to have to lease similar space to house the current program then yes there would be a considerable
077expense as opposed to the annex appreciation which is much less to the mecca program therefore basically it would show uh realistically the true profit nature or lack of profit Prof that we're currently seeing in that program okay thank you Miss armeno I also think that it it is a big picture item that we need to discuss so I do don't I think they're not mutually exclusive um and again I'm just throwing this out because it just occurred to me can we put Mecca in the classrooms in mil Lake no why not I mean it's not a challenge it's a question because because the mil Lake facility does not have the appropriate does not meet the appropriate guidelines in terms of housing students of that age I see so okay we can't use a a current
078facility we would have to go out and look for another facility so if I sort of understand the the nature of this discussion that Mecca really it can't be a standalone project or program it requires its own you know it it essentially requires a little little help I.E the loan and you know it couldn't it it couldn't function as it does if it had to pay rent sounds like to me because it's not paying rent now correct correct okay Mr proso how many square feet is the anex I believe it's about 6,000 sare ft 6,000 do you want to make a recommendation Madam board president it was our directive um after the last board meeting whereas resolution was passed removing the trailers um Mr T has made arrangements with the trailer company to come pick
079them up in the month of June and um Dr Hamilton Mrs ruella Jerry T and I have visited several different different properties and the mecca conversation excluded we have considered a following elements Ada compliancy lease with an option to purchase which is a very uh attractive way of financing the property because you could build equity and I believe that I believe that all of these properties on the first page have um um gain in price uh appreciation potential also considering the rental cost the location um that it is the unanimous decision of of all the stakeholders involved in the use of this facility to recommend the Monroe Commons um that's the one facility that's closely located in town has a monthly rent um expenditure of approximately 7,000 but I can assure the board that when
080it comes time to do the lease and we talk about this in closed session because we can't do it in open we would put ourselves in in a compromising situation that we will be as aggressive as possible gives us 4,000 square feet which seems to be the right size and it's a very attractive clean movein ready facility so it would be our recommendation on behalf of Dr Hamilton marot ruela Jerry T and myself exclusive of the mecca topic to recommend the Monroe comments tonight and I believe you have a resolution um authorizing um me to go ahead and enter into negotiations for that property and present the lease obligations to the board at the next meeting okay I'll read the resolution and then if the board would like to make a um SEC first and
081second then we'll discuss this resolution it is recommended that the Board of Education authorize and approve the business administrator board secretary to negotiate a lease subject to the final approval of the lease by the board of education for a term not to exceed 5 years for the property known as Monroe Commons located at 239 Prospect Plains Road Monroe Township New Jersey the lease shall provide for a term commencing on June 1st 2014 or thereafter for the purpose among other uses of providing space for pupil Personnel Services of approximately 3,750 feet Mr Kaufman is there a second second second by Mr zareski I'll open it up to the board for comments and questions just on this resolution Mr proso again we' being impr pressured into doing something that's not good for this board it's not good
082for the taxpayers it's not good for what's happening here we're in a rush we have this piece of paper here that we have we have an hour and a half to decide what what we want to do well I believe that the board unanimously I think it was unanimously voted to get rid of the trailers at the last board meeting knowing that we need that was another time we had very little time to decide what to do this was something that when we implemented Mecca it should have been discussed it should have been done we should have had a plan we don't have a plan we never have a plan now we're going to pay for this plan anyone else Mr just just one other consideration on this lease with an option to buy um
083you know we as as Mr Po stated we are up against the wall to provide special services with a permanent solution to hous their facilities we need to get them in a place by June 1st um this is a lease that could be entered into for a short period of time one year two 2 years 3 years up to 5 years um this isn't you know a marriage if you don't like this particular situation and and something in the future should happen with Mecca this is a lease that you know you determine the the duration you save money on the lease price when you go out to five years is it um we will be getting Rel the trailers and how much are we spending on trailer leasing at this time currently we're spending about1
08419 $1,000 in change on the lease for the trailers that house special services at appleg Guard School one of the one of the options that was just recommended was the Monroe Commons at a monthly obligation of less than $7,000 so we would be saving budget money of approximately $112,000 a month yes by getting rid of the trailers which we agreed to and putting 7,000 in the budget yes ma'am and right now before we got rid of the lease last month we have 12,000 uh 19,000 a month in that budget that's correct okay anyone else Mr noin unfortunately I really feel like there's a knife to my throat here um there really isn't many good options here and I really want to really stress that this is what happens when you don't do a business plan
085um this should have been addressed in in a normal business uh meeting when you're you know starting a new business which is basically what we did with Mecca these down the road costs would have been presented in that business plan a while back when I was a member of the public I requested that we do a business plan I've never seen this business plan we all the the current the the former board said that they were going to do a business plan and obviously whether they did or not I don't know we we've never seen it the Public's never seen it um but these are the kind of the things that are addressed in a business plan my concern here is that we're constantly hearing that Mecca is is is a profit center now it's
086an Enterprise fund well I don't see it as a profit Center as far as I'm concern and I I think that um we can do line items and and take things off other people's budget and all we want but at the end of the day if this uh if we moved Mecca into the facilities that we need Mecca would not be profitable so I think that we really need to look at the shortest term possible for the lease because down the road um we may say we can't afford to be losing money every month for a pro for a program and we're currently maxed out on the mecca as far as the enrollment based on the size constraints is that accurate No we could add more children to Mecca I don't think it's advisable but
087we we could add more children but it's not advisable that's not advisable okay so for all intents and purposes we're maxed out on that we really don't see uh much larger increases uh coming into that program without uh major increases in funding I need to qualify that with the exception of the infant room okay um so I mean I would like to hear from the the board members that actually um put forth this Mecca program what are their thoughts and what are their feelings as the best way to proceed Mr Kaufman I think Tom brings up a really good point and I think one of the things we should consider here is the fact that there's a couple of things going on that's kind of Paving the way for the future of the district right
088we've got the ad hoc committee on facilities and expansion that's going to be reconvening and looking at the big picture and the total you know end product of things that we have to do in the future as well as some of these issues that are uh up in front of us right now if I'm not mistaken just to talk about how we got to here with the uh decision we have to make tonight I thought we had a big I'm sorry it wasn't there but there was a buildings and grounds meeting that decided to do away with the trailers and then we had a board meeting after that that said okay we're going to go ahead and and do away with the trailer so now we have to find space I would agree with Tom
089I think the the the reality is here we have an immediate need right um I'm also you know interested in hearing more about reusing and allocating the space we already have I love this Library I do but somebody has to tell me why we need all this square footage when students here have iPads they literally have libraries in their hands so we have to ma maximize I mean you for for professional development you can carve out a corner in here call it the PD Center and have all this staff members meet here I mean this is this is a huge room you can almost carve it out for a couple of other things I don't know how much this is being used during the day I'm not going to use my references when my kids
090were here but I know we have it but you know how much are we effectively using the space I would be in favor of using the um the rental space in Monro Commons but I don't think I would want to go beyond three years um because we do have some of these other things these other initiatives that are coming up and we may be you know maybe spending a few more shekels than we have to but I think two or three years three years tops would be a better way to look at this because once you're locked in for five years then you got to break a lease and you got to pay all that other stuff so um that's just one anyone else just a quick question are these prices based on what term
091of the lease these five lease this is based on so we could expect these costs to be higher basically if we go with a two or three is what you're saying that's correct so we really can't really vote uh on how to go because we don't really know the costs um I I respectfully disagree you can you can pass this resolution tonight by modifying it to a term that this board is satisfied with if it's not five years and this authorizes me to go into negotiations on the lease I don't think the price is going to change that significantly from 3 to five you do get a discount the longer you go out because the turnover is expensive to the landlord Etc um and we're not we're not we're not quoting or any prices for
092uh the lease in this resolution this resolution is simply authorizing um the selection of the Monroe Commons for a term and authorizing me to negotiate a lease that will be brought forth to the board for future consideration so you could bring us back a numbers for a oneyear lease a threeyear lease a 5year lease Ma and then we would decide at We could decide at that time yes ma'am I just caution you um because of special services having moved so many times recently that a short-term lease I'm sure has Miss Marietta ru's stomach turning how much it's done inhouse it involves overtime it involves perhaps Rental Vehicles I'm not really sure we'd have to go back and research that but there is a cost to each move that's for sure what the move cost the
093last time from the annex to the trailers I'd have to research that that was over 100,000 wasn't it no I don't think it was that much if I could comment on that there was a district-wide move at that time uh we redistrict all the schools if you recall so we moved high school to here Middle School became a 678 Middle School we pulled out of all the the schools so it was in that entire package of a districtwide move yeah but if they didn't have to move it wouldn't be a course that is correct Mr Po well I I remember the last time we discussed this at the last board meeting there was a talk about all the disruption to the people and P Personnel Services Program because of these moves and uh when we're
094talking about a lease of one or two years then we're simply going to be perpetuating that problem uh and I've heard mentioned tonight that we're looking for a permanent solution well it doesn't seem that a one or two threeyear lease is a permanent solution to the problem [Music] uh so I I will make a separate motion after we deal with this one Mr Coffman Qui question Jerry we had Central registration in central office for a time and that there's there's space on the as soon as you walk in on the left side there's desks and stuff like that off in that on that leftand side what would we what would have to change if we wanted to try and move Central registration back there and find space for the folks that are there now I
095mean I'm the only reason why I'm asking it is because for Central registration you know it's for people that are coming to the district and they want to sign up it kind of makes sense that it's in the board office that you don't have to send them somewhere else keep in mind the plan for next summer to have the space for Central registration at behind the middle school it is an IDE ideal location for them in terms of access the availability to the space one of the reasons it was moved out of central office because it proved so disruptive to the central office operations parents show up with young children young children were getting loose in the building it it became a very disruptive situation anyone else Mr Chella yeah I just have a couple
096questions one one is and I just echoing the concerns that I'm hearing also was just on the cost not knowing what the exact cost is and I know we're voting to go forward with something Without Really knowing the cost which is is a concern for me but the second thing is and I've talked about this in buildings and grounds also is just a security aspect of this because we have we're going to have children and uh administrators you know teachers offsite without having the ability to monitor supervise and offer security like we do in the central office or at any of the schools that in today's day and age with all the craziness that we're hearing that's that is one thing that just sticks in my head is that I hate to see something happen
097uh in in that location where we weren't you know we we weren't aware that it's going on or we find out later that something awful happened so that I just want to you know make sure we're thinking about that also Mr proso why are the children going to be there uh if there are children there through Central registration um we do have lots of parents for parent training and staff for parent training beyond what professional development does so we usually don't have lots of children in there but as I mentioned at our last meeting if someone within the district let's say had a District student for whatever reason or a in District student is someone's not at home many times they brought to us at Central registration there we maintain them until their parents can
098come what that has to be done well that's where we usually have because if someone's not in the school or an added District student um at that point in time we house all that information as we were saying we're beginning that process process for our extended school year so right now we are starting up for a program for you know we talked about extended school year within a school all our out of District students will be going to school during this time so we're preparing for a program Transportation obviously records that we will have Central registration is very busy during this time because we have many families who are moving in we maintain dius issues we also do truancy issues we have many reasons that maybe there may be children that come into the building
099but not specific to each day that we have them anyone else seeing no one no no we're seeing no one I'm sorry I really can see I see the top of her head so she's going to have to raise her hand the Professional Services requires how many square feet again develop professional development excuse me I'm sorry my mistake two two classrooms and then office space for three individuals and possibly a refrigerator or water cooler and that's so so that could be accommodated in mil Lake School possibly the potential for that can be an accommodation I think that's I think that corre okay so does that how much would that reduce Miss rell's needs if that happened m yes if the the first scenario for the Monroe Commons with 4,000 square ft really did not afford
100much space if any to professional development that was simply for um PPS and some storage space okay and then next year in the back of the facility that you were talking about will house what what would that be good for again Central registration so then we'll move so okay so I'm now really confused because if we mooves so Central registration if it goes with M Rella now will be moved again next year correct so how much does central that's one person for for full dis yes ma'am okay so only one person handles the central so you don't really need a whole lot of space for Central res permanent space for Central registration correct just an accommodation now because we don't have it anywhere else that is correct in Miss rell's right and any families who
101are coming in or throughout that day and there are app pointment set up throughout the day no I understand your need your your current but we're talking about temporary and and permanent need right and next year that's going to be moved again correct because that was already planned for that that was part of what this plan was so what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to find the ma the minimum amount of space we need for a permanent solution for your situation mam is someone I believe we've recommended that with the Monroe comment at at at 4,000 square feet that's a comfortable space for pup Personnel Services for the volumes of of student records that are required by law to be maintained and to afford you know some moderate amount of room for um
102current central Reg rtion and potentially growth but that means all three yes all three for the first year when Central registration moves item C could be eliminated if the C could be eliminated correct and the reason we say C is because C is on the first floor A and B are on the second floor and they can be combined as one larger office week can I I another question Mr tiella so if if I'm understanding this right and correct me if I'm wrong we're voting then on all a b and one a b and c as a unit correct not just one of these options correct the square footage was noted in the resolution 3,750 Square ft that's one A B and C that's administration's recommendation for spatial needs right now and and we're looking
103at today we're not looking at tomorrow so this resolution is to um not for the board to look for a permanent place next year but to lease space starting in June so if there's no further discussion or questions then we'll have a roll call okay the resolution was as follows it is recommended that the Board of Education authorize and approve business administrative board secretary to negotiate a lease subject to the final approval of the lease by the board of education for a term not to see not to exceed 5 years with an option to purchase the property of which the lease premises are a part at the end of the term of the lease for the property known as Monroe Commons located at 239 Prospect Plains Road Monro Township New Jersey the lease shall provide
104for term commencing on June 1st 2014 or thereafter for the purpose among other uses providing space for pupil Personnel Services of approximately 3,750 Square ft okay have a roll call Miss armeno no Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella no Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr noin no Mr proso no Mr Po no Mrs kapano yes madame board president motion does not pass we have no further recommendation to house pupil Personnel Services for June 1st Mr Po yes madame president I'd like to make a motion that we terminate the mecca ECE program as of the end of this year uh and use that space for pupil Personnel Services uh so that they will have a permanent solution to their problem so moved I second well Mr Po made that motion would You' like to Second it
105second by Mr nin okay conversation uh comments questions or we just get to the vote well I know it was my motion but I do have a question okay uh the the mecca program has the use of that building at least through June correct we had that obligation yes we've received deposits from students and there is an obligation to parents in my opinion to conclude those Services through the end of the school year okay and is that program operating in the summer no no okay uh then uh I don't think we should be throwing those children out on the street uh and putting their parents uh in Dire Straits with with such short notice so my question would be uh if if that if this motion that I have made were to pass uh how
106would we accommodate the need for uh pupil and Personnel Services Mr Rella when would be the uh the end date that the program would conclude the last day of school which is I believe the 25th 25th is graduation 25th and the trailers will be breaking apart on the 25th so we need to be out prior to that time at this point in time at least 55 filing cabinets will travel with us as the active files we have over 1,000 students probably 1,200 special education students and those files are the active files the inactive files which we also have stored with us right now possibly could be stored somewhere else so that that beyond the 15 people beyond all of the Departments that are housed with us we do have lots and lots of files that
107we have with us and and I would like to say you know with the mecca program um I don't know how many of the board were there to observe to see the students to see how well we have done for those students the kindergarten students are our children from Monroe the mecca children may be of Staff members but there are children also and I would ask that you before you make that decision to close a program that you may not have visit you may not see how it's grown what potential it has to grow that you go to observe because you are all talking about a program that to you is a business plan to us as Educators is so much more is so much more so beyond the fact that I will be out
108somewhere I I think it's very unfair for my staff to not only have to be placed somewhere but now at this point in time to move for a month to move again I I think it really is the time to make a decision to look at the present you have been talking a lot about the past tonight with Mecca but I know Dr Hamilton and I and uh Mr Gorski Kathy we've seen a lot of growth within that program so I would say please go and observe before you make that decision and then as we go forward to move my department understand that it is not only special services it entails quite a bit and those staff members have moved four times in six years so they deserve that too and all of our children
109that that we house so I would ask that you just take that time I just want to say in regard to Mecca we spent many years I know going back to probably 2007 to discuss a plan for our staff whom we were getting tons and tons of new staff and they got married they got pregnant and now we have a place to keep them um we did have a plan we knew from the very beginning that the first year was going to be difficult that we we not going to be making a profit I have been there to visit I think Sharon has done a phenomenal job I don't think you could find a better person to take care of that job what we're doing for our students and our staff to not do that
110anymore would be in my view very sad and a very tough dis disservice to all of our our our our parents who have wanted full day kindergarten which can't do it's their way of getting full day kindergarten and paying for it and um I I I would think that's that's say Mr noin I just want you to know that I think Mecca is a fantastic program and I think the rapper the krap is a fantastic program when I seconded this motion it is not calling into question that capability whatsoever it would be much easier if the program was not a success with the children quite frankly but it is a major success and I think that anybody here knows I've been an advocate of it I want this to succeed however what will we do
111to make it succeed do we want to keep costing The taxpayers Who basically voted down full day kindergarten because they didn't want to fund it now we're hearing that it's really a full day kindergarten that the parents are paying for but unfortunately because it is so costly it's not just those parents paying for it it's the township paying for it and the township gave us a clear mandate that they don't want to pay for it if we can come up with a solution tonight where Mecca will be profitable I will be the first one to say let's do it because I think it is a good plan but until we can make a profit and we are definitely not profitable it is going to be costing us this amount of money every month to fund
112Mecca and my uh understanding is that we voted down full day kindergarten so to to do this is like bypassing the people that voted and said they don't want it so unfortunately don't misc constru through this as a a a statement on the program I I am I I'd be very sad tonight if we had this had to go away but we're looking for Solutions and that is a solution so I'm I hope that we can come up with another solution but we are under the gun here as you know and to make a decision tonight based on spending another $240,000 a year basically on Mecca that's a very tough decision to make and I think we're looking for Solutions and the one uh motion that's on the floor tonight is a solution so please
113give us ideas Miss armeno yes I too would like to say um I think we would be remiss not to consider this motion seriously um but it is with it's very discouraging that we have to make these kinds of decisions and you mentioned we've been we've been thinking about the past and we should be worried about the present but the problem is the past has been influencing the present and we're again and I mentioned it last time we're doing we're making decisions in crises um it it strikes me that I and I feel bad that we keep moving departments around but it strikes me that You' you have been moved four times in six years I believe previous to this year and yet you understood that when you supported Mecca it was a good thing
114so I I I I recognize your sacrifice advice and I appreciate it and again for the children and the parents and the teachers who were I'm sure doing exemplary job but the problem is we keep saying okay well we've made that decision let's move on to making this decision now and then in the F we we keep constraining the future by the decisions we're making in the present because we don't want to learn from the past so it it is with and it sounds trit but I don't mean it to be with a very heavy heart that uh that we need to make some decisions so maybe going forward we might learn from this and really put things together with a with the full knowledge of the unintended consequences and the unintended costs we have
115aund I think $13 million budget and next year we won't have the same kind of funds to curtail uh the taxes so I think we we have to start making the very very hard decisions I've been in this District 32 years I have mostly supported the school budgets because I believe in education but we are going into a phase in our community and our country that we have to start being cognizant and start making difficult decisions so I thank you for everything you've done and all the teachers but I think we we need to start having these kinds of discussions and and if I can add one more thing um in talking about the annex I mean there's no guarantee that we would then stay there because part of our move is always that the
116district is a growing district and it always will be and and we try to work with that and we try to work through a plan as best as we can but at many times through Central registration I can see how quickly we have so many families that are moving in and we have to accommodate that too so there's never a guarantee and I realized that as the Director of people Personnel Services that if I was to go back to the annex does not mean in two years that not would not be needed for something else you know when we look at any area when we're looking at leasing we can take a look ahead and say yes you know you can be there for two or three years or if we want to continue that
117lease because it's not a need for another program or for our children and and that's why I asked that you just you know be careful and be mindful about Mecca if I may Madam board president I'd like to make a couple of comments yes um firstly to discontinue Mecca is essentially putting the balance of the loan calling that a wash um and I think if if the uh view is about a f being F fiscally responsible I think there is some uh obligation to consider the balance of the loan so that's that's one piece secondly a couple of things that were said tonight I think we need to correct Mecca was not just thought of overnight it was not a rash decision and the decision was not made because we were in a crisis it
118was created as a service to our staff to continue to make Monroe a desirable place to work and it continues to attract people and that's one of the benefits of that we can offer new employees who come into the district so it is not a program that's just created for the sake of being created um additionally I do need to go on record by saying the iPads were not replaced because they were inadequate the iPads and that's been been said a couple of times excuse me um and I don't want to rehash that but I think sometimes we say things publicly and administration we don't counter them we allow this to to the board members to to just use this as an opportunity to articulate and express their thoughts and Views and sometimes that misinformation
119gains root uh takes root and it becomes a truth when it is not necessarily a truth and there's background information that may not you may not always be fully engaged in or privy to in order to inform those choices and decisions um but as you vote on this this item that's one and quite frankly I'm kind of glad that it's out there because it has been the source of contention for um the last several months so if the board is not going to support Mecca it is quite fine if if the board decides that they want to to you want to dismantle Mecca um take this roll call and and let the action speak for itself but understand that it is not just about uh mecca for the sake of of it being a program
120it is a service to our staff members and finally you have to also keep in mind that as we anticipate the F future growth of our district and continuing to attract staff because we are not at the top of the guide in terms of what we offer staff members Mecca becomes an attractive caveat for young teachers who are looking to come into the district because there is a cost savings to them in terms of child care and just a piggy back on on Dr Hamilton's um what he just said that we were asked by the public public many years ago to come up with alternative sources of income because we we're not getting our fair share of funding from the state we needed to look at other ways of making money and Mecca was one
121of those things that we knew um could could be profitable that would be profitable and would be a service to our our district and felt and the boards at that time which was more than one board um agreed that this was a a good place to go Mr Kaufman yeah one last thing on on the Genesis of Mecca and the other programs as was mentioned earlier we did do a lot of research and figuring out you know is this something that we would want to take on is this something that we want to try and do and Mike had a um went the Great Lengths in researching what other districts have done and I think don't quote me it might have been East brunwick that I believe you brought up when they started their program
122they did not clear costs for 3 years which meant they were in operating no matter how you slice that they were operating in the red um we did that turned it around within uh less than a year about 10 months or so uh turning it into uh clearing the cost of returning back money to be P paid back the loan or the you know the money that was lent to the program to start it in the beginning if we decide here that we want to terminate that again we're saying that that all that effort all that work and the money that was going back to replenish the loan is going to be lost um as you mentioned earlier so and the thing is as you mentioned before Marietta nothing in this District when you say
123permanent and space can never be used in the same sentence ever when we built this high school we knew we had X number square footage that we had to go for and we were approved for this uh the educational specs of the high school and we knew at some future State when we talked about ad hoc and what we have to do in the future we might need to add on to this building so you really we really can't say that this would be the end place for pupil Personnel Services or the annex is going to be home for such and such you know you may be uprooted because the mil Lake Area expands and we now we have to look at that for classroom space as well so it would be sad to to
124to take a shot and and uh at Mecca uh just to be able to resolve something uh which we may be able to do um uh in a shorter term the only reason why I would want to try and think about another alternative here is while the motion that was said before talked about the five-year period I would like to talk about you know after we vote on this to bring that back with a shorter period so we know okay this is what you have to work with we have ad hoc to deal with this and many other problems with regard to space within the district if we can free up more space both within a school or within a facility that would allow us to absorb the services that we already have if we
125have three empty classrooms at mil Lake if we redistrict we might have more breakage we don't know what that's going to wind up being but um you know the the jury's still out on some of these other big decisions in the district that really do affect everybody so that's my point and that was one of the reasons we had an ad hoc committee because there were so many questions about space and Facilities we needed the support of the community so we asked them they're still working on that decision um where we had the last meeting they asked for a redistricting plan I Mr Dr Hamilton I don't think we got that yet no we have not so we're waiting for that to come in and hopefully when they see the redistrict clean plan they'll come
126back to the board with a recommendation on facility needs Mr Po uh yes I have a question for Mr Gorski and I realize he may not be prepared to answer it but I think it would be helpful um let us assume that we we went with the five-year lease okay with the at the Monroe Commons um in terms of doing that how does that balance with the financial bottom line with Mecca in that 5-year period of time will you see if if Mecca were making enough money enough profit to pay for this lease I would have no issue okay I would have no issue whatsoever I'd say good let's keep Mecca and and we'll use those funds to to to uh lease a space for you know that we need uh that would make perfect
127sense to me but so I to me I I I would need to to sort of see well what's the bottom line on a fiveyear lease and continuing to run mecca for those five years I'd like to see how that looks uh I to me that would be informative in terms of how how I would even vote on my own motion Mr Po uh as we as we outlined earlier the Monroe Commons with all three options a b and c for 4,000 square foot is under 7,000 a month it's not to exceed seven so to use a round number for purposes of this exercise $7,000 a month that's $84,000 annually but that's only for that first year is it not the the least amount we're dropping one of those at the end of the first
128year and then that's correct if Central registration was to leave and as Mr Po as Mr T recommended then option C would go away then you're looking at 47436 about about $4,000 a month okay okay I could say this definitively if you looked at the June 31st financial statement for Mecca there was a profit of about $39,000 you prate that for a full year that's a profit of approximately $80,000 to me that's equivalent to the least payment on the Monroe Commons on an annual basis for all three properties if C falls off then the lease amount for the commons would be less than the current level of profit being um recognized by Mecca but but we mustn't forget that that $80,000 from Mecca is really being used to repay the loan is it not I
129disagree with that statement um okay that's what I'm trying to get clarification of now the the annually you bring in about $80,000 cash profit from Mecca that's about equivalent to the full a b and c lease cost for the commons and if C falls off that would mean then that the lease payment per anom for Commons is less than the profit for Mecca is but I I understand that but but but but where's the business where is Mecca repaying the loan to the board Mecca repays the board $5,000 a month which was the resolution passed previously and this $80,000 doeses not include that 5,000 a month which comes out to there are two separate there're two uh separate in independent statements the profit from Mecca recycles to cash currently there's a balance of about 53,000
130in mea for cash that cash then goes to pay the general fund loan $5,000 a month month so my point is again that the mecca profit is $80,000 a month and the lease payment is about the same for all three spaces a year per year the annual profit for Mecca at the current level is the same as renting a b and c for the commons there's no material difference and if one of those spaces falls off again the common rent would be less than the Prof it annually for Mecca and and I think too that the last Finance meeting or maybe the one before that um the committee had agreed not to raise the rates for Mecca um and so therefore it never came to the full board because the committee did not have a
131recommendation to the board we at any time could could decide to raise those rates if we needed to Madam board president one other consideration relative to this if Mecca was closed and the board so wish to close Mecca as of the end of the year currently the loan is about 305,000 so you know your round numbers you're about 300 um you got about 50 something in cash then you would have recognized a $250,000 loss on meca assuming you don't have any other utility for the equipment and everything else that's in the building okay but that would be offset by the fact that we're not having to lease space for M M's program we'd be saving M I don't I don't see that as an offset one is a definite business loss that money is gone
132$250,000 written off uh the other is a lease where it's equivalent to the continuing profit Mr Kaufman yeah uh and maybe this might help you uh one of the things that we talked about in finance when it came to whether or not we should raise the rates um for tuition this year we decided to put it off for a year and the reason why we decided to put it off for a year was because we do have something that's going to be coming up at the end of next year and that's going to be hopefully we'll be in a position to assume the before and after school program as well as the Mecca and the ECE or a I can't remember EC ECE program so when you talk about dollars and cents right forgetting about
133the fact that Mecca is returning $5,000 a month to repay the loan at that period in time as well you we should be realizing I'll just say conservatively several 100,000 because we talked about ridiculous numbers right we're all nodding at several $1,000 of profit to also offset not just the loan but for these other over and above costs for for these other things and you could pay off the mecca Loan in one year in less than a year with all the stuff that you would pay next year and then you start the before and after school program you pay that off right away Mr presos I'm confused though if we're making all this money and the program is growing we're going to need need more space and then we would spend more money again we
134spoke about space space we control it's not a mandated program the before and after school program and Mecca we control the space it it's not something that we have to worry about growth it we have it right now they're using our facilities right now the difference would be we would be the the ownership instead of the people who are owning it now they use our cafeterias and our gymnasiums we have that would be our space for us it's it's the same space we would need no more space we would need no less space but but is it not true that that this money from taking over the bass program that money if it weren't used to take care of the lease that that money could be used to uh offset increases in the budget you
135have to talk about the uh funds but do we the answer is yes the proprietary profit from the potential of taking over the bass program could be transferred to the general fund budget and and this is what I was getting at earlier when I said we need to look at the whole picture before we make a decision you can't look at it peace meal and and say yes this no that yes this one no that other one the whole thing has to be looked at so you really see where is it taking you in terms of operating the district and in terms of what is best for the program and the district and as a board we act on the recommendation of the administration and we don't do the research the administration does the research
136so we ask them to do what we the board asks them to do and then we they come back they give us our their recommendation and we approve it or we don't approve it so we we don't go out and research or say we'd like to be here there that that's what we would ask the administration to do is there any other comments or questions on on Mecca so we'll have a roll call on what's the resolu Mr Po's resolution to terminate Mecca at the conclusion of Mecca's school year and to use the space for PPS Mr proso is this written in stone that we have to take the trailers away we pass resol understand as I mentioned at the last meeting that would probably be among the worst business decisions to continue leasing the
137trailer we needed to house them for another couple of months we couldn't hold off that destruction of the trailers for another couple of months take until September the board has a contract that expires so and the lease the leasing company mobile lease modular has already committed them to another school district they've actually requested a they could come in earlier and take them they're recycling them this Summer can it be negotiated again I mean everything's negotiable we did negotiate we presented that to the board and the board said no to those options now in a different scenario so yeah but I think they have a commitment to the other District okay roll call again this is for the termination of Mecca and use the space for PPS at the conclusion of this school year Miss armenio
138yes Mr Braverman no Mr cherella no Mr zareski no Mr calman no Mr nosin no Mr proso yes Mr poy yes Mrs colano no madame board president motion to terminate Mecca uses space for PPS does not pass so we keep Mecca open yes and I remind you that we have no option on the floor for pupil Personnel Services as of I just want to say in regard to Mecca 2 this comes up every month and and our employees are always concerned about should they put their child in Mecca should they not take their should they take it out put them in another place and that's one of the reasons why Mecca has a limited number of children because our employees never know if we're going to pull them out and at this time in April
139and March in April is the time when most parents of child care services or people who need Child Care have to have to have a place to go by September so I I'm I'm glad that we are not really disturbing the um the quality of of child care for employees that was important but now we really don't have a place for pupil Personnel Services Mr nonin um the reason I voted uh to keep Mecca is because I think that we needed to have the discussion that we had on um again we need to look at things in a bigger picture um the the fact that we're always looking at I mean we got this tonight we didn't even have a chance barely to read it or calculate the costs per square foot uh of the
140of of the lease um so we just can't keep putting out fires we need something um so the discussion we had tonight was great I I like the number that Mr Gorski put forward um when he when he basically saying that it's almost a wash now between paying for the pupil services and the the PD versus the the profits or loss of Mecca but I really want to make it a point that I wish that this board would stop saying that Mecca is profitable because that my biggest concern right now is that we're misleading the public um if we actually factor in the costs I know we've had this discussion a gazillion times about General accounting principles and practices about where to put the line item for pupil services but at the end of the
141day I've said it 25 times already and I'll say it one more time and I promised it be the last time that at the end of the day if we had to put the trailers I mean put pupil Services the the cost for this lease on Mecca it would either be a break even or a slightly at a loss so that's that I think is imperative that we know but I would I would propose that if we could basically keep this even though we may it may need mean moving again uh sooner I I think that we just made we would want to only go I would be willing to support this resolution if we said only three years because um we are under the gun I totally get that June 30th will be here
142very soon and they need a place to go it's not fair to the to the employees it's not fair to the teachers for professional development um and we need to to to provide and that's our job so I just I would be very happy to support this if we could promise that we won't go more than 3 years on on the term U Madam for clarification purposes the resolution did say for a term not to exceed five years and we will present the options to the board in close session so if it choose if it pleases the board I believe this resolution is sound the way it's presented and we can still present under this resolution format least options of five years or less um we're in a situation now where where and I think
143the administration at this point needs to defer to the board we have no place to put PPS as we as it stands now so are there suggestions from the board or where we can put them bring back Mr I'd like a moot I'd like to make a motion that we go with the one that you already had not to not more than three years it was five years I think it's um I know the way it's written I know the way it's written no no I think somebody who was on the negative side has to um reintroduce the motion I don't believe so that's a different resolution now he he's changed the terms to three not to exceed three okay I'll second that Mr cowman's resolution if I may repeat it is it is recommended
144that the Board of Education authorized and approved business administrator board secretary to negotiate a lease subject to the final approval of the lease by the board of education for a term not to exceed three years with the option to purchase the property of which the lease premises are a part at the end of the term of the lease for the property known as the Monroe Commons located 239 Prospect Plains Road mon Township New Jersey the lease shall provide for a term commencing on June 1st 2014 or thereafter for the purposes among other uses providing space for a PPS of approximately 3,750 Square ft so moved back a second by Mr norstein do we need to have a discussion on this or can we just vote dare you okay no I'm just I'm just you know
145we've had a discussion for about an hour and a half I think we've covered everything so if if anybody if there is no comments or questions we will have a roll call um it was made by Mr calman and second by Mr knin Tom not thank you Miss armeno yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr notin yes Mr proso no Mr Po yes Mrs kapano yes madame board president motion not to exceed three years passes thank you and I hope you going to and I I thank you for find us a home thank you and then you can invite us to visit okay um we're still on committee reports yes we're still on committee reports are there any committees that need to report this evening Mr Kaufman uh
146sure I'll try and be brief uh we had a uh meeting this evening uh we spoke about the summer reading program uh the uh choices for all grades will be posted to the website so any parents interested in uh getting ahead start on what the summer reading program and the uh content will be um the material should be up there shortly we spoke about the 20145 course of studies uh which was approved by the committee to move forward uh we talk about um an an Athletics cost breakdown which was uh requested a while back and just to give you some highlights we uh got some information on all of the athletic programs both at the high school and the middle school as well we don't really have anything at the elementary schools uh but just
147to give you some statistics uh roughly it comes out to about $899,500 80% of those students um are one sport students about 20% or so are multi-port students so it's not a one for one that 1212 uh number so those are pretty good numbers that we're going to be using for other analysis as we move forward um in time and looking at budgets and that type of stuff and we also had a very good The Proposal uh by Ms dorenzo and the other to be clear the other Mrs calman um on a summer arts proposal for Performing Arts and this would be a um a a program that would be self- sustaining where it would be a for a fee basis uh two different sessions both session one and session two uh with two different
148prices for uh 300 and 500 respectively uh there's been some preliminary work done on the program they have about uh breakage I think she said was about 70 students keep me honest Jeff uh we have um uh tentative uh interest at about 121 students who are interested in doing the program uh so um I don't know if any other board members that were there wanted to you know comment on it Rob Rob um one of the things we would like to try and do uh because we would like to give the uh the staff enough time to be able to get um notice out to the parents and everything was to look for the board to basically give the okay to move forward for the uh at least the um summer theater enrichment program and
149I don't know if you have any more statistics on it than I do you saw everything you said was was fun they actually said that they would they would do a performance in the right and they would charge $0 a seat on it um and the ladies reiterated that it wouldn't be they could accommodate close to 200 kids if they wanted to participate so it seemed like a real win-win and it wouldn't be an additional expense to the board and the only reason why we're kind of again I know we spoke about tonight about last minute it literally came to us today um so um we're running out of time they're running out of the school year so you want to be able to get the message out to everybody that they do have this
150program so um do you need a motion from me I move that we accept the summer theater enrichment program for summer 2014 second second by Mr Chella is there any comments or questions by Miss arino I'm sorry I missed was there a cost involved yeah it's not not to the district it's actually to the people that participate the um participation fee would be $300 for a 4-week session Session One um would be in uh second grade students through incoming fifth grade students um um 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. it's a daily schedule there's theater warm-ups and singing and dancing and using our facilities yeah and where is the $300 per student go in that goes to covering the costs including we we won't we don't rent the cost no they don't rent the building right
151that just they're just paying for the the program as well it's paying for the person who's running the program and for or using our facil you know whatever costs there are going to be building stages and stuff like that so um they're going need for that as well as well as session two which was a little bit higher cost that was the $500 for four weeks and that's for the older kids sixth grade to 12th grade I didn't did you you got yeah hat Dr Gorman just gave it him it also they they expect after the first and the second install um um session that they will put on a play in our Auditorium and tickets will be sold for $10 each and the more people that end up showing it's more of a profit
152which goes back to the board okay and and they pay their own insurance or is it under our insurance it's under the board Insurance under board insurance so it is okay any any other questions well just I I want to make certain that in the event that they don't get sufficient students that this program does not proceeded to go into action and we're left holding uh the balance of those cost so if we approve this that has to be clearly understood you know that's why we wanted to start this early instead of waiting another month enrollment yes yes absolutely okay roll call Mr armeno does the resolution say pending enrollment pending enrollment can can we add that to the resolution Mr cof is that Mr Chella would would that be okay with you sounds great
153yes so noted Mr armeno yes thank you Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman yes Mr gin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Madam board president motion unanimously passes oh one last thing I'm sorry I forgot about it tag um we we had another conversation about tag this evening um the the group wanted the board to move forward with a uh pilot pilot um next year for clustering students and I'm going to uh punt this over to Jeff who knew that I would be doing this so that he can explain to everybody exactly what that is okay the the pilot would be for cluster grouping for the extremely gifted children um we believe they're 1 to 2% and that they would they are would receive um an instructional setting that
154would meet their needs on a regular basis in a flexible regular classroom um so we were going to Pilot it at the fourth grade level in the three elementary schools with four different teachers um and we were talking about just grouping where identifying the extremely gifted children and infusing them in a mixed ability classroom in a structured environment differentiating and Scaffolding to meet their needs not changing the curriculum or giving them other things but uh Pro providing a flexible grouping environment for them and um this is a practice that is done in other school districts it's considered a best practice in gifted and talented education and we believe we are not servicing or meeting the needs of those extremely gifted and talented children um there's more to the proposal that we are continuing to talk
155about at curriculum committee but that is the only one that is pending um possible implementation in September yeah and as Jeff mentioned we are looking at revamping the entire program say that I'm sorry well I'm sorry I just we are you said it fast yeah um as Jeff mentioned we are looking at revamping the entire program this is just a piece of the um I guess tag component that's during the school day it's it's not after school it's clustering the talented and gifted students together for social and other differentiation I'm not the educator they're all nodding over there differentiation benefits and stuff sort of like what Rita ostrer wanted to do Rita would support this Rita would support that um yes is do we need a special teacher special uh staff for for these kids
156I believe we have the staff available thank you but but to be clear some of the revamping in the future States May re may need some PD [Music] yep okay any other committees Mr precioso the finance committee Wednesday the 23rd and uh talked about the safety Grant the $48,000 that Mr tag is going to use to replace the alarm system in apple guard and also we considered the Mecha rate which you know we didn't approve uh and also we spoke about the final budget and the status of the education Aid bill for mon Rowan I guess that's your job Mike would you like an update sure is this the big long no I'll be brief oh okay um had a conversation with Mr Jim hooker who is the chief of staff for Senator Greenstein s237
157and a 3478 was which was the district prepared in-house legislation to address a shortfall in state aid funding which was a rifle shot at getting something approved and and it had the most probable chances which made it through the Senate uh education committee last year and then died it to inclusion of the um the term has been reintroduced and the new bills are Senate bill is s272 and the assembly version is A500 this affords the district full funding under the current school funding Reform Act of 2008 for those districts with seniors populations of greater than onethird and uh you know we are optimistic as is Senator Greenstein that these have a shot and we will continue to keep the pressure on there's information about these bills on the website and as we've uh asked the
158Public's assistance in the past if you write your congressmen and women and your Senators uh it puts more of an emphasis on the educational issues here in Monroe we did hear back from numerous different people last year that the letters and the the information we put on the website was successful at least getting into the ear of our representative does that conclude your report Mr Presa yes any other reports okay Dr Hamilton would you like to do yours oh [Music] yes good evening all like to share a little information with you this evening um regarding our recent recognition as being uh one of the best high schools in the country um and making the top 100 in the state according to US News um and we just have a very short um presentation to share
159with you this evening just to kind of explain that process and where we are and while we're we're doing that I want to take this opportunity to commend Mr Goodall and the staff here at the high school but also acknowledging the work for the work of and input of all the elementary and middle school teachers and staff members in the district because kids don't just pop up at the high school um they have the opportunity to be their their Foundation is set at the elementary and middle level so everyone needs to be a part of this celebration and acknowledgement so US news world report indicates that uh and we actually have access to this logo now that's on our website um and it's celebrating success US news world Us world news and World Report so
160the Monroe Township High School 2004 silver Sil silver award and the criteria is as follows to determine whether or not each school students are performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state reading and math results for all students High School proficiency assessments are taken into consideration the second part of this process is determine whether or not the school's least advantaged students black Hispanic and lowincome were performing better than average of similar students in the state and that's looking specifically at the subgrades that subgroups that we are required to report uh in our state assessments and thirdly college readiness performance using advanced placement test data as the benchmarks for success and you know we shared previously with you our recognition by college boards with our work on uh the AP testing New
161Jersey ranking and when looked at uh our ranking across the state we ranked 39 um in the top 100 and this is the first time in history Monroe Township has made this report um and our national rating we're 1,500 out of 31,000 schools Nationwide putting us at the in the top 4.8% of schools reviewed in the 50 states in the District of Columbia I our State ranking 76 high schools were ranked in New Jersey out of the 31,000 reviewed and Monroe again ranked 39 collaborative District effort so some acknowledgements pertinent to our celebration this evening thank you to the board of education for your support and to let us do the work that helps our students thank you to central office for bringing best curricular instructional and Technology practices to Monroe Township to the high
162school Administration teachers and staff for raising the bar our prek through eight School schools administrators teachers for preparing our students for high school and last and certainly not least a special thank you to our parents and communities for supporting our great school system um and the reason I think the celebration is particularly important tonight is because uh two years ago we were hearing from our teachers too much too much too many things going on simultaneously how do we manage this all and I want to again acknowledge the staff for believing in the vision believing in the initiatives uh in spite of some of that resistance that kind of got us here this evening and there'll be fireworks in the parking lot after the board meeting that's great news for all thank you Mr CH yeah
163I just want to I just want to thank you and I just want to commend Mr Goodall and and all the administrators for a job well done uh number 39 in the state and 1500 in the country does not happen by accident and we've heard a lot of nonsense over the last couple years everything from we only graduate 54% of our students to I don't even want to go into it and give any time or effort into the nonsense but the bottom line is this is this is concrete this is real um this is something that has to be celebrated and this does not happen by accident this happens because we have great administrators great teachers and people who know what they're doing and they work hard to do it that's all I have to
164say thank you yeah and it starts from the top down Dr Hamilton so it's it's been a lot of your influence on everybody and um I I just want to reiterate what you said that I know that the staff has been very stressed out the last few years with all the new initiatives and the mandates that we have uh you have set on them and I I think this is their the the cream of the crop this is this is their their efforts this is what they have accumulated and I think um you know everybody should be thanked and and give our congratulations to Mr Goodall in the and the um High School staff to also is Mr Goodall here is Rob here oh well come up front Rob [Applause] y so Rob what has
165the climate been like at the high school since this report was released the first reaction was that's it right and I said no no you you're never satisfied but I think um having the recognition it being out there for the community for us to celebrate I think it's been you know it was a great week when we announced that and we know we still have a lot of work to do we're never satisfied and I just wanted to thank Ken and Jeff and Mike too because they pushed me in a different direction to help lead the school I had you know the job of opening the school and then as we were transitioning in kenry especially Ken refocused me in another Direction and along with the teachers it really is about them uh what they
166did with the kids um we are where we are so uh congratulations to everyone it's been a collaborative effort and I love being a part of it so thank you Rob appreciate [Applause] it okay um moving on to the superintendent's report uh this evening we have two resignations or due to retirement that uh will be a grave loss to our district Mr Rob Robert melee and Mr Doug glassmaker um will be retiring and these are two folks who have made a tremendous contribution to our district uh and they will be both very difficult to replace um but it is recommended by the superintendent to the board to approve Personnel items a through I by roll call vote so move Mr cherella Mr braid I see Amy an talis's name in front of you that's um
167that was to I maybe I'm sorry P A through P thank you I I need to amend that it's recommended by the superintendent that the board approve Personnel items a through P thank you same Mr is there any comments or questions for Dr Hamilton question St I wish we could I tried none okay roll call please miss armeno yes Mr Braverman Mr cherella yes Mr zareski yes Mr calman absent Mr noin yes Mr proso yes Mr Po Yes except I recuse myself on item P since I am a close friend of one of the people mentioned there so noted Mrs K Pano yes madame board president Personnel action items a through P passes thank you moving on to board action items Madam board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended by the
168superintendent that board action items a through I be approved by roll call vote we move second Chella Mr knin comments or questions Mr proso you explain D to me please um the you have it impation sure this is annual training uh the renewal of the contract for avit which includes the training um the registration for the middle and high high school and the participants to continue their training at the Avid Institute this summer anyone else Miss armo yes last week um I I mentioned it but I said I'd wait for this week sorry it's so late everybody but um in the um budget I saw $210,000 that was supposed to be for a section train is section that had I think was from Avid could that be explained tonight sure you want to talk a
169little B about that Mike the explanation unless you want me to talk on it Mike and and that's not included in this one 177% in the budgets in the sixth class stuff it's not exclusive to Avid might as well just reiterate that just reiterate that I do I don't I don't have the page in front of me but I do believe what you're referring to is the additional sections yes so Mr Goodall dur due to scheduling electives the Middle School Whenever there a teacher needs to take an extra additional section that's what that number is it is not exclusive to Avid at all Aid is actually a very small part of it but it is included in that so I can get I can get a read off at another time so that would be
170the extra teachings that's sufficient thank you Mr noin with regard to G was is was that something that we already discussed in Clos session no this is a this occurred since our last meeting I will update you on in close session tonight anyone else and just one more yes on uh regulation 8441 um I just want to be clear that we are our policy for 8441 pediculosis is according to um the standards from the medical authorities it and the state yes okay thank you any other questions then we will have a roll call Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman yes Mr cherella yes Mr zareski yes Mr nusstein yes Mr proso yes Mr Po yes Mrs kapano Madam board president board action items a through I passes thank you and before I conclude my report I
171just want to share with the board I mentioned it in your um confidentials that we will be hosting a a visit from a representative from the State Department of Education Department of innovative programs they're interested in seeing firsthand what's going on here in Monroe that we have been so successful lately um so we will be hosting them this Friday this Friday uh here in our district and we have an itinerary plan for them and I'll give you a report after I see what they say and that concludes the superintendent's report okay we will go to the business administrator's Report with Mr gors Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through G be approved by consent roll call so Mr sign did you
172move that yes okay and Mr Braverman comments or questions from Mr Gorski okay Miss armenio yes Mr Braverman Mr Chella yes Mr zareski yes Mr nusstein yes Mr proso yes Mr Po uh yes except I'm supposed to recuse myself on item e since I'm on the board at uh middle sex Regional Education Services Commission thank you so noted Paul Pon yes Adam board president board action items a through G passes that concludes my report did you want to do your update or do you want yes ma'am okay I'll do it I'll do it um briefly this was tabled from the last meeting and we're running late on time so I'll get through it as quickly as possible but if anybody has any questions about this please don't hesitate to ask I'm sorry the gentleman uh
173left who was touching upon this earlier uh this report went to John neemo at the county who found this information useful and it's a lot of this comes from a presentation that was made to the board by Mr um John donu who is the president of the New Jersey Association of school business officials he is an expert on state aid funding is involved in a lot of legislation and he visited the district free of charge on a complimentary visit to explain to three of our attorneys the superintendent um board president and myself about state aid from a different perspective as we've discussed before there's two types of State AIDS stemming from the school funding Reform Act of 2008 one is wealth-based it's called Equalization Aid it's based upon income levels and property valuations in your
174Township the second is categorical Aid Equalization Aid is designed to support a District's adequacy bud budget to ensure the state's obligation of providing resources sufficient for a thorough and efficient education is met this is how the state defined thorough and efficient figuratively by creating an adequacy model it is calculated through first determining determining a District's adequacy budget a think tank of stakeholders met with the purpose of determining how much resources are needed to run an average hypothetical school they Define what an average hypothetical teacher and benefits should cost what an average hypothetical principal should cost with Benefits how many support staff are needed for an average school what an average number of classified students would be Etc after this full hypothetical model was created it was then divided by a hypothetical number of students to
175create a rate per pupil additional weightings were applied to middle school and high school students because of increased costs to educate those students a percentage of at risk students are also included here at an increased waiting at risk is LEP limited English proficiency and low income to apply this to varying districts on a consistent basis an enrollment projection is calculated by the state and multiplied by these rates per pupil and the weighted rates to determine hypothetically what a District's adequacy budget should cost next to determine the state's obligation to fund was created a concept called local fair share local Fair shares a calculation of how much Financial Resources a district must contribute towards its own adequacy budget it considers Municipal property valuations from ratables and weighs that at 50% the other 50% comes from aggregate
176income levels determined by NJ 1040 income tax filings categorized by that four-digit municipal code on the tax return When a District's local fair share equals or exceeds its adequacy budget it does not qualify for Equalization Aid I point out that in the 1314 budget our Figures were extremely close and had the formula been rerun for 1415 Monroe might have qualified for Equalization aid but the formula was not rerun the state universally just gave students an additional $20 per pupil the second type of Aid as we discussed is categorical Aid this is consideration by the state to help districts who who have a number of pupils that qualify for specific types of Aid such as special education Aid Park Readiness Aid security Aid Transportation Aid it is also designed to inspire districts to operate efficiently as
177was the case with Transportation Aid Monroe's Transportation Aid rating is the highest in the county one of the highest in the states so You' think we'd get a lot of Transportation aid but the state limits this category of Aid by paying it over a 5year installment period and also reducing it for distri that spend over adequacy over adequacy is determined by calculating the difference between a District's adequacy budget that I just described and the district's general fund tax levy another very important consideration in awarding state aid is called stabilization in Mr Don Hugh's words it's interesting to understand two unintended consequences of a new state aid formula after years of flat school aid enrollment property values and personal income are critical elements in the calculation of state aid in particular with respect to what the
178state requires as a District's local fair share they are often referred to as hold harmless stabilization and impact Aid the pot of money for General school aid is a large part of the state's overall budget and it does have limits when proposing a new formula the first issue generally addressed is to provide that no District receives less school aid than they received in the previous budget year school aid formula laws require legislative support no legislator is going to vote for a law that their constituent districts are going to receive less school aid therefore a new school aid formula generally holds districts harmless by providing them at least what they currently receive from the state this means that many districts receiving funding that is not consistent with their enrollments and local wealth characteristics hold harmless adjustment
179Aid is used in school funding Reform Act reduces the pot of money for General school aid other unintended consequences of a new Aid formula has to do with districts that would have experienced increases in student enrollment and changes in their wealth characteristics that would generate significant increases to school Aid Monroe is one of those by the way to fund these districts would hamper the ability of the state to fund the majority of the school districts in the state and hold them stable accordingly a cap is placed on District state aid increase school funding Reform Act provides a 10% limit for an aid increase if local spending exceeds adequacy that's in the case of Monroe and 20% growth limit if the district is spending less than adequacy the thinking is that in time these districts will
180catch up this is generally referred to a stabilization Aid I speculate that this term means that it stabilizes the formula and the other school district because how could a district handle such a large increase in Revenue school districts that are stabilized sell them if ever Lobby for their right to receive their full school aid entitlements they are receiving 10% or 20% state aid increases when all the other districts are either flat funded or receiving moderate increases they also have the expectation of receiving 10 or 20% increases in the years ahead unfortunately what often happens is that the school aid formula is adjusted after the first year because the state can't afford to fund it stabilized districts do not receive their an anticipated increases of 10% or more which means they fall further behind based upon
181their entitlements when New Jersey cannot fund its school aid formula it has tried to help districts that are spending under adequacy however when a district has sufficient local resources not only to fund its adequacy budget but to expend in excess of the amount the state only provides categorical Aid support as is in the case of Monroe the obvious question is how can the state simp simply ignore or change its school funding formula well they do so by thorough budget language the state annual budget law is generally provides exceptions to the school funding Reform Act of 2008 in fact it trumps the school funding Reform Act of 2008 so in a nutshell the state has a budget law called the school funding Reform Act of 2008 and and it has a formula for how much money
182schools should get when the states pot of Revenue um diminishes and it doesn't prioritize enough money out of the budget for state school aid it holds District harmless at the expense of districts like Monroe who are entitled to more and don't receive it and that's the concepts of state aid Equalization Aid which is wealth-based categorical Aid and the nasty topic of stabilization which has hindered Monroe and and kept us from Gaining our fair share than you yeah I just have a a brief question thank you for that brief piece um so in in summation are you basically saying we're not getting enough aid from the state we're not getting our fair share from the state I quite certain of that thank you and we're not going to get it either and we're not going to
183get it either because of stabilization and again when the state pot of money for schools dries up they hold their large voter bases stable at the expense of districts like Monroe who are entitled to more but their growth limit is capped s 2307 are the new versions uh eliminate that cap for districts like Monroe Miss armino just very quickly um we had a problem getting state aid prior to that act of 208 anyway is that true we didn't really get a whole lot of state aid prior to that fair to say we didn't get a whole lot but we've received the more fair share back then compared to our colleagues than we do now okay thank you hey I hope you all got that there'll be a test later um I just I'm going to
184do a brief um board president report and and this has more to do I was going to do it under the um budget but I figured I'd hold it till now um it's the board's role in prep preparation for the school budget and it's pretty much two different things the first is that every year we do an annual budget philosophy meeting that the board has at the beginning of the school year and we set parameters for the administration to develop the budget it is at that time that the board has the opportunity Express their concerns and opinions as to the development of the budget the second is that throughout the whole school year even in the summer every time there's a committee meeting and there's a recommendation from the committee to the board and the
185board acts on it there's a there's a piece of that that goes into the school budget sometimes it's the current budget sometimes it's the budget for the following year there are Personnel issues there are Transportation issues curriculum facility needs Etc so they get voted on all the time and they're always part of the budget um the finance committee is then responsible for getting regular updates on the progress of the budget and and they do that every month it is a responsibility of the administration the superintendent the assistant superintendent the business administrator the supervisors the principles uh Vice principles to develop the budget it is not the responsibility of the Board of Education to create or develop the budget that would be considered micromanaging and the best definition of micromanaging that I ever received was that
186if it's something that the administration is supposed to be doing it is not the responsibility of the Board of Education to do it each item that is in the budget must conform to the district mission statement the vision statement in the school goals for that year and each budget item must be defended in the budget defense rounds by the the superintendent and the business dis business administrator of which there are many defense rounds and last year last month we had the tenative budget and that's pretty much the last opportunity that the board gets to make any kind of recommendations or um changes to the budget than it's sent to the county for their the county superintendent business administrator their approval and without that their approval we wouldn't be able to adopt the final budget so
187that that's really a a quick version of the board's support of uh how our role in the budget preparation is so now we will go to Other Board of Education business is there any other business from any member of the board of Mr seski I'd just like to take this time to talk about what went on before about all the moves that everybody's making and Kathy you brought up the good word micromanaging we have to be careful on what we do here as a board we can direct the administration to do jobs it's not our job to go out there and actually do what we set them out to do and saying that I'd like to also take this time to thank the high school staff and administration for getting this High School into the
188top five in the state or top 100 at a state and a top five in nationally so congratulations to everybody who was involved in that and I think that includes everybody here all the administration and even the parents out there of those students who push the kids a little bit harder to do what they have to do thank you again thank you Mr noin just a couple quick comments um again congratulations to everyone on that great news when I got the uh email from Dr Hamilton I was having a very crummy day and that really uh made my day so that worked out very well um also I just want to uh commend the uh the staff at the high school and the uh students that participated in the in the uh show uh The
189Wedding Singer over the weekend um I can't say enough good things about it it was one of the best times I've ever had and uh uh I'm a bit of a a geek when it comes to theater and uh the talent that was there and the hard work was just I was I still can't say enough good things I called all my neighbors when I got home and said you got to go see this um so my kudos to them uh it was it was phenomenal also um at the last meeting I believe a member of the public Maran Lester had uh brought up something about a flyer that she had seen about an active kids uh summer program that's going to be going on at mil Lake and the the uh we were told
190you guys were going to look into that I was just wondering where we stood with that I actually have not seen that that flyer still okay I I will get that to you I have it with me somewhere thank you anyone else Mr Po yeah just to follow up on the US News and and World Report recognition uh I had looked at uh and you have to do a lot of searching I found because they have the information in different places but I had looked and I just want to call to the attention of the board as well as the public that only one other uh High School in Middle sex County uh ranked higher than us and that was JP Stevens uh so I think that is noteworthy uh I also uh found that
191u in terms of all of the high schools that were ranked uh using their criteria uh Monroe uh was in the top 8% of the nation uh of those high schools now keep in mind that's with that criteria uh and that's not in any way to diminish this but another you know the new New Jersey monthly they'll come out with their ranking they use a different criteria so we always have to keep in mind you know that all of these ratings that are used they use different criteria but it's uh certainly very very commendable uh and uh I applaud the uh the teachers uh that helped this to happen uh in Monroe Township and and I hope that we will give it sufficient publicity not that we want to encourage anybody else to move into
192town but uh simply to get the recognition that uh this year in particular we we made the AP honor role and also this recognition which I think is really tremendous anyone else i' just like to say that I've challenged the prior two superintendant to get on one of these lists neither of them were successful and I I think we made this list because of your leadership and your optimism and there's no doubt about it in my mind but how much better could we have done if you had a plan [Laughter] thank you Mr Braverman and Miss armino yes um congratulations everyone and ditto with everyone uh all the positive things everybody said I'd also like to congratulate the students because I'm sure they worked very hard um and I would like to thank the public
193for enduring on an evening such as this because it is uh I think the purpose of the board to deliberate in front of the public albeit exhausting um so uh with that I thank the public for participating and and just you know seeing what goes on I mean that's part of the democratic process and that is cumbersome at times thank you anyone else okay seeing no one we will go to close session be resolved that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in aord ordance with the Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 and JSA 10 colum 4-6 to 10 colum 4-21 to discuss the following subjects Personnel matters employees employees number 001 00500 uh Personnel manner the superintendent evaluation procedures Personnel matter
194status report from the mte negotiations do we not have no okay great the discussion conducted in close session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the needs for confidentiality no longer exists so moved alstein second second by miss armeno all in favor opposed how long probably no more than 30 minutes I don't even think it's going to be that how many a a resolution to yes Madam board president members of the Board of Education it is recommended that the board approve the separation agreement regarding employee 00244 dated June 30th effective June 30th 2014 M second there a second Mr armino I comments or questions not roll [Music] call Miss Armenia yes Mr rman yes Mr Chella Mr zareski yes Mr calman is absent Mr nostin yes Mr proso yes Mr KY yes
195m co Pano Madam board president motion passes thank you okay we will go to public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone give your name and address for the record please come up oh God Maran Lester for 4 Avenue I um going back to what I asked about the at the last meeting the summer after care um active kids of Monroe that's located at mil Lake School that Mr noin brought up um the checks are going to Mr seidler who is a teacher at the summer wck program and there's all rates here so um to say that you need the flyer I don't think so you you would have to give permission to be using the Mill Lake facility so you have to know about this so can you
196please explain it and if and if Mr Sidler is are we charging Mr seidler for the use of mil Lake School for the after CARE program I just received the information from Mr norstein so I do need to know this in order to speak intelligently to it otherwise I would just be speaking off the cuff and I don't have that information so I will permission since he couldn't put this flyer out so who gives permission for him to use our facilities who's in charge of that he would generally anybody who wants to use our facility would go through buildings usage they would fill out the application it would through the process in the business office and would be approved accordingly so it's the business office would approve it so that would be Mr Gorski yes
197but I don't have any recollection of that particular endeav I'd have to log on and check but that doesn't come to mind at all so you don't know that as as you have no idea that midle Lake School is being used during July from 2 to five you have no idea about your own facilities I have no immediate uh recall of that that's correct okay you need to look into that thank you thank you anyone else from the public hi uh Bob zagari 162 Tournament Drive you know in 1969 I became a uh uh I was a music teacher and when I asked the board for certain things like an extra bus for safety reasons to get to banned uh to different places they they gave me some legal opinions and they said to uh
198you know and they they said no and but but um I started a band parent organization and I want to tell you in a year a lot of those opinions changed when the band parents came up and started asking the board the same question that I was asking so I recommend that on with regard to the Sewer connection fees that we continue to pursue it you know I've I've discussed sewer connection fees with the council for over a 10-month period it took them all this time to give Mr Gorski a reply a response to pass on to me so thank you Mr gor for your feedback regarding uh using sore connection fees which ends up with the township Council so far to the tune of $46 million I hope the township officials have uh sense
199enough to make a real statement about this Isa at their own uh Council meetings and I'm putting that challenge out to the council right now but in any event I've I've gotten some feedback and now I I feel that the dialogue should begin uh thank you Mr Braverman for asking me why I think the town would share SE connection fee Surplus with the board when the town charged the Board of Education sewer connection fees for this High School I think it was about $2.6 million when they were sitting on a surplus of about $40 million how outrageous is that now I'm sure when they when you ask you know for a waiver on that that there were some attorneys who gave an opinion as to why you couldn't get that waiver but all of there
200were a number of other schools in the state that didn't have to pay that fee I was in I been in the public sector for almost 35 years 22 of which as school business administrator never paid a story connection fee as a school business administrator to a municipality and in fact I wouldn't even pay like the uh maintenance fee that that yearly thing why it's the same pocketbook and they're sitting on millions of dollars worth of surplus so um keep that in mind now Linda Greenstein is doing a great job trying to get money from a bankrupt state for more state aid maybe we can get Linda Green I I said Greenstein green Greenstein Senator Greenstein and I I believe she's doing a good job with that and I support that in fact I came
201down to to Trenton with you for that public hearing didn't speak but I was there supporting you I want you to continue that initiative but I think we should start a new initiative to get this SE connection fee money from the town the Township has more resources than the board have sewer connection fees they have their own Surplus uh by the way they they have a recurring Surplus because they constantly underestimate their Surplus thank you very much with that I'm hoping that the board of educate and I'll be back for another three minutes to to finish my statement next month and thank you very much hope to see you at the council meeting anyone else from the public can I can I just say something oh Mr Braverman the next time you go to the
202council meeting ask them to build sidewalks it could save us a million dollars in transportation I'd like to meet with okay miss public Curry Masters and I'm Michaela Court I just want to say that you know again we spent a good portion of the evening not talking about children's educational programs but in a positive note I came with my us son yesterday to the poak walk and it was very nice to see how many staff members and administrators came on their own free time to come out it would have been nice if some of the board members would have come out as well to support um the autistic Community because it's you know growing in our district as well as every districts across but it was very nice to see how many kids were there
203and their parents were there and it was a free event to families and it was very nice so I just want to put that a positive note and kind of end the meeting that way thank you thank you anyone else yes a marathon going Mar Lester 44 Avenue I um there was a planning board meeting this week and I'd like to thank Mr rybach uh M armeno and two other gentlemen that spoke uh there's a development going up on spots with English toown Mount Mills Road and there was a lot of people there there was a fiscal impact study which quite frankly was a joke and there was a lot of people there that gave a lot of input to refute what um the fiscal impact was and um I think the planning board will
204be doing a lot of thinking about that development and I also went to the um the basketball game for Mikey for uh and I just wondering if anybody knew how much money they made if it was very successful I believe they made over $5,500 okay all right thank you EXC B of gari 162 tournament drive as I was saying uh let's see if Senator Greenstein can help us with this issue we're not asking for State funding we're asking for locally gen generated money uh the township has many more resources then the board sore connection fees Surplus from new which is Surplus from new housing developments it has recurring Surplus by underestimating revenues you should see their budget Michael Gorski they underestimate their revenues and build up a big big Surplus you couldn't do that the
205state wouldn't allow you to not for a minute uh they have the ability to finance facilities maintenance and construction by a simple vote of council they they voted in and they've got it the board has no ability to to generate meaningful Surplus if you if you did accumulate a robust Surplus uh you could put it into a capital reserve account to help fund facilities project including those on your rodr program you can only fund facilities maintenance and expansion through school budgets uh which does not really keep up with demand or through a bond referendum voted voted on by the school by the entire uh public and as a Time Goes By it becomes increasingly more difficult for voters to vote themselves a tax increase thank God you know in a sense thank God you don't
206have to have a vote for the school budget because it gets it's been tougher and tougher to pass School budgets over the years so don't give up sharing the township Surplus for the for the sake of students the pain of not being able to fund facilities maintenance and classroom expansion projects will surely outweigh the time and effort uh to get the town to share some of its cash with the board thank you thank you anyone else excuse me he seeing no one our next scheduled Board of Education meeting will be on Wednesday May 14th 2014 7:00 PM at the Monroe Township High School motion to adjourn motion uh second second all in favor I oppose abstention meeting is adjourned