001I call this special meeting to order. This is a work um Pennite Park of Education special meeting dated on April 29th, Wednesday, 2026. The meeting start at 6:50. >> 650. is 6:50 p.m. at the early charge center 270 first street Pariside department. Everyone please stand for black to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Mr. Could you call you do the work? >> M. And I apologize in advance if I get names incorrect since it's the first time I'm doing individual names. >> Yeah. >> Miss Such >> present. >> Miss Sukyang Park >> present. Miss Boy Yong Yu, >> Mr. Aaron Pac here, >> Miss Jun Yim >> and he's virtually the records will reflect
002that Miss Yin is joining us virtually. >> Mr. Y, sorry. >> Hello, >> Mr. Sergio Kay. years. >> Mr. Ray Park, >> Miss Inkio Kim, >> present, >> Mr. Justin Jung here, >> Mr. Alabama, Mr. Paul, Mr. Millio here, and Tyler Jones not here. In accordance with the open public meeting act, I hereby state that the notice of this special meeting has been provided to the public by a written notice dated April 23rd, 2026. The meeting notice has been emailed to all state members at the district three school locations predicide park and posted on the district website. U today we have we are conducting a meeting for to approve the budget and Mr. will give us the body presentation. >> Jud participate our meeting. >> I make a motion and second. >> All in favor?
003I >> obsession. Okay, you are here. >> My family is sick. So, >> okay. So, this is our annual budget hearing. Um, we're going to take you through a a presentation that does have some information that was presented last month. Um, but also some of the information has been updated and is new. Um, at the end certainly the board members will have the opportunity to ask questions. Um and then also I think believe there'll be an opportunity for the public uh our audience could certainly ask some questions as well and then afterwards we will be making a recommendation to the board for a budget adoption. I think it's important to just um maybe our audience members we have a tenative budget approved we also had county approval and now this is the final stage of
004of the budget process. So jumping right in this has not changed. We we did have some goals in the early development stages which was to stay within the allowable tax levy. Um also support priorities student learning which is always first and foremost. Uh also and I will explain more reduce a reliance on fund balance to close budget gaps. Um also uh look for optimization and efficiency opportunities within the organization. Um and plan for long-term facilities and maintenance. We we are thinking about restructuring our facilities model um to address some of the building needs and then finally ensure transparency and effective communication. So this meeting is part of that. Um we don't have a big audience but we did in the past and I know people have been asking a lot of budget questions. So I
005do think the word is out there and certainly after this evening we will post uh this information on the website as well as the the userfriendly budget. So we talked about several of the challenges this year um but some of the more significant ones and and this is something that is statewide health benefits for public employees have gone up dramatically this past year. Uh for us it's it's about 31% increase. Um and all of our employees that are full-time do receive health benefits and that is a legal requirement of course. Additionally, our special education programs and services have seen some significant growth in some different areas um particularly related service and out of district placements. Um we are making an effort. We've freed up some classroom space. So, we're hoping to um have some classes
006established here so students can be educated here at home. And I think that'll be a win-win for parents, students, uh and as well as there's some, you know, financial benefit to educating children here as opposed to sending them out when it, you know, unless it's necessary, of course. Then, of course, salaries and and contractual obligations. We we try to give our employees fair raises. inflation has been running high for for several years. So, you know, a 2% tax cap when inflation was 1 2% was sufficient, but we have been been uh offering raises, you know, somewhere a little above 3%. Um, but that when you have a tax cap, you know, that 3% increase um is hard to keep up with without raising revenue. So, a little more detail. The employee benefit cost for us
007year-over-year has risen by almost 1.3 million. Oh, I'm sorry, over four years, 1.3 million. But now the big increase this year. So, that that already has outpaced um inflation and and even our ability to raise revenue under a 2% tax cap. But now this year, look at that significant bump in dollars, 1.6 million. And again, this is something that is not within our control. It's a 31% increase. To show you a visual, uh you just see those escalating costs and um it it is something that is a real challenge. Now, this just to emphasize this has not only health, health is probably the biggest portion of it, but it's dental, prescription, pension contributions, and social security combined. Uh but that is a good portion of our budget and and and you see that 7% 8%
008almost 8% and now 27.6%. Additionally over the past 10 years uh we uh learned that about 30 of our employees have not been enrolled in in the state pension system. Uh so that is a legal requirement and uh we did to correct this we we did enroll those 30 employees but now we do owe uh the state pension system 300 we do have a final number it is 383,000 back payments so that has to be also um uh you know satisfied uh within the budget special education I talked about this a little bit um you see a steady increase, not a dramatic increase, but a steady increase of children being placed out. Some children, if we don't have the program here, then by law, we we must send them to a district or or a
009school that has has the right program. However, some of the children have been sent out because we have no space. And in facing the budget challenge, we've decided to increase class sizes. And I will go over class sizes in a moment. um and and reduce a few sections of classes and it freed up a classroom. So, for example, at Lindberg, we are planning to open up a a classroom for special education students. It's a small self-contained class, but it'll we're hoping that we will stop this number from going up and be able to offer some programs, not all, but some programs in house. This slide I I showed you last time but I I think it's important to show again for the audience. Um this is just inflation and you see you know during COVID
010inflation really spiked and you know New Jersey had a 2% tax cap but when all your expenses your your heating your energy costs your your employee benefits when everything is going up uh it's very hard to sustain and and and run a school district. Uh so you know the board last year fortunately uh did raise taxes to 3.2 so it it it did kind of meet that rate of inflation but you know the gap was already starting to be created in previous years and now you know looking ahead no one has a crystal ball but we have a war with with Iran. Uh fuel costs are are are very high. I think you know uh oil is somewhere about $110 $115 a gallon. So you know that may gets get resolved and and prices may
011come down but the prediction for most economists is that it would be a slow gradual decline but that eventually this this uh crisis that we're in uh may also keep inflation elevated at least in the foreseeable future. So the way we were able to try to avoid staff reductions and keep up with the rising cost was the district in has used some of its fund balance uh or or basically your savings. And fund balance is there for things such as emergencies. if you have a, you know, a roof fail or or a boiler, um you always have to have some money um on hand to address issues such as that in a school district this size. Uh but we've been using it to avoid cuts to preserve program, which is admirable, but the problem is,
012you know, once you run out of savings, you can hit a wall. And that is where we are at this point. And for example, last year 1.8 8 million in fund balance was used to close a budget gap, but we can no we we can no longer rely on that that level of fund balance to close the gap. This is just a little more narrative. I I I guess I basically explained it, but we have ongoing cost escalation, staffing, benefits, special education, all the things I discussed. Um but we also at the same time were depleting our savings or the fund balance and now we're at a point where we do have to make some difficult decisions this year. Um this just kind of talks about why you know continuing to use fund balance is
013a bad idea. It's a temporary solution but the goal is for your revenues to match your expenditures. If you have a gap eventually you will run out of your fund balance or your savings or security money. and uh it's just not a good idea. So um fund balance has declined. Less surplus is now available to use in in future years. Our reality is we have a structural budget gap. The way I would describe it resources like fund balance are not sufficient. um the the recurring cost, benefits, salaries, energy expenses need to be funded with efforts. So here's how uh we are proposing that the district move forward in the year ahead. First, we do need to have uh and we've already implemented spending controls. Um we, for example, we'll support conferences, but only conferences that
014are really necessary. um other things like supplies. We're really trying to be frugal and keep uh you know anything that's non-essential not support this year. If someone wants to go for example on a national conference those are exciting and wonderful but we may say they'll find a local conference and we can support that but we cannot support the expense of something beyond. That's just one one small example. um for alternative sources of re of revenue like grants and partnerships and uh state or federal aid and I think we are maximizing it. One good example is we do receive about 1.1 million in federal funds. They're called title grant funds and you approve them a few months back but um we're fortunate that that money comes directly from the federal government doesn't impact the local taxpayers
015and it's used uh in many uh valuable ways. Um we definitely recommend a decrease in the reliance on fund balance and um optimizing staff and operational cost wherever possible. So we're looking for efficiencies throughout the organization. This is something new and I thought it may be of interest certainly to the board but even our public and community and when I post this uh class size we are making some staff reductions but what what what I'm um comfortable with is our class sizes even with those reductions I think are in a very reasonable and manageable range. So preschool, let me start with preschool. Um for the threes program, we it's smaller. We only have um currently 34 students. We project it may go up to 45 next year. Um but in the forest program, which is
016where we open it up to more students, currently 101 students, we're projecting 105 next year. And then in kindergarten which is you know offered to everyone uh 135 students. So you see year-over-year this building which houses the early childhood center will be about the same as far as total enrollment. It's also important to mention that this uh preschool program is 100% funded by the state or or nearly 100%. uh all the staffing and and the needs of the students uh which is a wonderful thing to offer the community to give children early childhood education. Um so that class size that you see is a requirement. You cannot go above 15. So even if we wanted to and I am not recommending it because with younger children that is where you want to keep smaller class
017sizes their needs are are more you know more significant. This is representing our uh we have a partnership with the new Christian Academy which is a a beautifully renovated facility right here in Palisades Park and we offer for our students the funding comes from the state to our district to New Christian Academy. They're a nonprofit and we offer classes to an additional 30 Pal Park students at a separate location. We visit there. We have a good partnership with them. It's very wellrun. In fact, the state came down and did an audit and was very impressed with our programs as well as new Christian Academy. Lindberg elementary enrollment numbers. If you look, um, you can see, you know, we we range anywhere from 104 to 139 is the highest. Um, there's usually always over a hundred,
018but even sometimes our our total enrollment on a grade level goes higher. Uh you look this year for the most part we are in either six in fourth grade we have five sections um in fifth grade we have seven sections with 16 an average of 16 students in a class I see that as like an opportunity you know 16 is while it it's very nice um certainly if you you have 22 or 23 it's still very desirable class size but again that's where we were able to reduce a section, free up a classroom for a special education program and also in sixth grade. So you see, well actually more than just one section. So we had seven sections of grade five. Next year we will have four and then in grade six. This year we
019have six sections. Next year we're going to have five sections with 22 students in each class. So if you look at the very last column on the right, you'll see that all of our class sizes are in those low to mid20 ranges. And I would say to you, you know, some of the the the most, you know, highquality districts, the high performing districts, these numbers are very, you know, um very similar to what you see in many other quality school districts. So is it nice to have 18? Yes. But certainly um these numbers are are manageable in my judgment and again we we had to look for ways to to be more efficient with budget dollars. Overall the Lindberg school is going up by you know roughly 25 26 students next year but again we
020think we could manage it. High school little harder to give you specifics on class sizes as you would imagine. Uh in the high it's it's a junior senior high school. So in seventh and eighth grade, most kids take the same courses, okay? And um they're in, you know, they travel together. They move English, math, science, social studies, and then some special area classes. So next uh this year we have, you know, roughly 26 kids in a class in 7th grade, 22 and 8. Similar next year. Um 9th grade again I think very desirable, low 20s. 10th grade there was a little opportunity there. So this year they're in a lot of sections, an average of 15 students per class. We think we could reduce some sections, go to 22 in a class next year. And
021again, still have very manageable class sizes. 11th and 12th grade this year roughly 20 average in a class 21 and again next year uh 20 in grade 11 in grade 12. And these really represent just the core academics. I will tell you the electives may go a little higher, the AP courses a little lower. We do offer a good range of AP courses. So these are really I emphasize just averages and of course they they can change if we enroll new students, but we're comfortable going in with the levels of staffing to support these class sizes. Staff restructure. So these are the reductions that we are not happy about recommending but we feel it's necessary. Um there are two administrative positions that um have been reduced in the budget. Um also the aids um we
022do have four aids that work directly for us. No change there. They are necessary and and all four are as per students IEP. So they are required. Uh we do run four bus driver aids. So they they drive a bus in the morning and then the afternoon uh they they will take our students to out of district placements and then midday they do work for the district. So they're full-time employees. We don't need to increase that. We we think status quo there. Uh nine clerical uh we were thinking of adding one but the budget just can't support that. So we're going to stay status quo at nine. Uh so no no change. Um, for our custodians, we have nine full-time custodial maintenance workers. Um, we're not reducing or increasing. We're just going to be status
023quo. However, we do have 20 part-time custodians. They typically do a 5-hour shift and we are going to reduce from 20 to 12 minus 8. Um, a few are retiring, which, you know, helps because they they don't have to be laid off. They, so to speak, they they you know, it's by attrition. uh they they will just you know not fill their their vacancies. Exempt employees is really just the the central office team and people that are not part of any bargaining unit that is remaining status quo. Uh and then in the teaching ranks there is a reduction you know we're 181 this year. Um we do do need to go down to 163. Now it's not only teachers. It could be other you know areas um but within the PBEA uh bargaining unit but
024this is uh all staff that holds a certificate but we are going to reduce by 18. Total reduction is uh year-over-year 27 employees less. Um I also thought it would be worth mentioning we partner with an outside organization. The majority of our aids are from ESS staffing. So, um we partner with them. They employ the aids and place them here. We have a contract and there are currently 68 aids and we are going to reduce that at least by six. Um, so that could change because um, student annual reviews for IEPs, students that may have a onetoone or two to one aid, those decisions and meetings are still happening. Um, but if students make progress and no longer need a onetoone aid, potentially there could be some additional reductions and savings there. And of course,
025it could go the opposite way. And if it is something recommended and a child needs it, we absolutely will will support that. And of course, that is the law. Just a summary, 33 positions total uh being reduced to men um 18 instructional um part-time cleaners. As I said earlier, we are professionals uh through the ESS partnership. Now, I invite my colleague up, Mr. the Andrea and he's going to go over some detailed financial numbers with you. >> You want to work the hours or you want me to right there one closest to you. We'll take >> uh first and foremost want to thank Mr. Albano, the whole administrative team. Uh we've come together to work on this budget. It's a challenging budget especially uh for Mr. for Albano and I cuz not only are we
026learning a new district, we're learning about finances, operations, and all. And it does pain us that our first year's here that we're talking about staff reductions. Uh but what I can share with you, we are not alone. If you pick up the paper, you look at your local news, many school districts are in the same situation, mainly driven by the health benefits cost. Not saying that's the only factor, but many districts are experiencing the same dilemma that we are currently facing. What I've done is I put together, this is basically what has already appeared in the paper. The board has seen a variation of it. So what I've done is I put together a quick scenario, a summary, I apologize, of your financial position into various different slides. on all of the slides starting with
027your far left column is the description. The next column is 2425 actual. Those are the actual like revenues and expenditures that are directly taken from your audit. So those those are prepopulated from your audit. For the purpose of tonight the 2526 I include two columns. There is your adopted budget and then there is the revised budget. In the revised budget, it talks about a revision to the original adopted. Your 2627 is what we're proposing that the board approves this evening. Percentage change is the percentage change between the proposed budget and the revised budget. And then the last column is what percentage does that revenue number or expenditure number represent of the total budget. And when I say total total operating budget and then you'll see separate slides for this special revenue. So few quick things
028that I want to point out on the revenue screen. First and foremost, Mr. Robano alluded to it the use of fund balance on his slide though he did not include maintenance reserve use of maintenance reserve is a use of a basic fund balance that was set aside for reserve so when you look at 2425 actual the board really used $2.5 million $2,563,000 to balance your budget for a district of this size. That is a sizable amount of money in my opinion. And again, I say my opinion because I've been in much larger districts that have not even used this type of fund balance. So, they were balancing the budget for the 2425 by 2.5 million. You go one column over, it says adopted and revised at 1.8. 8. But I do have to bring your
029attention to something that the board of education approved several months ago. We have a line item extraordinary aid. If you notice, we budgeted zero, but now it shows $836,000. Mr. Rob and I unfortunately had to come back to the board that based on the budget that was left with for us, we did not believe we could sustain the remaining part of this current year without the use of that funds. When you get your board secretaries reports, if you look available balance as we sit today is below $300,000 of unencumbered funds. So, we did need the money at that point in time. So, and again, I I point that out because that 800,000 really belongs with the 1.8. So, this year, we're really using $2.6 million to balance this year's budget. Moving forward, Mr. Albano and
030I said, we know that we're going to receive some type of extraordinary aid. So, we budgeted 600,000, but you go two lines down, where is the major decrease? 1.8 is now 1 million. We feel much more comfortable moving forward that hopefully the board could sustain about a million dollars every year to supplement your budgets going forward. So, that kind of gives you a snapshot of revenue. And then the one unique piece for those that are are in school district is the last line item prior year incumbrances. And that's why I I include the adopted versus the revised incumbrances as I previously explained at different board meetings are prior year commitments by the board of education that were not fulfilled by June 30th of the prior year. you're allowed to bring them into your subsequent year
031to pay to pay the the budget amount that was from the prior year. So we we brought over 489. I can tell you a vast majority of that money was a capital project or capital maintenance project that was not completed. So it was on the books, not completed as of June 30th, still to be paid. It comes into the foreign any questions on revenues. We'll go into expenditures. I break it out by the major categories that are also in your bud your advertised budgets and all regular programs, special education, basic skills, and the question came up uh I forget who asked it, but why do we have no money for basic skills? Mr. Alano referred to that earlier. Most of our basic skills is funded by title one which is part of our special revenue
032budget. So most of it is supported by a title fund or federal program, federal and state program. That's why there is a no money allocated in that area. You have your bilingual school sponsored activities, school sponsored athletics, before and after school and summer. Again, not going to go into each number. You can read, you can look at it. The key thing is instruction is about 24% of your total operating budget. So 25% of the the money allocated in this budget goes directly into regular education program. And the next biggest category obviously is special education. When I say special education instruction, that is not the support services that are also being provided. This is strictly programs that are in the district to support special needs. This one is a little bit longer. What is the key
033piece that sticks out here? Your first line, tuition. In that tuition line item is all of our special education students that attend school districts or private placements outside of our school district, Cal States Park. And it also includes money for students that attend vocational programs. The next one is speech OTP and related services. Those are the services that are being provided to all of our special education students mainly and a a ma vast majority of the money in that line item is for the use of par profofessionals through outside third party resources. So that takes up about 10% of the total operating budget. After that they're all small pieces. operation and maintenance. We're allocating 2.1 million. That includes maintenance of the facilities and the custodial staff that supports the maintenance of the buildings and the
034cleanliness. Where's our next big hit? Employee benefits. Employee benefits when you think of it makes up 22% of your total budget. Almost a quarter of your budget goes to support all of the employees in the district. And again, health benefits, social security payment, pension, tuition reimbursement are all included as part of employee benefits. So that brings it down. The next area for the district is smaller pieces. Equipment, construction, capital reserve overall funds related to improving your facilities. I highly recommend that the district at some point in time engage with your architects and in your engineers to possibly be do a fullscale facility review and come up with a plan and ensure that the district currently has a long range facility plan. I apologize. I know I have it in the folder what the total dollar
035value, but if I remember correctly, the total value of the facilities plan, I believe, was around 25 million. It may be important enough to look at that, bring in your architects and your engineers to update that plan and take a good hard look at where are the real needs of the district in total, not in peace. So that's that's an important piece as you begin to plan for your future in the in the district. I know at the last meeting the dis the board discussed certain things about uh development going on in the district. You may want to incorporate that with your study as to what impact will that have in the near future on how you need to expand. But you also need to know where are you currently with all of your systems.
036tonight. And I don't just mean uh your structural, your infrastructure, your heating, your plumbing, your electrical. So those are all things you have to start considering. Uh an interesting one which is not a big impact here is charter school. I know there are some districts that that charter school number is approaching two and $3 million. And basically what that is is the ability of students from in our district to go to a charter school for their educational purposes. The district pays for those students when they attend charter schools if they are accepted. If I remember correctly, we only have one student currently that's attending a charter school. So when you look at your total expenditures, it makes up 100% broken out by c major categories. And the next piece of special revenue, Mr. Albano hit
037upon it. These are revenue streams that come into the district that are specifically set aside for very restricted purposes. Again, I was asked the question, well, what's local? Why did we have 443 only 12 and nothing? The 12,000 for this year is the Korean Cultural uh group that donated $12,000 to the district. That is money specifically set aside for a specific purpose. I don't budget for that generally because there's no guarantee that they're going to give a donation again next year. But if they do, what happens? the money comes in as revenue and you have to set up a very specific expenditure for those purposes that can only be used for that purpose. You have your state funds and I intentionally separate the preschool and again Mr. Alvado will refer to it. The preschool is
038funded by the state by3 million $3,272,000. And two lines down, you'll see transfer from operating the school districts required to budget $500,000 that that is in the operating budget to support part of the preschool program. It's a formula driven by the state that tells us how much we must contribute out of our budget to support it. So your preschool program is basically running at 3,776,000 to run the preschool program for the students that are in this building and those that attend the outside Christian Academy Christian Academy. You see money set aside for federal programs. That's title one, title two, IDA, and various other things. Student activities. This is something that the state introduced several years ago. They want you to budget money for your student activities, but generally student activities is funded through the students
039for activities that they produce during the year, fundraising and all that. And that's at 5.8. the next slide. It's a mirror image because the money you spend the programs must be allocated to those very specific programs in the same dollar amounts moving forward. And you'll see on this slide the state preschool budget is 3,776 which matches the revenue side but in two different categories. In total that is your budget. Um So in total what we are presenting to the board this evening in the community is a budget increase for taxes of 1,833508 which brings the total budget operating and special revenue to 39,64682. We understand 6.74 is an increase but again as you look around there are other districts in similar positions some slightly less some slightly higher but we feel comfortable that the presentation
040this evening for next year's budget will sustain maintaining the educational programs for the students of this community. We discussed this today. We contemplate taking it off, keeping it on. We want everyone to look at really the important piece is the disclaimer. We did not have we still do not have confirmation from the burrow that these calculations are correct, but we still are presenting it because we were asked to try and give an estimate of where we felt taxes would be based on the current budget that's being proposed. So that kind of bring you through. Uh again, I know Mr. Albano and I spoke about dollars and all. I could sit here and go line by line, but the budget numbers are the budget numbers at that point. Sure. So we would welcome questions from the
041board. a lot of ongoing discussion but certainly this would be a good opportunity and to finish with and uh we've spoken please understand we are meeting on a regular basis to look at every possible avenue to bring back as many teaching staff as we can away from the 18. So we are still exploring other areas of the budget. We're asking a lot of question because we're both new. So, we're asking questions based on our experience in other districts. Why is this not seen comparable to other places? So, we are still having those continued conversations on a daily basis with the administrative staff because we want to minimize as much as possible that 18 number, the teaching staff. That is our goal not to hit that number 18 by May 15 really the renewal timeline. We
042think that would be a worst case scenario. No, no, it's true. We are just actively and and this will continue over the next several months. We're looking at what we're paying for insurance. We're look every possible place where we could realize some savings. Uh we're looking to preserve program teaching and instruction. So hopefully the the reductions don't have to be as severe as as we presented. >> Second question in operating budget the first line there's tax levy and there's a change of 6.7 and there's a budget percentage 86%. That is the or was it including special revenue or it's just >> just the operating >> 6.74 is the operating tax levy increase because there is no increases for taxes anywhere else in the commission. We don't have any debt service or any other requirements. So
043it's strictly just the operation 6 and I we moved the decimal points. It should be 6.74 >> because my I don't know if I'm going to understand because the tax level is it could go up if for example in special revenue if state because we don't they can guarantee like every year they will get this amount of tuition >> from the state right or reduce the useful tution and >> but right now it doesn't change if if numbers change on special revenue. We cannot come back and change this number. It stays at 6.74 again. Special revenue gets the revenue sets the expenditure. So our preschool aid number is set by the state once this is approved. That's our allocation for the year. So that would not change. Now will it change? Could it change for
0442627? Absolutely. There's no guarantee in any state aid number from one year to the next. And um we spoke earlier today, your state aid dropped by 3%. You happen to be one of those districts that met the requirements for a reduction of state aid. Feel fortunate that the state capped it at 3%. If they didn't have a cap of no more than 3% decrease, who knows what that number would have been, but they only decreased by 3%. for Pal Park and there are other communities that have seen that uh type of decrease to 3%. So there's no guarantee year after year what your state aid is going to be. It's driven off of formulas based on enrollment and other other factors. >> Yeah. Um just I wasn't sure that what why we don't put all
045the budget including special revenue when we calculate the total how much percentage of our whole budget versus tax they use. But we only calculate the percentage of budget on tax levy just specifically the corporate >> right. >> Thank you question. >> Yeah go ahead >> about the uh employee benefits. So that is including the pensions that we looking at the 30. >> No, that's a one time hit. >> That's a one time hit. >> It's a one I say a one time hit, but then moving forward now that these people are enrolled if they are part of the PERS, we contribute to a portion of that on an annual bill that we receive those individuals and I don't believe we had did we have one or two that may have been in the TPA? >>
046No. So, we'll see an increase in our contribution moving forward, but it's not as sub substantial as the 383. And be mindful uh for the state of New Jersey, the state of New Jersey picks up the cost of your TPAF pension and the social security portion of the the individual salaries that is funded by the state. It appears in your audit as a separate uh note, but keep in mind in New Jersey the state picks up your TPA contributions and your social security cont. >> That's not even in there. Those amounts aren't even included in your budget. You're not required to budget them. >> Yes. >> Uh Mr. um if if you can if you can can you provide maybe a 10-year chart for this US inflation rate versus the PPS tax increase. >> Yes.
047Uh if you can uh pay for later a 10 year is that? >> Yeah, a 10 year. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. What but I can tell you what you will see is inflation through like 20 2010 to like 2020. If you went back 10 years prior, you had a 2% tax cap and inflation was either 2% or less. There was even a year where it was under 1%. So for about a decade the tax cap worked really well because inflation was always you know 1% 1.8% 1.6 and you know this is I don't don't quote me on those numbers but it you know it's only in in 21 where you saw this dramatic increase and that so that's I I could certainly send that to you. Um, but yeah, things have changed and I I think
048it's important to understand that's why the state of New Jersey still has a 2% tax cap, but recognizing that some expenses are going up disproportionately, they allow us to go higher, right? So many districts, as as Mr. DeAndrea said are at at like us 6% even I've heard of a district at 7% because um they're allowing you to go higher to try to offset some of that dramatic increase in health and some other expenses >> because I'm pretty sure the rate was also pretty darn high around 2007 2008 I believe oh Yeah, if you I think yeah, if you go back that far then it was a little higher but you you had a good you know and then but it tapered off. You have I was just hoping to see the chart and see
049how how it moves. >> Yeah, it's interesting. >> Maybe some sort of pattern that might be occurring. >> Absolutely. >> And maybe by going to bed you can predict and actually correctly like following the tech trends and what's going on kind of well I'll tell you this I because of working in schools developing budgets for a long time the what I've said publicly many times is the Fed chairman didn't didn't predict this inflation if you go back to 2020 2018 they were predicting just you know stable inflation they had a target of like 2% they you know but but co happened stimulus happened and then therefore inflation followed there's so many unpredictable variables right so who knew we would be in a war with Iraham and Iran would take the tactic of of closing the
050straight of Hermoose and now interfering with with energy supplies is you know globally. So that that is a concern right now. But will it get resolved in a month? Maybe will it drag on for a year? Um and all those things affect inflation. So it's it's interesting to look at past trends, but I don't know if they necessarily will be a predictor of the future. Um but certainly it's valuable, Aaron. So I I we'll we'll get you something. We we'll do like we could even go back, you know, 20 years. It's and and we could, you know, in a similar way show you what the school, you know, tax increases were versus inflationary pressure because there was the do bubble and the great financial crisis in 2008, all the housing market which is decimating most
051of the population and co. So it seems like with every 100 years there's going to be a huge there's like a huge epic like the Spanish could couldn't agree with you more and that's where reducing your reliance on fund balance can help you be somewhat insulated from those shocks, right? So that's why, you know, both Mr. DeAndre and I, you know, if I if I added another bar, 26 27, we're dropping the the reliance on fund balance from 1.8 down to a million. We would much prefer to be at 400,000 um and not be using, you know, even a million, but we I we want to wean off it because if if if we if we use no fund balance to to close the budget gap, we'd have to lay off more staff and it
052would be really devastating for the district. So I think if we can gradually wean off the reliance on fund balance, start replenishing our fund balance, it could protect us from a future shock like a black swan event that you know which which is what some people call economic, you know, unforeseen economic issues. And it's also kind of strange how the oil market from Iran is affecting us in the US when we don't really need Iranian oil because we have one of the best in the world. We're not going to use our own dig. I had a question about um so there's this hard deadline of when like um >> no um you said there's a date like May something May 18th um when till then you'll look for different avenues of not having to cut
05318 and that's the worst case scenario. >> Yes. So um what could what avenues could we look for whether it's grants or other Yeah, I I there aren't all that many. I I can tell you one thing that and a video and I have a meeting on Friday for example with our special education department and this opportunity. We do have some families that may be interested in having students that are placed out if we open a class and they they um choose because it is the parents choice to bring their children here um to our district um there could be some cost savings there. Um the unknowns are the parent has has something called pendency which is we have we can't insist that you come bring your child back. We have to ask and we
054would show the program. So those conversations are happening but you know there is a possibility that that could save two or three positions. I must say that's probably one of the biggest opportunities. grant grants may be long-term but over the next two to three weeks. Yeah. Yeah. That that will not happen quickly. >> Well, would we be able to if um past this year like hire several back or >> absolutely when I have conversations with people because and and that does need to happen over the next week or so. um we have some highquality people that are just least senior and I will be saying to them if let's say someone resigns right so maybe we we let someone know that their their position is being eliminated um we would certainly support them in trying
055to find a new job and many of the people um will easily find a new job I'm sure there's a teacher shortage but I will be having that conversation where look if something changes um we certainly we'll let you know immediately if we could somehow preserve your your position and retain you. So yeah, that's the that's the work over the next two to three weeks. So for the staffing I mean maybe like a six eight quarters for 26 27 uh how it's going to impact to our students and the teacher maybe it's going to it's going to be harder for them to to deal in the in the classroom because uh I know some of the student need more some needs less. How are we going to fix that? >> Yeah, that that is a
056great question. So many, not all. So, for example, in our kindergarten classrooms and prek classrooms, each one has an aid, like a general classroom need. Then many of the other aids are for children with special needs. And sometimes a child has a onetoone aid, sometimes there's one aid for two children or one aid for three children. So, it can vary. What we do is the moment we assign an aid to a child, we try to put a plan in place to wean the aid away, which may seem like, well, gee, why would you give less support? But if you think about it, what you're trying to do is foster independence. You never want to create dependency with a child. our our our goal for all of our children, right? Whether they have special needs or
057or or or general ed students, we want them to be independent. We want them to be able to be self-sufficient. So the purpose of the aid is to support them when they need it, but hopefully if they're making growth with whether it's behavior or academically, if they're growing, eventually you you you start to move the aid away and support, you know, and and really foster independence. So there's a very complex process where our teachers, our committee on special education, I I'm not telling them there's a budget problem. you can't have AIDS. That would be very inappropriate. The the internal discussions are um are children making progress? Do you think next year if if a child is becoming very independent? That that's our goal, right? It's something to celebrate. So if a child who had an
058aid has become independent, is self-sufficient, maybe in September they don't need that much support and that is a reason to celebrate. So there are a lot of discussions happening with the teachers, the the the um the counselors and then our director of special education and we're just asking look is is you know give us your projections for next year. We we haven't in special ed you can never take the approach that oh we only have x amount of dollars make it work. No it's always based on children's needs. So I do assure you that um and and at the cse table I don't sit a video doesn't we we we are it's not appropriate for us to be involved in those decisions that's all done based on evaluations and observations and the needs of the
059children so I will tell you if let's say five new children moved into the district who needed onetoone aids this number we have we'd have no choice but to increase it if it's on the IEP we we will support it. So this I I want to emphasize this is our projection that this of April 29th. Um you know September is a long long time away and these numbers are subject to change. I I I want to let you know it's not a concrete number and I assure you if a child needs an aid uh the committee will recommend it and we we will support. >> Okay. My pleasure. just two questions you miss to the what I raised previously then so what just any ask how much what's the percent is going to use from
060all our budget uh and how much percentage the tax levy is resource um percentage of the resource for the whole budget like then we say 686% but it should be a little lower than whole quarter cuz our total body is not there yet. >> I again >> it should be lower. >> I just use 80 86% of the operating because that's where the tax levy support. >> Okay. >> Tax and levy money does not go to support special revenue. That's why I broke it out that way. >> Okay. But then including the special revenue >> of course then that number would be less and everything else changes because of that. So, it's since it's only supports the operating, that's why I said I separated from the special revenue. And again, uh there some districts have
061debt service. They're still paying for um money they borrowed. That's a separate tax levy line item, but you don't have that here. And and if we had that, I would have broken that out separately. Okay. >> From then. And what is what plans the work to separate the N and um between the school to school at a charter school? Is it >> Again, I break that out because it's not part of operating. >> It's not part of special revenue. It's part of operating but distinctively separate because it's money that you pay somebody else to educate students that aren't here. That's why you break it up separately. >> Right. for only child. What about the vocational school? >> The vocational is part of the tuition line, >> right? So that's that's why >> right it's part
062of tuition because there are our students our students who attend another school that we support their education. >> The charter school is also our students. >> It's our residents. residents. >> The difference, >> right? That's how >> the vocational are residents, but they're attending another local education agency. >> Charter school is kind of separate from it's recognized by the state, >> but they operate separately and that's the way the state >> separates. Yeah, the story of the state requires us to report it. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other questions at the board? >> Madam President, although we only have one member, may I ask that you open it up in case there is any public comment on the budget? It is part of the formal process. So, Mr. Spalaza, anything to say >> except thank
063you >> or ask. >> Thank you. Thanks for asking. I'm not talking so >> Okay. I think that concludes our presentation. Okay. >> Thank you, Mr. Thank you, Mr. Ner. >> So now we will go on to the fourth session to discuss before sessions. who will discuss and review our agenda and directions starting with building a ground. Mr. Would you like to? >> Yes. Uh we have one item to approve the park police department Junior Police Academy that parkation upon the recommendation of the superintendent. Approved that par police department to use the limber elementary school baseball field truck cafeteria and auditori for union police car from June 22nd 206 to June 26 22nd from 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. >> Thank you. I wonder if this is just program for all um only for our
064resident students or it's open to any students. >> My understanding this is an annual event and only only Lindberg elementary students >> only >> provided by the police department. >> Any questions discussion and next education Mr. Just ch >> uh we have one item for field trips. Be it resolved that the palace park board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the following field trips. The first is to county field on May uh May 22nd 26. Next is elementary school on May 18th to world for world. Thank you. Any questions discussion next is finance since Mr. M to be joining I just read. >> Thank you. Thank you sir. One, it's to approve 2026 2027 budget adoption. The total budget is 39,640,682 including all special revenue too. Um, number two is approval of
065agreements with Londear. Number three, staff member visitation workshop. Number four, treasury report for November 2025. Number five, authorization for payment of beers. Number five is just uh to temporary to u because currently our account payable position person is not is vacant. So until the new person come in then Mr. and where um we operate this before next board meeting in May. Do you have any questions? Cuz um I know we asked the public for any questions on budget adoption still. Okay. Now next to personnel please. >> Okay personnel uh I have three items today. Number one appointment of staff. Number two approval of employment contract. Number three residency waiver application. Any questions? discussion. If not, may I have a motion to close the work session and open to open open to regular session? >> Who
066made the motion first? >> And then June second. >> Okay. Now um so this board the president's report I just want to thank you all to all board members and Mr. Arano for attending um mayor council meeting last night and we stayed until 900 p.m. and thank you for having your time and actually all board members and our superintendent Mr. Carbano we um we presented mayor CR meeting last night and just raise our concern and have them to have the heard and yeah so we just request and respective request the maximum support measures for them in case the massive redevelopment plan it'll be discussed within the borrow and it's going to be near future we know when the plan will be actually uh adopted and agreements will be on. So yes, mayor council or they
067we they are on they in same page with us that they understand our concern of our school district and so we cooperate and then we hopefully um discuss further and also we requested for the correction of the um incorrect number on their annual friendly report in municipal website because now the budget decision for both the school district and the municipality too. So we just want to make sure that our public has accurate number that so we request that the border website the number for the 2024 2025 school tax levy is only $26 million $371,112 but currently in their annual branding budget on their website it states that sorry 75 534,767 which is 11 million differences. So that will correct that Mr. Do you have any report? >> Uh no this evening. >> Thank you. Um
068we have one agenda to approve in breeding and grounds. We have a motion. I'll start by second. >> All in favor? >> Next. Education. We have one consent agenda for Bridge trips. I have a motion to approve. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I next find. >> We have a final consent agenda and the main thing is to um to approve the budget too. And um yes, we have a motion to approve by Fin. >> Yes. >> Sergio. >> Yes. >> In Kim. >> Yes. >> Justin. >> Yes. >> Jun. Yes. >> Sub. >> Yes. >> And Mr. and Aaron P. >> Yes. Folks, thank you for your support of the budget. >> Thank you. >> So 2026 for budget is approved. Total budget is $39 million 640,682. Next personnel, we have three agenda,
069three consent agenda for approval. May I have a motion to approve the personel agendas? should take a walk. >> Yes. >> Sergio, >> yes. >> Kim, >> yes. >> Justin J. >> Yes. >> Jim, >> yes. >> Sup Park. >> Yes. >> And yes. Thank you. And next, so may I have a motion to close your region and open our meeting to the audience? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> In order to conduct its meeting properly and efficiently, the board should require the following procedures to public participation at both meetings. Any individual desiring to speak should give his and her name, address and group if any represented. The presentation shall be as brief as possible but no more than three minute minutes per individual. The board vest in its presence or other presiding officer
070authority to terminate the remarks of any individual if he she didn't sit in the best interest of those presents to do so. We have only on audience today. >> Thanks not to >> May I have a motion to close our public participation and open we go move on to the closing session. >> Awesome. >> All in favor? >> I >> thank you. We have a closer session probably about like 20 minutes 20 minutes for to discuss the legal matters and we see you Mr. Paraja. Have a good night. Good night. Thank you for joining us.