001Good evening. Excuse the lady. But it's head. Oh. Oh, this is I call this special meeting to order. It is Wednesday, March 25th, 2026. The meeting starts 6 6:37 p.m. at the early church center 271st Street Parite Park, New Majority. Every flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and justice for In accordance with the open public meeting act, I hereby state the notice of the special meeting has been provided to the public by a written notice dated March 20, 2026. The meeting notices be emailed to all staff members at the district school locations with the board of craft posted on the district website both please >> present here Mr. >> Hello >> Mr. Junior Mr. Sergio Mr. Much >> present >> Mr. Justin
002>> present >> Mr. Kado >> present >> Mr. Deandre and Taylor >> here >> so today we'll start with the audit report audit presentation but um Mr. or you will give us presentation presentation now. >> I want to thank you so much for having me tonight. My name is John Weiss. I work for BKCCPA. We're the auditors for the district and the purpose of my job tonight is to take these the great big book that's in front of everybody tonight and boil it down to some financial highlights. And the place I like to start with is revenues. And if we look at page one of our handout, we can see that revenues were down 1.5 million compared to last year. Now, from district to district, big ones, little ones, and the middle ones, my expectation
003was to see three things, and I'm not disappointed in coming to Palispart from them. Number one, things like uh preschool expansion aid. A lot of the districts that I audited got a bump in preschool expansion aid from state as did Palis Park. Federal grants. Federal grants are down 3.8 million compared to last year just like every other district. The school district received the federal art funds. These funds sunseted at the end of the 23 24 beginning of the 2425 fiscal year in in Pal's Park case. There was a there was things like a um a significant HBAC uh construction project that was charged off to the that was charged up to the park grant that was finished and fully paid off during the um during the 23 22our school year. There are other things that
004interest in mis late to miscellaneous had a bump. Interest is up for all of my school districts. Most of them I should say park is no different. Interest is up a little bit for them as well. Rate is also up. So we saw a little bit of a bump there last year. General fund state aid. The big the big part of the general fund state aid increase is the increase in extraordinary special education cost aid. And I always I'm always a little wary talking about that one because if you have a bump in extraordinary special education cost aid obviously the costs have also increased with with regards to the capital projects decrease between this year and last year. This district had a rod grant for a roof project that where most of the work was
005done during 2324 balance of the work was done during 2425 and that's when we realized the balance of the revenue on it. Any questions, comments before we look at some charts together? Okay, moving on to our charts. We can see that most of the revenue stream is going to be coming from the tax levy. The state sources, that red wedge is a little bit bigger than it's been in prior years, and that's due to the preschool expansion aid. Our yellow wedge keeps getting smaller by the year as the art funds have sunseted, but there still is a healthy revenue stream with regards to the IDA grant as well as the uh title significantly the title one and title two and title three and title four grants. Our miscellaneous income that represents things like interest on
006bank accounts, facility rental that things of that nature as well as the raid that questions that we spoke up earlier. And looking at the line chart to the right, what we wanted to do was have a look at the tax rate over the last 10 years. And we can see that um 2020 we had a dip and that was the result of a revaluation. And when we see that, we expect all three lines to come down and they did. For the most part, the district has held steady as far as the tax rate goes. I'm when I talk about the district, I'm talking about the blue line. And the blue line is the one that you have control over. The green one, that's the municipal and the purple one is the county one. You don't
007have a say in that one, but you do have a say in the blue one. Now, in looking at the tax levy and our and our bars underneath the green bars, we can see that it's going up and it's going to go up a bit more in 2526. The state sources, our blue line, our blue lines there, that's uh that's up a little bit. We talked about the bump in extraordinary aid earlier in our conversation. That's going to be the bump between 24 and 25. When we look at the federal sources, we can really see the effect of the federal ARC grants illustrated. We can see them really coming in during 23 and especially during 24 as the project was going on and sunsetting in 25. I tend to think what we see for 21,
00822, and 25 is mostly what we're going to be seeing for the foreseeable future for the district in terms of federal funding. Preschool and preschool expansion aids, as we talked about earlier, that went up and it's going to go up again in 2526 during during the year we're in now. And looking at miscellaneous revenue on the bottom, we can see that the bump like I say at most of my meetings 2 23 22 23 24 that's been a lot of that's going to be bank account interest and the bump in 25 is the interest being up a little and the e- rate proceeds that were received. Any other questions, comments? We'll move on to expenditures. >> Sir, what was the miss? What was the main source for the distinct 2024? >> Most of a little
009bit of that was interest on the bank accounts and a lot of it was proceeds from the e from the federal rate program. >> Would we have access to that paper? Now, >> I would I was just going to see um the business administrator and or superintendent or the board president at the at the conclusion of the meeting as far as the access to that kind of stuff. >> Thank you. >> Looking at expenditures and we're going to see some things walk hand in hand from what we talked about revenues earlier. When we talk about expenditures, total operating expenditures, that's down about two that's up I mean about 2.4 4 million uh 2 million 2 million 370875. Most of that is going to be your instruction expenses for tuition. We spent we sent a a
010couple of additional students out of district where they were somewhat large tuition contracts compared to last year. Our student and instruction related services we we have a we have a bit of a bump there. And with instruction and student related services, that's the bump from your preschool aid primarily. If we look at if we look at um what we what we've done with preschool as far as sal primarily salaries of teachers and for our purchase services for the uh preschool program we can see bumps there and that's going to count for most of that we just after this we're going into a budget presentation just want everyone to understand for the presentation he's combining your general fund and special revenue fund expenditures funding. I know that we spoke earlier about maybe there was a difference.
011So I just wanted to clarify that for the board before we go into the budget area. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And that's very important because when we uh because when we do these things we look at we look at as much of the big picture as we can get on this including all funds and um as business administrators pointed out the focus on the budget is going to be current. So as the other the other thing uh that I wanted to make sure I talked about was the big decrease in capital outlay. We went from 1.4 million to uh we went from 4.9 million to 1.4 million. As we talked about earlier that's the sun setting of the art money for those for those construction jobs. We still had a little bit of a bump
012in a in a 20 in 24 25 but not to the extent of what we were doing when the uh when the art grants were going. Any questions comments before we look at some some more charts? >> Would you mind uh the conversation that and I had with you about debt service since it kind of threw me off. The board understands that >> there is and there is not debt service for the district. because the business administrator reached out to me earlier today and getting into the weed just a tiny bit. There's a whole separate fund for debt service once you have bonded debt. That means you went out, you went to the voters, voters approved the bond referendum and now you're tied to principal and interest for a set number of years based on
013whatever your project is. In Pal's Hate Park's case, they don't there's no bonded debt, no separate fund for it. What this represents is interest on your lease agreement. I mean principal on your lease agreements. That's the principal part. The debts the debt service and interest represents a withholding from your state aid. And most districts in New Jersey have a bit of withholding from their state aid for debt services assoc associated with a debt issuance. The state did to give everybody money for capital grants to make a very long story short. So the district does and does not have debt service. No bonded debt. That's the important thing. >> Thank you, John. Any other questions, comments before we move on? Okay, looking at our bar graphs and trend lines. And this is also illustrated in exit
014in exhibit J4 in your in your books here, but we present this in bar form. regular instruction, special education, instruct, regular instruction relatively. A bit of a bit of a bump this year, special education, little bump there. Tuition, we talked about earlier that's ticking up and we knew that was going to tick up when we saw a couple of students be sent out. Students in instruction related services, this if we look if we look at the chart for state a for preschool, these are pretty much in line, which kind of sort of makes sense. If these expenses are being bumped up, we probably have a driver for it. And that driver is going to be preschool expansion in this instance. General and school administration relatively a little bit of a bump in 25 and operations
015of maintenance. This is contingent on on um what's going on in district. And I see the when I see the 2023 bump, I'm thinking there I believe there was a fire in one in the Lindberg school. And this may be reflective of that. Pupil transportation is up for most of my districts. I'm not surprised coming to Palisades Park tonight. And benefits are relatively flat. And I suggest that you enjoy that while it lasts because my last couple of nights have been doing municipal budget presentations where the increase in benefits is approximately 30%. That's three nothing conversations like that. We just did our budget presentation. >> In looking at the pie charts for expenditures, that's the next page of our handout. My expectation when I walk into a school district is that this pie is going
016to be filled with green, blue, burgundy, and orange about 75%. And again, I'm not disappointed in coming to Palisades Park tonight. Regular and special education instruction that makes up most of our green wedges. Our other instruction, that's co-curricular activities and co-curricular athletics, our coaches and stuff like that. That's our little That's our little blue wedge. The light blue wedge, that's our tuition students send out of district. Student center instruction related services, that's your nurses, your child study team, guidance counsel, the library, things of that nature. General and school administration, superintendent, and uh the principal in the uh business administrator's office. Plan operations and maintenance, self-explanatory. a bit for pupil transportation and employee benefits. That's always uh it's always going to be a bit of a wedge and I suspect that wedge will be bigger in
017the coming years. What we also wanted to do right below was have a look at now that we know the functions we want to see what we're actually spending the money on when we expense. Not surprised again coming to Palis Park tonight. My expectation is 2/3 to 3/4 of my pie is filled with salaries and benefits. That's about 71% for Palisades Park. Not surprising. That's where that's how this conversation goes with most of my districts. Our utilities power line 3% tuition a bit at 8% supplies 3% purchase services things like your child safety professionals your auditor your attorney your engine your uh architect and a bit for transportation any questions comments before we start talking about surplus so transportation is not included in purchases services. Therefore, as she says >> uh transportation transportation does not
018include the purchase. >> You just mentioned that transportation process in the purchase services, >> right? The transportation is standalone. So that represents the amount there are no purchase services and that only your transport your actual transportation contract cost and anything related to transportation. things like aid in L of aid in L of payments to um student parents sending their kids their students to nonpublic districts. >> Anything else for fund balance? Okay. And looking at the fund balance part of our financial facts from last year to this year, the district went down in fund balance or surplus by a little over $913,000. Now, specifically, the biggest part where fund balance went down is in excess surplus. And we talk about excess surplus. According to the state of New Jersey, you can have too much money in
019your general fund. you're limited to 2% of your expenditures plus any non-budgeted state aid state aid exemptions in in Pal Park uh Pal Parks instance it's extraordinary special education plus state so if we go and I'm going to work my way from the bottom up if we look at the uh unassigned unrestricted of 1.476 476 million. That represents 2% of your expenditures plus the unbudgeted extraordinary special education cost of 800 of about 800,000 assigned fund balance designated for subsequent year expenses. This is uh this is essentially pledging surplus to offset tax increases to uh for for your appropriation needs during the budget. Our committed amount. Those are encumbrances. Those are for the purchase orders we put in, but we then receive the goods or services and that's primarily the bounce to on a construction project
020that's nearing completion. The district is self-insured for unemployment compensation. So that means when the unemployment uh claims come in, the uh that that fund is used to pay for set claims rather than charging the general fund budget. Traditionally excess surplus and there's two categories. Excess surplus that was this that was incurred this year and that's and excess surplus that was incurred last year. Last year being 2324 that's 1,309517. When when that happens and you have an excess surplus situation, that money automatically gets budgeted as surplus anticipated to offset to offset appropriations. So when the business administrator did his budget for the 24 for the 256, the year we're in now, 1,309517 automatically populated. When the business administrator prepared his budget in the last couple weeks, 839685 automatically populated the reser the reserve accounts, capital and
021maintenance reserve. A little bit of a bump in capital reserve. That's bank account interest and some prior year capital projects that were canceled where the original funding source was capital reserve. and the district budgeted and used $350,000 for maintenance reserve in the in the 2425 fiscal year. Any questions, comments before we look at some charts if I could just for the board as the business of Main Street and someone new to your district >> and this is a conversation on having again I apologize because this is going to lead into a budget your fund balance look at the amount of fund balance decrease and that'll be important as we get into the budget. Looking at our pipe looking at our pie chart on the beginning of the next page of our handout, as the as
022the our pie wedges turn from green to blue, the money gets a bit less restricted. We talked about excess surplus earlier. We have some that year marked for the 25 26 year, the year we're in now, and the 26 27 year, the year that they're currently budgeting for. Capital reserve, those funds are restricted to what's in the long range facility plan and those approved projects. Similar, the maintenance reserve is also limited to the projects that are the district's approved M1 document. We have a restricted small amount for unemployment claims should they come in. Our committed represents our incumbrances. Our assigned represents money that's been already pledged to the 2526 budget when that budget was done. And unassigned represents the free balance that we have been speaking about earlier, the 2% of expenditures and the unbudgeted
023extraordinary special education plus save. And looking at our bar graphs below, we can see that restricted restricted was ticking up has ticked down for 2025. Encumbumberances are relatively stable between this year and last year. And that's really going to be that's going to really depend on what the purchase order situation is at the end of the year. Unrestricted. We saw a bump there. And that's primarily the extraordinary special education cost saving and the assigned as that ticks down though that's money that's being anticipated in the budget from surplus. And looking at our comparison of capital and maintenance reserve, we can see that the district has been utilizing capital reserve. The last the last real big usage was in 2023 for the local share of the SDA roof project. We talked about that little bit of
024state aid that the district got for capital projects. There was a there was a there was a 60% match that was made from the capital reserve. the maintenance reserve the down the down tick between 2024 and 2025 that represents 350,000 that was budgeted and used during the 2425 fisc this year. >> Any questions comments on surplus? >> Yes. >> So what is this max? What exactly is the max? Now the state of New Jersey as we said earlier you in the state of New Jersey you can't have too much money. Now the maximum allowable part for your capital reserve is going to be limited to your your your approved projects in your long range facility plan. And it's six it's 60% of that with the expectation that the state is going to contribute 40% of
025that either through debt service aid or more traditionally through a ride with respect to the maximum allowable for the maintenance reserve. That's that's based on a calculation on building square footage and what and what expenditures are. When we do that document, we get a we get a picture of how much they totally be in there for what what projects we intend to have based on square footage >> comparing across other school districts. Are these normal levels? >> It depends. It depends on the district. It depends on and I do get that question a lot from district. It depends on what the district's needs are, what funds are available, what you can bank and things like capital reserve and stuff like that. >> So, do you see as a this a good reserve amount or do
026you think it's very little or >> I think I think strictly standing 10,000 ft back capital reserve and probably going to probably use some attention in the coming year should the district be able to provide for it. maintenance reserve is and has been relatively healthy for the district. Any other questions, comments? So often this is uh the credit as like the district has um the financial conraint or not necessary to be that way to understand this low level of the future >> as far as far as surplus being down compared to last year. >> Oh no here like capital the level is very low >> right. >> Yeah. So that's uh that can that It's related to the finest stronger or >> it's not that way or >> it's contingent on what what you can
027uh on what you can contribute to the capital reserve at the end of the year and I have and I have some districts who carry an excess surplus others who don't have an excess surplus and bank everything in capital reserve. Thank you. >> Anything else? >> I wanted to take a moment and update the board on a conversation we had at last year's meeting. We had an audit suggestion regarding real estate taxes from the burrow in >> the text, right? >> Yep. You got it. Now, at the end of at the end of the year, June 30th, June 30th, 2025, the B the bureau still owed June's tax payment. So, we if you were to look on B1 exhibit getting a bit in the weeds, you'll see an accounts receivable for about $2,180,000. In July,
028the burrow paid the burrow paid in the district deposited the a paying of 2,211 956. So after that the they had technically overpaid just under $32,000. This is something the business administrator and I have spent a great deal of time talking on and um we are hopeful this gets this gets reconciled before the end of the year. So nobody is owing anybody anything. Um I I don't mind taking I did reach out to the burrow and we recently received our March tax levy payment which did reflect an adjustment for it seems like they made up a balance that may have been due. I think we have a timing difference, >> but I can share they did make an adjustment in the March payment to make up for some of the lack of the current year's
029tax payments. The 2,211 has been paid throughout the year, but last year at your tax levy somewhere in May and June, you approved that they should be paying us 2,267. So, they made up for that difference and it seems like they may have paid a little bit more than than new, but the good news is they they've made an effort to catch up to what they have. Hopefully we can get it cleaned up by the end of this year. >> Mr. So kind of confusion by being paid between June and July from the board. That's is pretty common or how does that >> I don't I don't come across that very often. Typically with the districts the money is all in by the end of June and you don't have a receivable from the burrow.
030>> It should be like every year going right and then I don't know if you recall three years ago that you first found that unpaid tax levy and there was $54,000 that was reflected over this calculation. >> It seems that there was a lot of confusion here in with the borrowers and what to do with that because getting a bit more into the weeds, I confirm all the real estate tax payments from the borrow. I reached out to them directly and they had that amount included on there on the return confirmation and I followed up with them saying, "Hey, you know what? You have this. I want to make sure that maybe this was posting the wrong account or something like that." And I had to go talk to the talk to the finance people
031there. And it turns out they put it on and forgot to take it off and the check. >> Yeah. >> Which confused the heck out of me because I'm like, "Okay, wait a minute. We got to make sure this is right cuz I have to talk to the business administrator about this and make sure my document before I start bothering him about this but I am hopeful that um this does get resolved this year asated. >> Fingers crossed. >> So you reach out to the the municipal government as work there I'm confused on it or it has to be outside too. >> I have to I have to compare and when they don't work out then I will reach out. >> Okay. So this is not the state yet that you need to reach out.
032>> No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. >> Thank you. >> Now, awards without the order, what we typically do is we we come in, we look at everything from payroll registers to vouchers to minutes of order meetings to the school cap to school cafeteria records to even the enrollment and transportation reports that are filed by the district. We have some recommendations that we're going to go over with the board tonight as the result of borrow and I want to um we're going to go through each one of them. There are a number of them report. Oh. Uh, I heard the synopsis from the orders report. Same stuff. >> You have the AMR that they have. >> Y I have the messy copy. My >> in the synopsis which they did receive also.
033>> It's a smaller smaller hand. >> I'm sorry. >> No, you Right there. A little bit. One more. One more. Yeah, that's um And talking about the recommendations, most of them are going to be in the financial planning, accounting and reporting section of the auditor's report to management. The first one we we selected vouchers primarily for the ID for the IDA grant and noted that there were a lot of missing approval and receiving signatures on those something that clearly indicates that the expense was approved in the goods or services were received. We want to make sure that's very clearly indicated on all payment forms. The state requires a political contribution disclosure form be awarded for all contracts awarded on a nonfair and open basis that aggregate to over $17,500. We had several audit exceptions for
034these forms not found during the year. The board of education should designate someone to prepare the ESERT. Esert is a required statutory filing that deta that details u that you're in compliance with with federal and state wage reporting for tax purposes for administrative officials of the district. We want to make sure that anyone who is entitled to a pension is enrolled in the pension system timely and accurately. You want to make sure that the position control roster is followed and reflects what's actually being charged in the board secretaries report for expenses for salaries. We want to make sure that the uniform chart of accounts is used for for charging uh budget expenses. And I'm thinking particularly of a refund that was posted incorrectly and some capital items that were charged at current expense in current
035expense items that were I was yeah current expense items that were mistakenly charged to capital that had to be moved around. We want to make sure that the board secretaries report is presented to the board in a timely manner. the uh we want to make sure that the dis district district has appointed a reconciler or treasurer of school monies. We didn't think it was effective last year the uh the program that they did since the business administrator has gone out and gotten the district the treasurer that is it drew a good second set of eyes on these things. We want to make sure that the treasur report is also presented and approved to the by the board in a timely manner. the school food service account. This is a conversation I've been having with more
036and more of my districts. Districts have point of sale systems in place and it's important that when students use the use the funds and acrew money that the that the district get paid for the lunches as I kind of made the uh the receivable balance has gotten pretty big in the last couple years. We want to make sure there's that it's being addressed and it's not a it's not a palisates park specific thing. I had to make this have disc with several of my districts as far as keeping an eye on the point of sale balances where the student owes money and to collect that money in this timely fashion as possible to the parents. In the last recommendation and it was part of the last handout, we want to recommend that the amount requested
037for real estate taxes agree to the amount approved in the state budget. We want to make sure there are no more over or underpayments of real estate taxes and everybody walks away. even Stephen at the end of the year. >> I'll be happy to take any other questions comment on the cafeteria receivables. >> Yes, just for the board as I've been doing um doing my interim work for the last four or five years. Now I can share with you that has been a consistent recommendation that I've seen in audits as I'm doing this interim work. uh but uh understand that a big part of the discrepancy is that there was a period of time during COVID when meals were being served free and when they transitioned from being free to having to apply for applications
038again. Parents didn't realize they had to reapply because they were getting free lunches. So many districts are now trying to implement processes to make sure all the applications are being received. And the other piece of this is that you can you must serve a meal to the child. So if a child walks up to the register and they don't have money, the district must still serve a meal. Years ago, you were able to give an alternate meal. They felt that that was inappropriate because now you're identifying the child who may not have the resources to pay for a meal. So now the child receives the meal as any other meal and then the district must then go and try to collect funds from the parents. It's it's a horrible situation, but we must feed the
039children. We cannot deny them the meal. So at some point in time, we'll have to put a process in place. What many districts do do is send out via email a notification to the parents that you have a balanced due and once we start doing it'll be amazing to find out how many parents come forward and said how do I have a balance notify me so that is something that has to work on to have a process in place to at least get notifications out to parents that their child has a balance Any other questions, comments, issues, concerns? >> My contact information is on the bottom. >> Oops. Mr. um you mentioned announced the page 11 course of action plan that would be just reject just as it would be just like these findings. >>
040These are recommendations that do require corrective action. So there will need to be an approved corrective action plan to this >> and the business administrators. >> Yes, that's for me. >> Okay. Thank you. >> I think we need to we need to digest more but um because I see that repair in same findings over years and >> um three of them I think are repeat findings. >> Yeah. So that parts have to be addressed in our district. >> I just want to personally thank Jonathan. >> Yeah. >> Uh first time I met him. Uh I want to say thank you Jonathan to you and your staff. you were tremendously helpful understanding the transition that the three of us but some others in our office went through during this tough time. So I just want to
041personally thank you your staff and yourself very good and I look forward to working with you much earlier next year to do the audit than you did this year and thank you for everything and we we are very grateful for that and I want to thank everybody for their time tonight. My contact information is on the bottom of the first taken handout. If there be any questions, comments, concerns, please feel free to reach out. >> Thank you. I see your you mention about difficulties of this year that have been delayed by the administration turnover. So deeply appreciate what you're doing job at this moment. So hopefully as video say that next year will be coming. >> Hope to see you. >> It's everybody's okay with that. You see me in December. Yeah, >> earlier. >>
042Oh my goodness. >> Well, thanks so much everybody. Have a great day. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Have a good night. >> So now yeah, administration administrators will give us attentive budget presentation. You get two and our business administrator. >> So, uh I invite the audience to turn around. We're going to uh present some slides. You're invited to ask questions. Uh but certainly you know if you have if you have an important question during the process but maybe it's good to wait for the entire presentation because you may have a question that that is answered later. Um Amidia and I are going to to go through this. This is just to frame this. This is the tenative budget presentation. The final budget presentation has to be adopted by the board after the county approves
043the tenative budget and that will be I think the time frame is either very late April or early May. There's a window for the final budget. So this budget is not final. Uh it's our best thinking at this point based on the information we have. It is subject to change and you may hear me say that more than once. I think I can just use my laptop. Oh, there we go. Collection down here. I'm just Yeah, that's easy. All right, I'm stationary. So, the board finance committee and and the business office started by establishing some goals. Uh, the first is to stay within the allowable tax levy, and I'm going to just elaborate on this. You may be aware that New Jersey has a 2% tax cap. However, when inflation was running 2% or less
044and for many years like from 2010 and 68 years that followed, inflation was was very low and the Fed had a target rate of 2%. Uh the 2% tax cap worked much better at that point in time. More recent years, and I'm going to show you some information, inflation spiked. you may recall after COVID and it's still running high and because of that New Jersey allows you to go above 2% whenever there are some extraordinary expenses that that are increasing much more than the rate of inflation or then that 2% cap and you heard the auditor talk about healthcare and that's going to be a big part of this evening's story but our allowable is much higher than 2% and I will elaborate more as we move through Um the second one definitely support the
045priorities. It's about students. It's about learning. It's about education. Everything we do in this budget has to be with that focus. Um we're trying to reduce our reliance on fund balance for expenditures. I'm going to explain more about that later, but you did hear that our fund balance was lower at the end of this audit was the end of 2025. It was lower by over 900,000. We believe we've been using too much fund balance and we need to reduce our reliance on fund balance. We're looking for organizational efficiencies. That is just an ongoing goal. As new technology develops, if they're, you know, more efficient and better ways to do things and it it can save some money and keep that money in the classrooms with the children. We're always looking for those opportunities and we
046did that with this budget. Um, we have to plan long term for our facilities. There are quite a number of projects even in this this building alone. We did have a roof failure. Uh, we are working on getting that scheduled for a summer replacement. Uh, but we need to stay on top of and our facilities and it's always better to try to be proactive with facilities as opposed to an emergency repair especially when school is in session. So, we're doing our best, you know, going forward to really pinpoint what's needed and and plan that proactively. And then the last goal would be to ensure a transparent and effective uh budget communication with the community, with the board, of course. And that's part of what we're doing this evening. By the way, this will be posted
047for for the community. So, you know, if you don't feel like taking notes and certainly can can photograph it, but it'll be posted on the website by tomorrow. Okay, we do have a very challenging year. A lot of expenses have gone up. Midio, we don't really have this rehearsed. You jump in when when you think it's appropriate because Mido understands the numbers a lot better than I do. These we identified as the four big areas that are really uh giving us a challenge. Again, to be repetitive, health benefits. Uh and this is not just Palisates Park. This is all municipalities, all school districts throughout the state of New Jersey that participate in the state health benefits plan. So, a 31% increase is probably unprecedented. Um, we don't remember a rate that high. There have been
048rates that are way above the tax cap, 6 8 10%, but this is highly unusual and it presents a real unique challenge this year. special education programs and services. You did hear the auditor speak about we have a few more students, not not a large number, but more students that were not that have special needs that are placed out of district. And part of our challenge is we lack space. So, if we had more classroom space, we could probably create new programs for children with with a disability here. And and I think that would be something that our parents would welcome. Uh but it's been a challenge because of space quite frankly. Uh so we have a legal obligation. If we don't offer the program here and a child has special needs then we must
049send them out to a school district or the county programs that are appropriate for the children and that is uh you know a legal responsibility and a moral responsibility. Inflation I'll give you a little more data there but again inflation is really sticky. You hear the economists talk talk about it being sticky and now of course we have world events where we see gasoline prices going up and I think it's fair to assume that in the months ahead because gasoline prices affect everything else right deliveries plane fair so we kind of anticipate that inflation will not drop to that 2% Fed target rate it's going to probably hover above three and potentially go higher. No one has a crystal ball but you know we we are concerned about that. The fourth area are salaries and
050contractual obligations. So you know our employees are also dealing with inflationary pressures you know in their households. So I think the district has made every effort to offer salaries in that three to three and a half% range salary increases to help employees keep up with inflation. >> Right. But if you have a 2% tax cap again and you're offering three three and a quarter% salary increases that that that's hard to sustain. So here's an example of the benefits. Um they rose by almost 1.3 million over the past four years just to give you a perspective. But from this year to next year we're projecting they'll go up an additional 1.6. six. So in one year they're going up more than they went up in four years. And that fouryear growth number is high. And >>
051don't jump it. >> So obviously the big number that sits out there is that 1.6. So as Mr. Albano has indicated from December to January when the rates came in, we saw the 31% increase. So the the good news is I know what the first six months from July December that number is. I'm now included because there's no indication that we may not see another big hit 30% for six months. So built in the increase that just came through plus another 30% increase for the first six months of the next well the last six months of the next fiscal year. Again, we cannot I can't sit here and tell you will it be 30 again? Will it be back down to 10? There's no indication. But we had to take a conservative approach that we
052have to prepare once again for another hit in case it does come. So a video can look at a spreadsheet with numbers and figure out the story. I need visuals. Our brains work a little differently. So I I also find that communities do appreciate visuals and Jonathan had a lot of visuals as well. >> So uh we're we're compatible. So this just gives you a visual of health and pension and social security and dental all all of the benefits that our employees receive the increase over over a fiveyear period. And again, you know, you look at percentages. This this is incredible, but 7.4 8 7.8 and now 31%. That it's compounding compounding. And again, that in a 2% tax cap, that just is not sustainable. It's not. How do you manage that kind of dramatic
053cost increase? Additionally, um as uh the new central office team settled in, we learned about 30 of our employees had not been enrolled in the state pension. And this is a legal requirement. All employees of the school district that are full-time employees and even part-time employees have a pension option. So, we needed to work on getting them enrolled. Some only dated back two or three years, others dated back over 10 years. And what what you need to do is when you discover something like this, you enroll your employees in the pension. They do the calculations, interest, penalties, back payments, and the pension system sends you a bill. So, we have over 400 I'm sorry, 380,000 in bills right now in the business office, but there's still a few employees that we haven't received calculations for.
054So, the 400,000 is, I think, a very realistic estimate of what we will owe the New Jersey state pension system to make all these employees whole. So, now they are enrolled properly. Uh, but now we have to manage this payment. and I I share because it's a it's it's just an added significant budget uh challenge. This shows you uh those placements that I talked about. You do see a steady increase. And what we're having internal discussions about is can we somehow creatively look analyze our classroom space and and and you know there's no easy answer but if we could free up one or two classrooms and we do have three or four children with similar needs could we potentially hire a highquality teacher and a paraprofessional and whatever related services are needed and build a
055program here keep our so then you save not only the tuition But you save all the transportation costs of sending children to other districts. Uh you have 31. I will tell you this, you will never have 100% of your children here because if a child has unique needs, we're not a big district. We can't offer every level of special education services. If you have 10 15,000 students, they tend to have more range of programs. So for us, I would think, you know, probably at least half or 2/3 of of these children with specific needs will will still need to go to other district placements, but if we can even bring six or eight or 10 back, some of the placements are upwards of 70,000 80,000 per child. And again, then the transportation cost. So it's
056something we're working on, but really a big challenge is the space. And I don't have a simple answer, but we are examining that closely. Here's the inflation I talked about. So, I guess we all like to forget in 2022 when it was prices went up 8%. This is right from the the federal, you know, uh uh government's inflationary rates. But again, the blue line represents your tax levy increases. And I think the district has tried really hard to be respectful, you know, with New Jersey being so heavy on property tax. It's one of the one of the highest tax states in the country, right? So, you're trying to be mindful of the homeowner and the property owner and and maintain reasonable increases at a time where other prices are going out of control. But inflation
057like it hits our households, our families, it hits businesses, it hits the schools. And that that's an important message, you know, to deliver are we have fuel expenses, we have transportation, we have to put diesel gas in our in our buses, um food cost, energy cost, electric, inflation hits us as well. And um that's where we you know I'm pleased to see that last year you know the the the allowable tax levy increase enabled the the district to go to 3.2%. So now you see it's kind of evening out but but you know for the previous 5 years um you really were losing ground on on your revenue cost were outpacing your ability to raise revenue is how I would describe it. So this is actual spending and if you if you're listening carefully to
058the auditor in addition to let's take the year that he audited 32 million 35605 he also added money that we get for preschool federal grants for special programs. This we're we're getting down to just the general fund budget and the majority of that 32 million. There are some state funds and some other sources of funding, but the majority is is by local tax dollars. Okay? But even look at our spending just with the general fund. Again, you're just seeing that trend of 4.5% increase, 10 and a half% increase, 4.33. And again, that's I I keep I know I sound very repetitive, but I think you're getting the idea that a 2% does not work. This just breaks it down more in a narrative to put give you a little more perspective on it. Um the
059increase over those years 25.8 million to over 32 million to 6.2 million increase 24% just summarizing it the range of of of of spending went from 3% increase to the highest year of 10.4%. And again, I just at the risk of sounding repetitive, it's an important point that is this is just hard to do with the tax cap. So, you may be wondering, well, gee, how how did the district do it? And this is part of the the explanation. So, the auditor kind of closed out our our last fiscal year 2425. And you never budget to the peggy because by law we can't overspend our budget. So correct me if I'm wrong there. You always have a little bit of contingency. So if you're doing a good job, you're anticipating all your expenditures, all 32
060million of it, whatever it is, and maybe you have two or three or even 4% surplus. Okay? And again, you need that money because unexpected things come up. We're building a budget now for 26 27. It's hard to predict what's going to happen 6 8 months down the road. So you do sometimes get hit with surprises. But if you're fortunate, you have a 3 4% surplus and then that rolls over into fund balance or your savings. And there's different categories you could have. We have a fund balance for capital projects. That's how we plan to pay for the roof roof replacement that we're planning. uh you have a maintenance fund balance and then you have the unassigned fund balance which is really for emergencies. So the district to try to not reduce program not do
061layoffs or reductions they were using their savings for these past four years. So you see back in 2021 it was a very manageable amount of savings there. And by the way, this is perfectly legal. There's nothing wrong with doing this, but it's reasonable to use 400,000 or even 500,000 in 2020, 2021,22 because you can reasonably anticipate that you're going to have 67 800,000 in surplus. So you replenish that, right? Your savings doesn't get depleted. However, you see that we started becoming more and more dependent on the savings for to using it for operating expenses. So 1.6 almost 1.7 1.648 then a a huge dependency on your savings in 2425 of 2.2 million and then this current year that we're in uh one of 1.8 8 million in fund balance has been allocated to keep this
062district operating. The problem with this strategy is that it's good for a one-time fix, but that fund balance eventually goes so we year over year, the auditor just told us your fund balance went down by 900,000. So if you keep if you don't bring up your revenues and you keep spending, you're going to hit a wall. And we are hitting that wall. And basically again just a little more narrative. Expenditures rose faster than revenues over the past four years. The district relied on fund balance to close the gap. Your fund balance is declining and now we are left with a structural uh budget deficit and we have pressure and and we need to address it. we need to bring the revenues more in line with our spending and and that that's no easy feat. So
063again, just you know using fund balance I think if you're allocating four 5600,000 and it also you know varies place to place because you have to have a good sense of how much contingency did I build in my budget? Do I think I'm going to have a $600,000 surplus at the end? Was it going to be a million surplus at the end? So those are all questions, but again the the the two the 2.2 million the 1.8 million in in my judgment and a video's judgment is is simply way too high. >> And if you don't mind, >> you want to speak >> the 1.8 8. Keep in mind that several month several months ago uh we came to the board and requested to use an additional $840,000 the 2526 budget because what we inherited
064would not suffice to carry us through the year. I can sit with you today to the best of my abilities of that 840 that we had to ask for additional I'm down to about 500,000. So it was needed and especially when the taxpayer the health benefits bill came in we needed it. So it's 1.8 but we did use another 840. So it's really about a 2.4 million use of fund balance. We were fortunate in that uh you heard from the auditor that the extraordinary aid since it was not a budgeted line item we were able to use it but we didn't put it up here because it was really allowed but it was supplemented by another $840,000 that was not raised through the tax move this um last year again I pointed out that it
065was good that we went above the 2% cap to 3.2, but we didn't make up much ground again because there was such a heavy reliance on the fund balance and went from 2.2 to 1.8. So year-over-year the budget only increased by 50,000 and all of our expenses went up much more than 50,000. And if I could of course you you would need to understand how to read the state formatted budget to see the 50,000. I know how to read it. So that's why we put it here. If you would look at last year's, it does not reflect a true 50,000, but that's all adopted budget to adopted budget actually run up for last year. So it went out for 3.2, but only an additional 50,000 in expenditures were high. Thus why we probably needed the
066840 in addition for this year. So, for the past four years, the district used a significant portion of fund balance, onetime revenues, supported operations, you avoided cuts. Um, you kept taxes low. You you really did your best for the taxpayers. Um, however, right now that that no longer can be done. Um, our fund balance is declining and we have less surplus to offset the cost going forward. Our reality is we have a structural budget gap. Onetime resources are no longer sufficient, meaning fund balance. Um, we have to try and make every effort to to all of our recurring costs, all of our legal requirements, contractual requirements, all of those things we need to run the district. We have to try to get the revenues to match the expenditures if I had to break it down
067in a really simple comment. So that's that's the tough news. So now um I'm going to pause and just do our board members the audience later I think has an opportunity. Do our board members have any questions about anything I covered thus far from me or video we could get going at the end. Okay. So, we've been meeting many long hours, evenings. We met with the finance committee. Uh they they've seen a lot of this information. The entire board hasn't seen uh this full presentation yet. Uh this the first time this evening. Uh but we are working internally with the admin team and having a lot of long thoughtful discussions. How do we address this issue? Well, the first thing is we right away and I feel bad about this, but we we're implementing strict
068strict controls, right? So, so teachers who put in for very legitimate conferences, quality conferences, we did support some in the beginning of the year, but I am at this point saying unfortunately no, because we we have to just control expenses. Um, I don't like saying no, but but we have we have to be mindful there's limited funding. Uh, we're doing everything to to maximize our federal funds. The work on grants, the state funds, you know, the the preschool here, by the way, cost the taxpayers nothing. Well, indirect, you do pay state taxes. So, the state funds the preschool, but it doesn't come out of your property taxes. And it's a real wonderful thing that you're offering this community because you know private preschool can cost upwards of 15 18,000 but here it's free of charge
069and we have you know 170 students in the ECC. Uh we have a partnership program with the nutrition academy. So this is a real benefit and I want to emphasize that that is not a burden on the local taxpayers with their property tax. Um sorry to digress. Um but we we believe we definitely have to reduce using fund balance and and there is no choice in that really. Um and we have to look at staff and try to reduce operational cost and this is always a really difficult decision to have. I did, just so the board knows, I did send out an email to the staff um saying that we have to have a discussion about staff reductions because our our employees represent well over 70% of the budget. You know, things like materials and
070paper and, you know, supplies and pencils. That's such a small fraction of a school budget. Even even books, you think, but really the the bulk of the money and and it the way it ought to be, right? We're in the people business, right? We're in the education business. So, you need, you know, professionals to do that work. But that is where the bulk of the money is. And when you're facing a budget deficit and and a challenge like this, you have to look at reducing staff if you're going to get your budget under control. So, this I want to emphasize, has not been decided. It's a proposal. And again, I I this will be posted because I want to be very transparent. I don't want to have people panicking because, you know, we went through
071a tough time last year and a lot of people, you know, left the district. We had a significant amount of turnover and I really don't want to see that happen again. Um, but I also need to be transparent. So, it's a bit of a balancing act. These categories may change, but to close this budget deficit, what it would take would be two less administrators districtwide. Not saying who or or or what the title is. We're just saying two administrators. The a four aids that you see, we employ directly. They're required for children's IEP. There's no there's no room there. Same thing with the bus driver aids. They're absolutely necessary. If we contracted our busing out, we would pay more. So, we have four people here that drive for us. We act it's a big cost
072savings. So, they are very val valued employees and and they're wonderful. Uh but it's also a big cost saver. Clerical, we we we had the plus one. You may say, how how could you be adding in a budget crisis? But there was a person out on leave who has returned now. So that really is is kind of staying flat, but from this current year to next year, it is a plus one. Um and and that gives you 10 total. Uh custodial maintenance workers, full-time, we only have nine um full-time facilities people in the district, and we think we need to maintain all. Um there there's, you know, we have a lot of grounds, a lot of square footage. So um we just don't see any ability to reduce that number. Um however in the evening
073and and mostly after school hours we we do hire part-time custodians. Most of them work like 25 hours a week and this is a real hit. But again we we have to close the gap. Some decisions need to be made. So we are proposing it's not definite yet and we have to do a lot more analysis but reducing that number by eight um exempt employees that's more you know central office staff it it's a lean staff okay that's going to stay flat uh that's like your payroll clerk your your your necessary your accounts payable there's things functions that you absolutely need um then teachers certificate support staff That is just all the people that work with children. That that's your biggest group of course, but teachers, psychologists, guidance counselors, social workers, they all fall into
074that category. I am not tonight prepared to say exactly who or exactly what title, but if we can through attrition um avoid layoffs, we're going to do that as much as possible. But I can tell you there will need to be some reduction. Will the number be 18? I'm hoping it doesn't have to be 18. But right now, just based on the information we have, we're putting that number in as a placeholder. And Emidio and I met with the admin team this morning being fully transparent. And I can't make the decision of what, you know, my my main charge to them is what is the least negative impact to children. what reductions could be made that will be the least negative impact to our students and we they to their credit they stayed for 3
075hours locked down in the room it's a confidential meeting at this point but we're throwing around ideas but we're not sharing that publicly because that process is evolving and emidio continues to look for financial resources and other things that we can do but this is a possibility it's Not it's not a definite but this this is a real challenge because I will say this my analysis is I don't think Palisades Park is overstaffed. I really don't believe that but the money has to come from somewhere. We most of you may know we use an agency ESS for our par profofessionals. We have 68. These are people like our kindergarten aids, our preschool aids, um one one 2:1 aids for special education programs. Uh we're doing our best to see if if if there's uh the
076ability to reduce that number by six. Um, but if if a child has a onetoone aid on their IEP or a 2 to1 aid and there's two children with an aid, by law, you have to provide that. So, so there's not much wiggle room here. So, summing it up again right now, preliminary thinking, not definite, but we may need to reduce overall 33 positions. And we're trying to kind of have it across different jobs, not all concentrated in one area. And this may shift. It may shift because again, I think our goal needs to be in making these tough decisions, how do we protect children and education and preserve that to the best of our ability? And I'm going to let you close it up. So based on the information that we've been able to
077compile together um through the bud budget process, we do qualify for what they call as a health cap waiver which came out to roughly about $1.3 million which can be applied to the taxes which thus brings us to 6.74 for tax levy increase. with that it only increases the budget by $771,000 budget to budget. Keep in mind that we talk budget to budget. The new budget for next year is at 33,784 with the maximum allowable tax levy based on my calculations. And as I was working through these numbers uh through the state program, it gives you edits. I resolved a good portion of the edits are still there. I'm not concerned because they don't hold up the budget. I do have one thing I have to work through. But we feel very confident this evening
078that this is the budget that will go down to the state if the board supports a 6.74. We are very cognizant 6.74 is ahead. But I trust me when I tell you we are getting the same feedback. You are will start hearing other school districts coming out with very similar numbers. We do know Leona is about to present to six uh we heard Richfield Ridgefield seven other districts are starting to see the same pressures. a good portion of them the numbers are being driven by the state health benefit number that came out that hurt many many districts and you heard your auditor not just districts municipalities so it's an impact on both sides so we are doing our best again we want to emphasize the cuts that we're recommending are not set in stone it
079more or less we had to get to a number for Those that were at the last board meeting, we talked about a $3 million deficit. That's basically what we spent from the last board meeting to now. How can we get there? So, we had to apply offsets in certain areas. Reduce here, reduce there. Uh I use the term uh other areas. I looked at prior year spending. some some account line items I rolled all the way back to the 22 23 actual expenditures just to try and find the money so that it's the least amount of damage to staffing. Our goal is not to impact education but when you talk teachers you talk education. So our goal between tonight and the adoption of the budget which is tenatively scheduled for the 27th, we have a
080lot of work with the administrator. We we spend three hours brainstorming. Well, if we do this, how can we save here? If we reduce here, can we put another body back in? So we we do have a lot of work still ahead of us to minimize the impact on the education. anyone that was listening in last week, you know, we did start this conversation. The board very thoughtfully asked about tax impact. You know, Baron, I think in particular, how does this affect the homeowner? You what can they expect in the way an actual dollar increases based on the value of their home? So, we video did a lot of um calculation and work, but I want to emphasize we're not the tax assessor and we're the school district. So that work and and the specific
081tax increases that a homeowner will experience will will come later. But we do have a pretty good idea. But I want to emphasize we're going to show figures that were calculated in house but they are estimated figures based on um analysis of other taxes. So Midia, why don't you explain this? So, um, I actually reached out to, uh, some board members to send me their tax code just so I can get a reference point. I was unable to get communicate with anyone in the bureau to give me some written information. So, this is based on the tax bill that I received. I was able to back into certain numbers. So, that's why we put that disclaimer. I am not a tax person. I just work backwards into numbers. But uh I always like to break
082things down into hundred thousands because it seems like you can look at your assessment, use the $100,000 and you can do it. So basically um right now we're estimating for every $100,000 of assessment, it's an additional $47. So again, keep in mind when we talk assess, it is not market value. A lot of people confuse market value with assessed value. You have to specifically look at your tax bill and it tells what tells you what your home is assessed at. Um, so this was a an effort on my part to give board members information. I'm hopeful that I got it right, but I am not a tax expert. I I took certain numbers and they calculated correctly. So that's why we felt comfortable presenting it. But again, every home is different. But if you use
083your assessed value by 100, it kind of brings you into the ballpark. So to close it out, and again, sorry to be repetitive, but I think it's important to be clear. What we're asking the board to do this evening is potentially support a tenative budget and tax levy increase of 6.74%. That is not the final budget. It'll go up to the county. If the county approves it, it comes back to the board. you at that point can say to us, look, we've we've gotten feedback. We've heard from the community. It's too high. We need to drop down to 5.74 or 4.74 or even low. And we certainly would understand that, you know, these are challenging times for many people. And, you know, another increase on your property taxes is is not easy with all the
084other increases that people are experiencing. But we're here to say that every percent we drop, it's important to understand, it represents about 270,000 full%. Yes. So a full percent drop. So you could go from 6.74 to 5.74, but then we have to find additional cuts or reductions. And just to put it in perspective, 270,000 is probably three teaching positions. So, you know, as it is, these reductions are really, really difficult on the district. If we had to do another three or another six and the board really and it's it's, you know, we appreciate the board volunteers. This is a really challenging decision for all of you and there's just no easy answer. But I will say this as a video of you know other districts it's this is problem is not unique to Pal Park
085and you probably hear me say that over and over this 31% health on top of you know ongoing health increases there you know 7% 8% nearly 8% then 31%. Yeah, that that's an that's important because you got to look over time to realize how significant this is. So with that, we'd love to take questions from the board on any lot of information, but we're happy to take questions or or comments or whatever >> and then do you want no if there's questions on the slide first. When exactly does the 31% becoming enacted? When do we start paying that increase? >> January 1st. It happened. It happened. >> We already paid. We're already paying. >> The difference between our December health benefit bill and our January health bill is roughly 30. >> So you're you're saying
086you're estimating that we're going to get another 30% next year. >> I put it in. Yes. >> As an estimate, but isn't that highly unlikely? Because that would wouldn't that >> I I wish I could tell you yes or no. I don't know. I have to budget again. We'll find out. Last year at this time when we were doing budget presentations state wasn't talking about 30% increases. >> What were they saying back then? >> From what I remember, they were talking more low 20s, high teens. So, it's unpredictable. And health cost across the board. I mean, right now in this district, if you're a person with a family plan, uh, the premium is roughly $75,000 a year for health and health prescription and things. That's more than most salaries to cover and that's for a
087family plan. Oh, so this is is this tied to the fact that um the aid sort of was rejected by the administration present. Is that what it's related to all this stuff? Anyway, >> no no the health >> the health as the health is we have no control over it, >> right? >> It's we have a state health plan. That's the increase. The increase it's calendar year just to be clear. It's not. So we we operate on a fiscal year July 1st through June 30th. The health increases are calendar year January 1st through December, the end of December. So so we potentially could have another significant midyear increase. And again, if you look back, you know, maybe it won't be 31, but what if it's 24? what if it's like you know and again I
088I hope it's not the case because it would be just extremely challenging but again the other thing about this this allowable tax levy of 6.74 the state acknowledges that districts can't can't handle this kind of increase so that's why a 2% tax gap in New Jersey they're allowing you to go higher to deal with this increase. It's not just by chance that they let us go that high. It's it's it's a it's a calculation. We have to submit all our information and they tell every district. Other districts can go 7 and a half%. Others may be only 5%. But Calpark got its calculation and again it's based on our need. So please other questions. So for the board members your understanding that because the border leadership and finance committee had a few meetings in this
089for the presentation so but so for your so correct me if I'm wrong so you are presenting that um potential 30 position cut right >> yes >> and then the 1% if you reduce uh tax increase then additional three position cut. So it's going to three sorry 33 >> yes >> and another 4% 36 people will be >> laid off. So, it's a very challenging decision for you guys. >> And again, we're going to be spending the next month refining, looking, determining, uh, making judgments as to what's the best way to adopt the budget for next year. So, we're we're doing our best to work through it and all that. when we're done with questions. I did have the board handout that I just want to point to certain things and so that the community
090can hear as to other factors that drove some of the decision making. Do you want to turn it over to the public or do you want me to do the next part and then we'll go to public? >> Um yeah, first of all, thank you for this presentation, Mr. Banana, Mr. I know this is also hard decision for the board also hard for you that I know that we all don't want to cut any right we want to raise it to teachers and retain it many we could provide up to date activities and care technologies to our students right and all your energy and but yeah thank you for your um working with is what >> to make it a sustainable plan. Thank you. >> Uh sorry the 6.74. So you said that was a
091recommendation to us based on calculations but like some some towns are going higher than that. >> I haven't heard but maybe one that we heard of but I can't confirm a little over seven. >> A lot a lot of districts are adopting their budgets this week. >> So like also if you raise % of saving >> right well no this is the maximum we can go maximum >> yeah I looked at every there were other options cap banking there is none this was the only waiter that I saw that would qualify for so we we >> this is the highest that you could go um you certainly can go lower and what we will do with the board as as other districts adopt their tenative budgets which is happening over the next few days probably.
092>> Friday the deadline. >> Friday's the deadline. Okay. So, we will collect that information and share with the board because it it is important to have perspective and and to to see um but but every district has different financial, you know, certain. So, you you may see some some tax living increases recommended in in the three low as 3% and as high as over seven. We're on the high end. So, with that, I just um for the board, I handed out I use this format. It's actually from the state. This is what I've been working on the last several weeks. It's the state format. Some of the other things that we have to address and the auditor did address it earlier for the board. If you go to it says uh line 580 budgeted from
093balance operating budget and again we're emphasizing the fact for 2425 the district used $2.2 million of fund balance. Right underneath it you also use $350,000 from maintenance reserve to balance your budget. really it was 2.5 million to balance your budget in 25 24 25 current year budget is 1.8 the most conservative approach that Mr. about and I myself we are still putting a million dollar out of fund balance into next year's budget. That's a drop of $811,000. That impacted some of these cuts. You have to understand that it impacted because we lost some revenue some and then we had this conversation um today about well what more can you do even if we even if we didn't use the 1 million we're back to the 1.4 plus whatever we generate this year on the expense
094side I already indicated we're at 500. Mr. Rob shows you the slide that based on the people that we enrolled, we know we have a $400,000 bill that we have to make up this year. We're working to see what avenues we have. So, are we going to generate $1.8 million? No, we don't have the money to put back. It's going to be another deficit. So, we we are going through a million. We feel comfortable that we can use it. We will, but it's going to have an impact moving forward here as we have to work together. The other area that the district although it does it does reflect in here is a line item 430 extraordinary aid. The audited number for 2425 shows you $836,000. That's the money. That's the money I alluded to that
095we used this year. It was actually last year's revenue, 2425 revenue, but because the district did not budget for it, you were allowed to use it this year. So this year, again, we sat we estimated increasing revenues for that line item by 600,000. So we're looking at different avenues Um, Mr. Albano and I spoke today, what has been your practice? My practice and maybe it's from my prior experience and years ago when districts voted on their budgets, I happened to be in the district. My first eight or nine years in that district, seven of those budgets failed. So, I had a mechanism with the town's business administrator. I used to deliver my budget before you even went out to vote. We both knew what was coming. So I knew back then we'd look for every
096revenue. So again, extraordinary aid. It's not a given. So in the budget document, it shows 8 836. I usually stay around 80% of a prior year number. So we're putting in 600 again to help manage the deficit deficit. I'm not going to go through all of the expenditures. We'll save that for the adopted budget. But again, I can share with you, we work with the administration. We're doing our best to find avenues not to impact education. We looked at the areas that we couldn't just sit here and say teaching staff and everybody else is okay. We looked at every area. our facilities. Not that I'm an expert, but there's a general rule based on square footage, how much a custodian should be able to clean on and on a seven, eight hour basis. It's kind
097of how we came up with the eight. We looked at that. So, there are going to be impacted on efficiencies and things of that nature. So, we're doing our best to minimize the impact, but we we were faced with some uh serious challenges. the use of fund balance is probably one of the biggest and then you take the impact of state health benefits you know so we're going to continue to balance and see where we wind up and hopefully a month from now that the cuts aren't as deep and we'll find other resources and mechanisms again we sat for a good three hours today schedules aid placements how kids working in classrooms. It's a it's an evolving process and it's not an easy one. We just we're doing our best. Uh we you heard that
098one, two, three. So, we basically have four new people in the admin office and the one stable person has now has resigned and moving on. So, we're going to have a fifth new person in the central office. So, we're all working together to try and learn the district to the best of our abilities to make sure that we're doing what's right for the education base. We wish we had better news. Uh, but we're going to continue to work together as an administrative uh to give you a budget that gives you the best efficient education. >> Thank you, M. to our work session to discuss over our business agendas. First, education, would you agenda please? uh education field trips board of education upon the recommendation of the superintendent approves the following field trips destinations plan the
099date it says March second we revis Mr. June name is not here in our meeting tonight. So I'll just read the seven agendas. One, acceptance of fiscal year 2025 audit and annual comprehensive financial report. Two, tative budget resolution. Um as they explain the total general fund is solid 6 billion 78 $82,194. Um so total it's 9 39,640,682. That will be the local tax portion will be 29 million49,132. And also there's a notes that there will be the budget hearing meeting on April 29th, 2026 at 6:30 p.m. at the child early child center. Number three, treasures report September 2025 for acceptance of bure donation from Kisa Public Library. Thanks to the board members of public library for your generous donation and number five and six were good. So we're discussing next meeting since we need u
100the administrators will need to clarify for their decisions and number seven we want to wait for county technical schools to provide technology support services to our district between April 1st 2026 to 306. Do you have any questions? >> So, we're looking at >> it's new IP. Yes. >> Um kind of is it going to be enough? >> Uh we're meeting tomorrow. We we um we have a technology coordinator has submitted a resignation. So this is to to cover that. So if we need more, I would would come back to the board. But I'm hoping that that is sufficient. It's very reasonably priced though. And and yes, we'll need to work out some details. Any further questions and discussion? Next question, Mr. Personnel. We has four agendas today. Number one, resation level. Number two, resignation of
101assistant football coach. Number three, appointment of a middle school dance coach. Number four, appointment of a volunteer soft coach. That's it. >> Thank you. Any questions? >> It was good to ask before >> which middle school course. It's just new >> every year. in person. >> No further questions. >> Next negotiations, but I think a war was okay for this agenda to for further discussion. >> Yes. Uh this requested we're very close to a resolution on this. Uh they did request just a little more time to discuss a few details. So probably you'll expect to have this at the next meeting recommended to you for >> approval. May I have a motion to close your work session and open to the regular session? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> Thank you. and virtual board
102presence. What I just want to say is thank you to everyone that it's been a very busy month. We just had our regular meeting last week and since then we all are busy with budget meeting and for today's meeting too and audit presentation the order review of all documentation. It was been it's a it's been it's a good volume documentation that we have to do and review and my special thanks to again to our leaders. I know since the last meeting that I see that came out the office very late and we talk about it and the weekends and after their working hours too. Thank you. And for boarding members some of you sent to me the your cup of beer. during the weekend video. So we all have helped each other and we discuss
103about the budget and our financial situation too and I I guess still again it's a hard decision for us to approve this um this plan but um I think we have we need to base our financial state of our school district to survive and for a sustainable future for our education decent education hopefully in few years too. >> So Mr. Brown, do you have any special any reports? >> Uh no no special report this evening or focus on the budget but thank you to the finance committee and the board for many long hours of of hard work. We appreciate it. >> Thank you. So educ ation. I have a motion to approve uh one agenda under education for bridge trip. >> All in favor? Finance. We have five consent agenda. We exclude we excluding number
104five. Emergency room repairs. You're also removing authorization for transfer from capital reserve number six. So we are approving number one, two, three, four, seven, five, consent agenda. May I have a motion? Second, please. Yes. Yes, Mr. Justin Jones. >> Yes, >> wait. So, this is with the increase that you're saying is this 6 for number two of finance. >> So, you accept the number two. You approve all that >> Yes. So all um yes so all resolution has been passed in finance. Next personnel may have a motion to approve all personnel agendas. Second >> yes. >> Mr. Justin. >> Yes. >> M. >> Hi. >> Mr. Dun. >> Yes. >> Mr. Okay. Um um but um just to clarify, would you when I ask you explanation that the reason that you um take up the
105number two that. So you're not agree with this tax increase? >> Not at all. No. >> No. Okay. >> Well, you know that because I remember that last year you were the only one of two board members opposed to the step up due to the budget struggle. practically we needed sources to retain uh we needed money to retain all the staff and that's one reason that we increase this percentage of tax. >> Yeah. So I'm just explaining that there should be money if those and teachers. All right. So, may I have a motion to close our regular session and open our meeting to the public? >> All in favor? In order to conduct its meeting properly and efficiently, the board should require the following procedures to public participation at board meetings. Any individual desire to
106speak should give his or her name, address, and group if any that is represented. The presentation should be as brief as possible, but no more than three minutes per individual. The board invest in his presence or other preserving officer authority to terminate the remarks of any individual if she he deems if in the best interest of those present to do so in public. May I have a motion to close your public participation session? >> All in favor? Thank you. Probably. Thank you for having come this meeting tonight and then we're going to close the session to discuss the legal matters, the personal matters. It might take off at least 30 minutes. Everyone have a good night.