001foreign [Music] 2023-24 uh budget um the state on Thursday March the 16th 2023. if you'd all please rise for a central flag of Silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you local police is uh going to be late this option at the moment lifelong Learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to the Democratic Society in an ever-changing world public buildings and public bodies at which all business is affecting our interest is discussed selected upon foreign [Music] Europe I'm sorry I'm gonna start off today and I'm going to ask my team to uh three one two check one two three Mark how we doing check one two three now
002there's about a minute delay between like we're pretty much live on City but when we're streaming there's a minute delay between what we're seeing here and then what the people are seeing at home on their computers so this sound check will it'll hit us about a minute this is probably I can't see you guys I want to be able to see you are you okay that's good thank you Mr chair okay Mr mcconnelly we're good to go thank you good evening commissioners administrative team members of the community uh watching on the live stream and our invited guests here tonight and our guests who weren't invited you're welcome to tonight we have a presentation a really informal presentation on the temporary budget not the temporary budget the tentative budget the preliminary budget in the past ladies
003and gentlemen this is something that would take place in the finance committee the administration would meet with the finance committee we would talk about the district's needs we would talk about the state aid that we're receiving and then we would make a decision on how to go forward with the budget before the rest of the board even knew what was going on and last year if you remember the night of our actual budget hearing there were some Commissioners who rightfully questioned some things about the budget they wanted to know well what did the administration ask for that perhaps the finance committee said no to what was that discussion like because they weren't a part of it and so thanks to the entire board for this year saying hey we want to hear this presentation we
004want to know what the district's needs are so that we can make an informed decision when it comes to budget time now please note you there is no formal vote tonight there is no action that will be taken purpose of tonight it's for the administration to present to the board what we believe are the district's priorities and for you to give us Direction on how to move forward we're going to give you options in our budget and the goal is tonight for us to have a probably lengthy which is okay but a fruitful discussion on the budget of the Clifton public schools for the 23-24 school year the budget is a board of education decision the board of educations one of their one of their Prime primary responsibilities is fiscal responsibility and that means the
005budget other than policy it is perhaps your biggest responsibility however in my experience this board and previous boards have always listened to the administration the Administration has demonstrated what it needs to provide for the children and staff members in this district and I have no doubt that that will happen again this year you as the board represent the taxpayer but please don't forget that you also represent the students who oftentimes have no voice in the budget and you represent the staff who oftentimes don't have any say in the budget and we are a large operation in the Clifton Public School District 11 000 students almost 1700 staff members in 22 buildings say large comprehensive operation and we have a lot of needs before I get to those needs tonight by trade I'm a history teacher
006and I'm a firm believer that in order to know where we're going we have to know what has happened in the past so please allow me some time to talk about the history of how we got to where we are tonight not just in Clifton but in the state of New Jersey as far as it pertains to the budget can you confirm with Mr mccunney that they're sound ing this is because understand okay state constitution of New Jersey has a clause that provides for the thorough and efficient education of children between the ages of five and 16. that thorough and efficient Clause is something that has been controversial in the past especially when it comes to school funding prior to the 1970s school districts were primarily funded just through property taxes the state had very
007little to do with state aid and giving money to local districts but it wasn't until the 70s 1973 to be exact a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court decision Robin silver Robinson vs Cahill where the Supreme Court of New Jersey said thorough and efficient the thorough and efficient Clause of the Constitution requires the state to make sure there is equal educational opportunity for all students regardless of where they live and in the early 70s that was not happening many would argue it's still not happening today so the Supreme Court said to the state it is your responsibility figure it out and so one of the things the state did was implement and people who were alive then and had a job probably remember the first ever income tax in the state of New Jersey and most
008of that income tax at the time was dedicated for the state to utilize for education back then and today approximately 40 percent of the state's budget is spent on education to local school districts in order to meet this thorough and efficient Clause that the constitution of New Jersey requires but for decades ladies and gentlemen it didn't work there were arguments over who was supposed to get the money how is it supposed to be spent why did some districts get more than others you heard of the famous uh another landmark decision Abbott versus Burke which created what we now call the Abbott districts these were the poorest districts in the state of New Jersey that the Jersey Supreme Court said to the state you have to provide more to these districts because it costs more money
009to educate poor students and so the Abbott districts were created and tons of money flowed into those districts oftentimes at the expense of districts who were just on the outside of the poverty level needed to be needed to be an Abbott District and so finally in 2008 the New Jersey legislature proposed the school funding Reform Act before 2008 the state wanted equality the state wanted districts to be treated equally the school funding Reform Act changed that to the state wanting adequacy and what does adequacy mean ing you have enough to do what you need to do to adequately educate the children in your District so they went from trying to provide everyone with an equal amount to basing it on the needs of individual districts but what happened was when they ran this formula this
010new school funding formula 180 districts were going to lose state aid and so they couldn't pass the law the law couldn't get passed so they did something in order to get this law passed they said okay we're going to give more money to the districts that the formula says need more money but the districts who are supposed to lose money not get any Aid We're going to hold them harmless that became known as hold harmless Aid which meant they could not get less money than they did the prior year and that was supposed to be a temporary fix so how did that how did that work with the school funding reform acted was it changed the the funding of schools to the Money Follows the students so ladies and gentlemen on October 15th of every
011year it's a very very important date for administrators for superintendents for business administrators that is the day that is uh we we count all the students in our district and we apply for um money for state aid through the Assa the application for state school aid and that amount of money is based on how many students you have in your District and the Baseline of that formula is that an elementary student costs according to the state of New Jersey an elementary student costs 11 000 and nine dollars to educate that's the Baseline so for every Elementary student in Clifton to give them an adequate thorough and efficient education the state says needs to be eleven thousand and nine dollars and then there are other weights added to students that will give a district more money
012to educate those students for example if a student student second uh first language is not English if they are an English language learner if a child has a disability if a child is in poverty because it costs more money to educate those children So based on the formula the poorer your students are the more money you'll get per student you'll get more money based on a formula for every special education student and so how the formula works it's very simple you count the number of students the formula Works itself out by how many language Learners you have how many special education students you have how many poor students you have and then and this is an important piece the state calculates what the local fair share is what the adequacy budget is meaning how much
013should the city that those children live in be putting towards the children's education and that depends on the local property values in that town depends on the number of rateables in that town because what happened in the 70s was the poorest towns couldn't raise enough money through taxes because they didn't have enough rateables there weren't enough businesses there weren't enough people paying property taxes so that's why the state had to fix that Supreme Court said that's not fair that a a rich town can raise a whole bunch of money through property taxes but a poor town could and so the adequacy budget is the count of all the students based on the school funding Reform Act the difference between that and what the local fair share is what the state says the city of Clifton
014should be providing and the difference in those numbers is what you get in state aid I want to make sure we understand that that's critically important to what we're going to discuss the rest of the night the adequacy budget the state calculates how much the district can afford and that becomes the local fair share and the sum of the costs educate all the students the difference between those two numbers is the amount of state aid that you receive however remember what I told you based on that formula 180 districts were going to lose state aid and in order to get the law passed the state held them harmless meaning districts who were receiving enough Aid never lost that Aid and then there wasn't enough what was supposed to happen was the districts that were receiving
015too much Aid were supposed to not get some of that Aid and the underfunded districts were supposed to be reallocated and get that money but for 10 years the state didn't do that for 10 years the state kept giving this um this whole harmless Aid until 2018 with the passage of S2 and the S2 legislation required the hold harmless Aid to be phased out over 60 years and the underfunded districts over the next six years to get more additional Aid each year for six years everybody with me so two starting in 2018-19 school year some districts started losing Aid but remember they had been getting more than they should have for 10 years everybody forgets that part and on the contrary a district like Clifton didn't get what they were supposed to be getting for
01610 years so what that meant was over the next six years Clifton was one of the most severely underfunded districts in the state of New Jersey and then every year since 2018 you can see on this graph 2018 was the first year we got a big chunk of state aid you can see that here very clearly three and a half million dollars approximately the next year that went up to five million and we got another five million and 21 we got 15 million and 22. last year we got 12 million and this year we got 22 million which brings us according to State calculations and it's a year early according to the state of New Jersey we are now fully funded when it comes to state aid and that's an important piece because next year
017it's like a cliff there's no big chunk of money coming in but look back in retrospect at all of what our kids missed out on our kids and our staff missed out on and this is just going back to 2013. we could go back to 2008. you see that red if we were fully funded we should have been getting 90 million dollars in state aid for that many years our kids have been shortchanged by the state of New Jersey according to their own funding formula by a staggering 503 million dollars this is not a made-up number this is 503 million dollars that according to the state's own formula should have come through Cliffs and what would our district look like today I wouldn't be able to stand up here and ask you for a thing
018if we had been fully funded since 2013. however while we were being underfunded by the state we also weren't putting in our fair share of taxes now I know a Clifton citizen when they open up their tax bill every year believes they're taxed enough I get it I'm a taxpayer myself but the fact of the matter is according to the state calculations the state expects you to go to two percent every year to meet your adequacy budget and our adequacy budget State recommended is that we should be getting 155 million dollars from local property taxes we are only collecting 18 million dollars eighteen and a half million dollars below that now that is through no fault of anybody what the boards of Education in the past did I completely understand what they did was several
019years went to a zero percent because we had gotten those chunks of money and some board members and I can't argue with them felt got this money how can we raise taxes we just got this money from the state that we we've deserved we've been long overdue but because of all those years of zeros you'll see here ladies and gentlemen 2017-18 less than a one percent increase 0.875 increase in the tax levy then three years in a row of zero last year would have been another zero if not for the last uh ditch efforts of the board and because of that and again I understand why but because of that the state going to the state of New Jersey we're fully funded on their end but they're going to tell us but you're shortchanging yourself
020on your own property taxes you are under adequacy by 18 million dollars because of this if anybody have any questions about that before we move on it's very important that I want to make sure that we're all on the same page and understand the context by which we are coming here to you tonight if anybody have any questions about this particular um part of the budget presentation Mr Brunswick thank you Dr Robert Posey is there any way to get back any of that 500 million in arrears or more since we only went back 10 years um no there's not the state when they passed S2 that law in 2018 said it would not be retroactive the only way we could recoup any of the funds and it's not from the state it's from our own
021taxpayers is by going to bank cap which Mr UC will explain later tonight I want to show you another to me a very illustrative um I'm going to come back to this number but a very illustrative chart this is the average homeowner tax bill if you own a home in Clifton you probably get this once a year on a little postcard and has a nice little pie chart and it shows you the breakdown how much of your taxes goes to the municipal side of the government how much goes to the county how much goes to the school we have been hovering around 47 percent of that for ever every municipality in every part of the state of New Jersey the majority of your property taxes go to the local school board for the schools this
022is not unique what's actually unique about this is that the school board's portion of the pie is much smaller than the Paseo County average and the state average why is that important it shows that not only have we been fiscally responsible you can say we've been fiscally irresponsible the say a county average most districts over 50 percent of their tax bill goes to their board's event Clifton 47. the state average almost 53 percent Clifton 47. our slice of the pie is smaller than the state average there are some districts West Milford 60 percent bring wood 58 percent and I'll come back to this because this is an important piece here prior to to the the administration receiving our state aid numbers for this year when we were planning budget planning without knowing what we were
023getting we anticipated that we were going to have to come here tonight and ask you to go six percent Bank cap and one of the reasons for that was because of this number here 14 million 251 263 dollars this the this number is the increase is fixed cost that we have no control over that's already in addition next year to what we have this year Mr UC is going to get into more detail about what these items are but we knew coming into this that we needed an additional 14 million dollars we were expecting seven from the state thankfully we got more I'm not asking you to go six percent Bank cap okay I'm thankful I don't have to ask you that but you're gonna see because of the chronic underfunding all those years that
024we have vast needs vast needs that after this year we're not going to be able to catch up because our state is going to remain flat this is this uh same same chart as I showed here um about the percentage of the tax bill that goes to education this is the same information and a different kind of chart for us visual learners [Music] so ladies and gentlemen tonight um I believe our district is at a Crossroads I hope that I have showed you that through no fault of our own through no fault of previous Boards of Education that we have been chronically underfunded there is absolutely no way to catch up we'll never catch up to what we should have had now meanwhile there are districts who were not only fully funded but we're over
025funded for an additional 10 years they're the districts you hear about now that are losing Aid Jersey City big one 30 million 61 million Thirty One Million was last year where my children go to high school the Freehold Regional High School District lost 6 million when I say lost and I just go back to these are my own kids my own tax bills I know my taxes are going up because they the only way to make that money up is to raise taxes I go back to for 10 years when you're overfunded were you given that back to the taxpayer I don't think so you were hiring additional staff and you still have those additional staff and you probably have more staff than you need and so it's a yeah it's a shock but it's
026it's a rebalancing and had the school funding reform acts formula been funded appropriately since 2008. this would be a much different District ladies and gentlemen so let me talk about this Crossroads for a second PTI is a significant portion of our budget let me be clear I have no problem with a student choosing to go to pcti for a particular program that they offer that we don't if their parent wants them to go for whatever reason their parent has I believe parent has the right to direct the educational upbringing of their children but what I have a very difficult time with ladies and gentlemen is the way pcti is funded in the 22-23 school year we will pay almost 8 million dollars in tuition acti in Passaic County 87 percent of pcti's budget comes from
027the local school districts in Hudson County one percent comes from the local school district where does the rest come from the county it's a County Vocational School now Hudson County is an outlier I admit but in Bergen County right up the road 49 percent of their County vocational budget comes from the local districts Paseo County we're paying almost 90 percent of it what's the point the point is the county is in doing their fair share now and let me back up because it's not going to reduce your taxes if the county pays more money right but you know what it does ladies and gentlemen remember this chart that shows we're 47 if we weren't paying 90 of pcti's budget that would be even smaller more important than that that's money we would be using here
028for our students for the needs you're going to hear about tonight from my team so there is a fundamental flaw in the way the County vocational schools are funded it's a fundamental flaw and last week I was with the commissioner of education at our Passaic County Roundtable and we brought this up and our answer was it's a county decision you know so we need to Lobby our legislators for a state decision there has to be some sort of minimum has to be a minimum that the county has to chip in it is not uh Fair like on the playground it's not fair it's not fair that we're paying 90 while other local school districts can send their kids to County vocational schools for half that another reason why we're at a Crossroads there's another two
029million dollar Charter School increase there was a moratorium on um approving additional students to go to charter schools for a couple years while it's gone um classical which one Classical Academy great people I know the superintendent principal very well great guy but they got approved for additional students um which whether or not they're actually going to meet what they said they're going to get for example if they say they're getting 100 students that comes right off the top of our state aid we have that has to be budgeted we don't even see that money and then if they only get 50 we'll get that money back you know a year from now a year later but that's budget so so charter schools have gone up 2.3 million dollars 2.35 2-5 excuse me two five again
030I believe that a parent has the right to direct the educational upbringing of their children however I'm not sure what that charter school is offering that we're not I'm really not I really don't know what they're offering them or not increasing enrollment give you one number June 30th of last year June 30th of 2022 we had 650 ell students English language learners 652. on October 15th when we do our count for state aid we had 1092. three months today we're pushing 1200. actually one of the reasons why we got more state aid this year because they funded the formula you get more money for a student who is ell because there's more need and you need more staff and there's testing and there's you know everything that goes along with it state is giving us
031more preschool money which is wonderful except where's the space where are we going I'd love to um look into renting some vacant buildings it's a lot of money we can expand we have so many great ideas that's money and after this year there's no more pot of gold so I hope that I've made the point tonight and not even really sure what I'm asking you I just want to make sure that we understand why we are where we are tonight and why after receiving additional state aid we're going to ask you for a little more and my team is going to get into more of the details of what our needs are I didn't mention inflation been to the supermarket lately inflation is up six percent in the last year cost of consumer goods are
032up six percent but it actually started before that so that trickles into everything that we do if we remain flat when we budget zero percent we lose money at the cost of everything else goes up and some educational things have gone up triple that amount and finally ladies and gentlemen um I want to give us a pat on the back here in Clifton for administrative costs what does that mean administrative costs are calculated it's the amount of money we spend on Administration me my team principals directors divided by the number of students it's how much money you spend per student on Administration in the group that we are in district-wise with comparative districts 92 districts our administrative costs is 22.8 percent below the state at below the average and amongst the state administrative costs we
033are 31 below the state average for administrative costs what does that mean that means we do more with less it means that yes I have two assistant superintendents but according to this I should have four more I'm joking but the reality is we have approximately 60 administrators based on this number just to get to the state average I should probably this District should probably have 18 more administrators to get to the state average and that's why when you go to a place like Passaic and Patterson there's not just the principle in every school there's a a vice principal an assistant principle there's more supervisors there's for for administration of the district and guess what I'm not asking you for that I just wanted to Pat us back I think we're we might be asking for
034a vice principal at one of our schools so um at this time I think I covered all the things I wanted to cover and I want to turn it over to our esteemed business administrator Mr UC before I give up the microphone does anybody have any questions about anything I talked about Mr Santiago so just looking at the percentage of tax bill to education come back to that real quick so we have the Clifton average which is lower than the county average and lower than the state average so obviously that also means like our cost per pupil is less than the county average and the average I don't have those numbers Mr Santiago but I would think that that is an accurate assumption yeah thank you yes sir okay Mr thank you for your kind
035attention Mr Lucy [Music] so good evening good evening everyone I'm like you see the district business administrator I'm taking I'm going to be continuing the presentation I want to be clear this presentation is a public forum on the budget overview for 2324 that would have typically happened in the finance committee but based on the committee and the board they requested to have this special meeting so the full board can hear the discussion have a discussion about the budget furthermore next week the board will be voting on a preliminary budget which is just a submission of the budget for compliance purposes to the Department of Education the final budget is not voted on until the regular board meeting on May 4th which is the public hearing on the budget so budget adjustments can be take place
036between next week after passing the preliminary budget and up until the May 4th public hearing to reiterate what Dr robertosie said the administration was expecting a state increase of around seven million dollars which would have been in line with being funded by the 24-25 school year but it seems the state went to fully equalize the formula in 2324. this is great news but we need to project for the future when state aid will be flat a huge majority of our budget increases year to year will have to come from the tax levy to maintain or grow our staff staff in operations the administration was anticipating coming to the board and asking for up to a six percent tax labor increase along with the assumed seven seven million dollar increase in state aid that was just
037to maintain current operations and to balance the 14.5 million dollar increase from current year to next year also for about five years now the budget has been balanced with increasing state aid with no tax levy increase so looking forward to 24.25 it will be very difficult to balance budgets with flat state aid and only a two percent tax levy increase if we don't start building our tax base now now after knowing the state aid numbers a comprehensive needs assessment that our team did indicates that we need to hire 93 staff the rest of the additional state aid increase from this year so we need to build our Revenue base so the following year we we're not looking at Letting Go staff we just hired because of the state aid increase that we got this year
038like looking at other districts state aid I've seen large districts comparable to us lose tens of millions of dollars a year such Jersey City and after 24.25 the soccer formula is actually sun setting so depending on what the legislatures do whether they're keeping this after formula or changing it we we don't know that that's a that's a we we won't know what future formulas hold for us it could be more generous to us or it could be less generous to us the only thing we know is what our tax base is that can't be taken away from us the district's fist costs to maintain operations from the current school year next school year we keep saying is that 14 million dollars this number represents current Staffing instruction on support programs maintaining facilities everything Etc transportation
039so thinking ahead to 2425 with a flat state will need to come up with a revenue source to maintain next year's operations with the staff who are looking to hire on the next slide I'll break down with the 14 million means going into the next school year and how going into the following school year that just salary and benefit obligations alone represent much larger than a two percent Levy increase which is which would be about seven to ten million dollars just benefits and salary alone it's probably seven to ten million dollars and a tax levy increase of two percent is only 2.7 million dollars on our current tax base our assistant superintendents will go into the vital staff we're looking forward to hiring next year later in the presentation first contraction salary obligations would increase
040by four million dollars current protections for health benefit premium increases three million dollars Charter School tuition which is a projected and mandated and mandated by the state 2.5 million dollar increase this projection is a 21.5 percent increase and an enrollment increase of 85. pcti will have an increase of 171 thousand dollars uh with a projection of 17 more students County Special Services tuition and state facilities have an increase of 621 000 and this also comes directly from the Department of there is an anticipated increase of almost 1.4 million for contracted Transportation this is in line with our prior year increases current year increases Transportation costs have been increasing dramatically and are projected to continue to instructional technology of an increase of around seven hundred thousand dollars this is to maintain our one-to-one Chromebook initiative to
041retire and replace Chromebooks along with other district-wide technology needs which is currently being funded through Sr funds that are expired and finally to retain the staff the district has hired using pbsas Grant funds and sr2 Grant funds that are expiring so looking at all these figures even if we had the ability to eliminate increases in all Department areas except salary salaries and benefits which is always going to be around seven ten million dollars year to year we would be short with only utilizing a two percent tax levy of 2.7 million dollars next staff retention in the future is a huge concern for us our Administration based on staff salary and benefit increase projections we have come up with how much staff we would be able to retain in future budgets with different current tax levy
042situations increased situations versus how much new staff positions we'd be able to fill next year of the 93 needed new staff for next year A two percent increase equates to retaining 36 new staff in the following year a four percent would be 56 staff in the New Year following year and a six percent the full 93. also the district has five collective bargaining agreements to be negotiated next year which is another variable to salary projections in addition to already skyrocketing health benefit premiums having said that let me quickly explain what bandcat means and whether Dr robertosie demonstrated earlier Clifton is now not Dr robertosie demonstrated earlier Clifton is now not meeting budget adequacy because of the local tax levy when in the past it was because of the underfunded State eight if a board just
043decides to not go to the legally allowable two percent tax levy increase in any given year future boards are either recoup those funds by raising taxes the amount of the difference in the prior years that they didn't go to two percent by Statute Bank cap is allowed to be recovered by the next three budget Cycles or it expires Forever at this point in time nine million dollars has expired and can never be reproved under the current formula two percent will expire from the zero percent tax levy in the 2021 year in this coming budget excuse me and another two percent will expire from the zero percent tax Liberty in the 21-22 year in the following Year's budget in the 24-25 budget the board went to two percent in 2223 therefore there's no Bank capped in
044the 2223 budget also the board must meet its current two percent tax levy in the 23-24 year in order to use Bank cap funds so you so you you must go to the current allow two percent before using any past Bank cap therefore if the district does not go to four percent this year we will lose two percent or 2.7 million dollars forever just on top of that 9 million from the past as you can see Clifton is at a fiscal Crossroads with this budget in maintaining instructional priorities in future years and respecting the needs of taxpayers um I'm now going to give it off to our assistant superintendent so we're going to go into uh the Staffing details the specific Staffing that we're talking about good evening good evening it's always a pleasure to
045be here um even when we're at a fiscal Crossroads every year when we build the budget we really look closely at our instructional priorities and student needs we always do a comprehensive needs assessment this past year we did a scheduling Deep dive and we've been really looking at our evolving student population and as a result of all of that we see that in an Ideal World we need 93 additional staff members most of which are instructional instructional needs of our students are really based on the evolving population we have had huge unprecedented growth in my entire history in Clifton in ESL we've had an increase in special ed also not seen really ever our students are coming in with increasing social emotional needs behavioral needs communication and counseling needs however Although our needs assessment tells
046us that we need all of these positions we know we can't have all of them and that's what this conversation is about depending on what choices the board makes in terms of a budgetary increase will drive how many of these positions may be filled because of our evolving needs when we looked at our schedule we know that we do need two additional High School elective teachers because many of our elective classes are overfilled and the many new students coming in don't have a choice in many cases because they wind up in whatever section is available but it's that increase in ESL and special ed that is really driving the vast majority of these requests as Dr Robert Posey shared we went from 652 Ells to now today almost 1200 were oh well over 1100 that's
047in less than a year that's nearly doubling the size of the program that's never happened before and we still have English language learners registering weekly these are not our typical English language learners many of the students coming in are coming in with interrupted formal education they're coming in with trauma and stresses and need additional counseling many of them are Asylum Seekers and refugees which we have not seen in this District in quite a number of years just to address the needs we see today despite what we've done in with creative scheduling this year we need somewhere in the vicinity of five or six ESL teachers again depending on what this board decides in terms of a percentage increase so any numbers I say can be adjusted based on the decisions made with nearly doubling of
048that program our ESL supervisor just can't keep up we need another supervisor for that program our special education increases are continuing in a typical school year we test somewhere in the vicinity of 400 students a year and a certain percentage of them qualify in a certain percentage won't qualify for special education we have already exceeded the number of tests or assessments completed to date exceeding what was the total assessment of all of last year so there are more special needs students coming who will need additional services we're looking at somewhere in the vicinity of six or seven special education classroom increases and but that also goes with related services and child study team members where we'll need several therapeutic staff and team members including psychologists speech therapists and behaviorists paraprofessionals you hear about the paraprofessionals
049at many of our board meetings we have well over 200 locally funded paraprofessionals and about 47 that are currently being funded through agencies the reason for the agency Paris is because most of our paraprofessional positions are part-time instructionally we need at least some of our Paras to be full-time this year we were in the process of adding a few more thanks to Savings in other areas but we have 76 self-contained special needs classrooms each one of those classrooms has multiple part-time paraprofessionals here and there there might be a full-time in an Ideal World all 76 of those special needs self-contained classrooms should have one full-time Para now we know we won't be able to increase by 76 in one school year and we also have increasing needs for part-time paraprofessionals as well as trying to
050pull back some of those agency Paras and have them be funded by the district because agency papers do cost more than a local District paraprofessional so our overall need is approximately 40 part-time Paras and trying to get that self-contained classroom Paris slowly to become full-time our instructional needs in general education also continue to grow because all of these new students are causing a ripple effect needs in the classroom we're looking at multiple reading Specialists and intervention teachers many of whom are currently funded in Esser funding and with the increasingly complex classroom structure our teachers need support so we're asking for some additional instructional coaches to support our teachers K-12 and as Dr Robert Posey shared we are below administrative adequacy some of our schools our elementary schools are very complex our school certain School sizes
051that you would not expect are now our larger schools so we are also putting in a request for some additional administrative interns and an assistant principal or two again depending on the choice that the board makes and finally we have an additional layer that we don't oh forgive me I've completely forgotten about moving my slides um this kind of summarizes the positions that I talked about but we do have an additional layer and that layer is maintaining and attracting new instructional staff keeping the staff we have and attracting new staff in this job market has become very difficult the teaching educational field has become very volatile teachers are moving to other districts because many districts including neighboring Patterson are paying bonuses and Bounty and premiums for teachers and they're luring away staff from districts where
052they may be very happy but with Incredible size increases in their salaries that they would not get otherwise there is a nationwide teacher educator problem and that is impacting our bottom line and how much it costs to attract a new teacher who is highly qualified I think shared the full-time pet need for the full-time power professionals our students deserve a paraprofessional in a in a self-contained classroom who can be there from the time they arrive until the end of the day it's just instructionally better the students are able to bond with and be with the same person from when they come in till when they go home assisting who's assisting their teacher in meeting their specialized needs and the final piece of all of this is space all of our elementary schools as of September
053will be out of rooms there are no more classrooms to be had to increase these special education classes which although the class might be smaller still needs a full-size room by code we need additional classrooms for preschool we are required because we accept preschool funding to continually increase preschool until we meet what's called our universe we're out of rooms for that as of September once we open up the last two classrooms and the ESL increases have really stressed our middle schools as well as our elementaries the Inn is full once September hits I'd like to thank you for taking the time to listen to our instructional needs and hopefully we'll have a positive and fruitful conversation moving forward um thank you I'm going to turn this over to Mr pangaro oh miss Goose levage before
054you leave I think Dr Danny has a question and Mr Rose wants to check something on the zoom I'm glad Mr Rose she's concerned that my time out idle for too long it times out and I don't want anyone to be deprived of public comments thank you um I I do have a question um in regard to um the the supervisor do you have lead teachers in the district uh we have in the department of ESL we do have resource teachers and there a lot of their role is testing students as well as following up with exited students because the number I shared about ESL does not include the recently exited students who we are still required to follow up with for two to four years after exit as well as refusals who we still
055have to follow up and test and and the special ed students so although we have What's called the quote unquote Lead Teacher or a resource teacher in ESL um their role is not a supervisory role um okay just curious because um you know if you have lead teachers I mean um just to give you an example in my district they pay them a stipend and um all the lead teachers run the Departments and pretty much I I think I have seen my supervisor once this whole year and it and I'm not saying that in a negative way just saying that the stipend is wanted by those lead teachers they apply for the position and it really takes a lot off the um the supervisor so that they can do their role and people within the
056department the lead teachers they kind of have an idea with what's going on and they do sit with the principals and they sit with the supervisors they'll meet with them like once a month or something but in terms of looking if you know looking at percentages and maybe if the money doesn't come to where you're saying or needed I mean maybe possibly a stipend which would be like ten thousand dollars for for maybe you know two lead teachers or something one could be they they can't obviously do evaluations yes but they do a lot in terms of like putting together book orders doing things that really sort of takes a lot off the plate of the supervisor um just and again I don't know how it would work in Clifton or how I'm just throwing
057the idea out of the out there um so I don't know if it's helpful or not it's definitely something we can consider and and it is potentially a possibility to expand the role or the increase the resource teachers as well but at the same time the stipend cost you know for two such persons May kind of equate to turning a current teacher into a supervisor as well okay but it's definitely something to look at okay and then uh the other the other thing was the instructional coaches um do you know how many full-time instructional coaches there are right now right now the majority of our instructional coaches are in the elementary schools and middle school so we have one each middle school for language arts and math we have two at the elementary schools for
058language arts and math including special ed um and we have none at the high school and we have no one supporting our increasingly Hands-On Science Program uh which is the fight we're now finally fully implementing the Next Generation science standards um so that's kind of the direction that we're looking at with those and again I just and again I don't know how work in Clifton because we have instructional coaches um but they have their their full time and we do have some that are full-time but we also have who teach full-time and then they want a stipend and that can be worked out and they they for that stipend they act as instructional coaches again I don't know how it would fit in with that but I know that you know just when looking at
059if you have to think about numbers um you know possibly something like that because I know again they pay a stipend like ten thousand and so the teacher has the regular teaching load and then you know they have this stipend so they help out and they they make their times with the teachers and help I don't know how it would work again in Clifton but just to propose since we're you know in critical moments so I figured well if if the numbers aren't there maybe something to look at thank you foreign if there are no further questions oh sorry um you mentioned September the need for some additional classrooms for special ed and Pre-K um do we have those classrooms available already or are they being provided for it maybe it says Mr Uchi question
060are they provided for in the budget that we're seeing here right now we're filling the few classrooms that we're able to create for example we're making some changes um with where um cafeterias are in certain schools to open up a classroom and move the cafeteria into the gym um I believe there are only one or two schools left but that's a possibility and we're making our final modifications that we can to squeeze out some additional space in Sela B but after that there's really no more room as of September we'll have to become creative if we're not addressing another site I know there had been some exploration of looking at John Paul as a rental for for a bigger ability to expand over the next few years but I don't think that that's necessarily a
061viable option at this time so there's no money in the budget we're looking at here appropriated for additional space uh there can be depending on how much goes for a staff and how much would not I just tried Perfect all right ladies and gentlemen for those at home my name is Martin Garrick I'm our assistant superintendent of schools to talk about some of the priority positions that are needed in other areas not including curriculum and instruction two years ago our one Clifton Community came together that support the passing of what at the time was the single largest Bond referendum in the state of New Jersey and one of the many highlights we had from that passing the bond referendum was the installation of HVAC systems throughout all of our buildings and the time has now
062come to adequately staff the positions needed to drive some of these budget projects so in this case we're going to need at some point to a point HVAC experts to maintain and repair our new systems while at the same time be part of the installation process so they learn the intricacies of the equipment that's being implemented installed excuse me in our buildings in addition to this we're going to need to improve the Manpower that currently does exist in our custodial maintenance staff these are the individuals who are responsible for the overall cleanliness of our buildings as well as the upkeep of grounds currently our maintenance team consists of 14 members that service 24 buildings three Pre-K buildings 14 elementary schools one NX two middle schools one high school One Transportation building one Administrative Building and
063our Stadium Field House for 14 individuals comprised of one drain specialist four groundskeepers one electrician one plumber two painters one Mason one locksmith and three what referred to as general maintenance I need to applaud the efforts of our 14 maintenance Personnel who go above and beyond on a daily basis to provide the the necessary TLC of our old buildings but this is a almost impossible task and the need to grow this team significantly exists in addition specifics of the custodial side of buildings and grounds we currently operate on What's called the square footage formula that is recommended by the state pretty much what that means is based on the square footage of the building this formula tells you how many custodians you need adequately adequately clean a building unfortunately that formula just does not exist
064here for Clifton and again why I applaud the efforts of our team and oftentimes our teachers our secretaries and our administrators who go above and beyond and put no job beneath them to assist our team in keeping our buildings clean but that responsibility doesn't belong to those groups and the increase of custodial Manpower will help us keep a safer cleaner learning environment for our students and staff in addition the hiring of some of our new Personnel will allow us to complete what we call evening hour projects right now our custodians operate on three ships I'm just going to describe it as a morning afternoon and evening shift with a slight overlap between many of them but what does not exist for us are evening maintenance shifts and I'm going to use the example of painting
065and we have two painters in our district and the most opportune time to get some of the painting projects done are during the summer hours but in 24 buildings two painters over the summer it's an impossibility so what we're forced to do oftentimes is how our painters work in buildings during the instructional day well the impact there falls directly in our teaching staff most importantly our students who are displaced for a period of time as our painters whether it's for Aesthetics whether it's complete a project after the sheetrock and spackle have been properly applied again not ideal for our students simply put adding these these positions and having that in-house staff will significantly reduce the cost to our district it will alleviate the cost of what we do for our outside vendors as well as
066the costs for overtime and then last but certainly not least is the single most important thing we do for our students and staff is keeping them safe through our security and safety measures and we always say that ensuring the safety of our students and staff continues to be the top priority of the Board of Education over the past several years our district has worked diligently to implement best practices and responses to a whole host of emergency situations our hard work has paid off as we have provided to the best of our ability for our students and staff a safe learning and working environment as a district we are now better prepared we have increased knowledge and understanding of school safety we have better response times and better communication or just safer today but as always
067we still need to improve we need to continue to add to our commitment of school safety because as I often say security is always seen as too much until day it's not enough because the reality is we read about some heinous incident that occurs on a weekly and sometimes a daily basis and often times when these incidents occur our natural human reaction is to defend which is often referred to as the hardening of schools now examples of the Harding of schools that were made possible from our bond render and rendering referendum excuse me projects are protecting our school entrances with security vestibules ensuring a school perimeter with the installation of locked Access Control Systems because of secure perimeter is a single greatest defense against the threat installing security cameras and lockdown systems help us better
068prepare and communicate the law enforcement in the events of emergency however Staffing was not part of the referendum we are pleased to announce the success of our school security specialist initiative that was launched this year and what this is are 12 individuals who have been stationed what we call affectionately our big three our middle schools and our high school these individuals play an integral port in emergency response it may ensure the safety and security measures are adhered to they serve as an outlet for students to report incidents of violence vandalism and even harassment intimation bullying before the incidents occur we have seen a tremendous decrease in the amount of vvsa violence vandalism and substance abuse data that occurs in school in the big three with their presence they assist with enforcing school policies they provide
069increased Supervision in hallways stairwells cafeterias and at arrival dismissal times they provide additional Presence at evening events such as athletic events plays musicals and even here tonight at our Board of Education buildings an increase in the budget will allow for us to not only grow the team at the big three but also afford US the opportunity to have a trained school security specialist in every single one of our buildings and depending on the size hopefully more but while improving a physical building security and the hardening of schools is important successfully implementing a robust prevention strategy is crucial and we do this What's called the softening of schools as we leverage our pbsis multi-tiered system of support here we focus on strengthening relationships between students and staff we build upon the social emotional skills of students
070and staff we teach positive and pro-social behaviors and of course create a positive School climate for stakeholders each month at our Board of Ed meetings we present and highly uh the student the staff the supervisor the team that successfully implements some capacity or function of our PBIS program whether it be other students of the month our teams who are who are using PBIS to leverage curriculum and of course to recognize the state and National recognition that our district has had as Janina had said earlier we currently fund the majority of this pbsis program through the school climate transformation Grant which expires at the end of next year and again an increase in the budget will allow for us to continue driving this multi-tiered system of support and right now we're finally getting to What's called
071the meat and potatoes as we see the fun and the incentives and the universal tier we are finally in the training and implementation phases of What's called the secondary and eventually the tertiary Teeter and why that's so important specific to school security the Secret Service analysis of plots and schools report from 2021 specifically refers to preventative approaches that can be implemented to foster a positive School climate I'd like to read just a quick quote from that report positive behavioral interventions and supports PBIS models are one such approach that provides a primary intervention for all students with secondary and tertiary interventions to support students who may be experiencing distress these collaborative approaches Foster positive School climates and student emotional and physical well-being thereby decreasing the impact of adverse experiences approaches that promote successful outcomes for all
072students will decrease the risk of harm to a school community and we drive this to show the relationship that exists between PBIS and keeping our students and staff safe it are these secondary and tertiary tiers that will provide the necessary interventions that could perhaps be that that small window of opportunity that we have to intervene before a student heads down that what's considered to be the pathway to violence and one final component specific to School Safety and Security and the softening of schools deals with the mental health and focusing on the emotional and psychologically safe safety of our students the sheer numbers of referrals for our Counseling Services psychological evaluations and behavior plans have almost doubled since pre-pandemic psychological evaluations from Justice September to March time frame in 2018 and 19 pre-pandemic 82. today 168
073specific to behavioral referrals in 2018-20 and we are rapidly approaching 40 at this point students have had to relearn multiple skills like social skills that are usually taught while in school as a result there has been a large uptick in maladaptive behaviors resulting from the lack of coping skills usually acquired in a normal classroom setting we currently take advantage and utilize a partnership with Tri-County clinicians we currently have one and a half members on staff but would absolutely benefit from more what they do is provide individual and group counseling but more importantly they conduct in-house psychiatric evaluations in school so that students do not have to leave our campus be sent to a hospital and at no cost to our parents or Guardians and of course would you benefit from additional school counselors general education
074behavior behaviorists and general general education social workers could provide social emotional lessons assist with implementing positive behavior supports like our PBIS program assist in implementing Behavior plans for our challenging and struggling students provide social skills group support staff with the implementation of class-wide systems and finally conduct clinical observations in the students academic and social environments as I previously stated security that we've seen is too much until the day it's not enough and we do this all for the success and safety of our students and success for us is the absence of an event while the same time always being prepared this time before I turn it back over to Dr robitosi The Final Answer presentation do any Commissioners have any questions specific to facilities and security yeah Mr gengaro before I speak we're going to
075do questions and then after the questions the team can just come back in and sit down we're gonna then get into our informal conversation thank you Mr franciac thank you Mr gengaro how long is the pbsis program been around for uh pleased to announce that we have been implementing in Clifton for 10 years that has not been the case in all buildings it's not been until two years ago that we have had district-wide implementation that does not include our pre-k program they do follow a model called pyramid which is just the Pre-K Pre-K age-appropriate version of PBIS and how long have we been providing in-house Mental Health uh counseling this Tri-County initiative is relatively new just within this last year Now isn't pbsis supposed to help with the mindset of of our students absolutely one
076one done correctly it's about fostering those positive relationships referring students to building specific expectations uh encouraging and training our staff to have positive interactions with with our students at what we consider a four to one positive to negative ratio this is something that we're definitely driving unfortunately during the pandemic it definitely did derailed progress that was made but at this point our PBS ice team led by our director Paula Ray goza and her growing team have been on track to get us in the direction that we need to be thank you you're welcome any other questions from our commissioners yes Danny well just to like you know piggyback off of what you were um sort of talking about I know that even in the district um that I'm in I mean we've noticed a lot
077more with children I think that's just part of you know I think I feel like maybe it'll normalize but it's just the you know post pandemic but what I did want to address was um the maintenance team I do want to say you know 14 maintenance members you know to congratulate them on what they do do um but you mentioned like this evening hours project and um I I don't know if you had at all you know again just thinking about because sometimes it's it's good to even look at different districts and see what they do but in the summer um you know many teachers work the 10 months and they are looking for something additional work somewhere and to have them working on painting they do you know painting the rooms our school was
078painted beautifully and it was done by our teachers it was done during the the summer it was they they actually put in an application through Apple tracks and you know and get hired in that way and it there's no additional you know again I'm not saying we don't need need maintenance people just bear me that's not but maybe to take something off the plate of the maintenance people that maybe the teachers working 10 months would say hey you know what I would like to do that and there are you know my district there were a group of like you know teachers there was a few girls guys they got together they painted the rooms um got into it they were all psyched you know they got paid so just thinking outside of the box and
079something that would then take off so there's not these evening hour projects with these people 14 people are trying but maybe there are things like I said and and there are others that do other things so maybe even just like I said like reaching out to other districts to see you know you know what do you do if you if you don't have Staffing or something just sort of that I think eventually everybody's going to feel the pinch everywhere and so kind of networking and talking and finding out what do people do so I can only offer from my perspective and you know our school is beautifully painted and you know and then we had students do their artwork and they painted some artwork in the classrooms and so just I think like you know
080and I know um Miss bassford we've always talked about it for as many years as we've been on like sometimes just sort of thinking outside of the box so again I don't know if that'll help but you know in our district um we do hire teachers and you know it's totally voluntary a lot of them pick it up because they want the extra hours and they're already coming there to the building and so this way takes a lot off for the from the maintenance and they just help out with the general whatever it is I definitely appreciate that outside the box thinking it's a wonderful idea that we will look into it's just my general understanding that we would just have to make sure that by doing so we would not be in a violation
081of the contract for the portfolio maintenance or maybe like a new contract moving forward find out the wording so and it's just totally optional that's a great idea sharing some of them want that work didn't we discussed one time doing what wine and paint give the teachers wine and everybody comes in and paints I apologize counselor no yeah no wine counsel no no one and uh it's not the teacher's contract who would be violating it's the custodians contract because you're taking wave work from the custodian maintenance if if there's you know like if if um it's too much work for them I'm saying you know what I mean and let's say you don't get the magical number and you you know you hire one it's still a lot of work for them I mean I
082again it's just putting that in there to just say it's not that they would be doing their job the whole year because obviously the teachers have their jobs but it's just in the summer to sort of help out and you know maybe the custodians could have a saying hey look you know this is stuff that's like the painting something like that where you know whatever it is like I mean that would have to be worked out but I'm gonna get something will bring up and next year they are one of the five groups who are up for uh renegotiations for the contract so perhaps that's something we can explore at that time any other questions from our commissioners Ms basford yeah um I'm just curious so I'm gonna bounce off you on this one how
083did we work it out when we uh during covid when we gave other people that were going to be furloughed we gave them other positions to do how did that work out regards to the contract we repurposed in that case more specifically we were able to repurpose members of our transportation department and what they really did were not any of the roles and responsibilities outlines in any of the collective bargaining groups contract what they primarily helped us do was help better secure the school we went to every building during that time and actually took tape at the time and measured What's called the line of sight and what that is in the security world is the area of a classroom that is not visible to a Potential Threat from the hallway so we repurposed them
084in such a way to improve upon security so it did not violate any of the contracts for or any of the collective bargaining groups Dr Danny has another idea no I I've actually heard about this I can't take credit for this idea but they were saying um that you know they meant mentioned you know if if there were I'm saying teachers but it could be anybody that is in the district if um in the morning because of the bus driver shortage and I can't take credit for this idea I was reading about this and um I think the the um Jersey school boards or something that there are some districts that are actually what they're doing because of the shortage they're allowing like whoever wants they can be the bus driver the the school pay
085for the CDL they could be the bus driver in the morning and then whatever like I'm just using example teacher and then you know bus driver in the evening so you know for the so you would be bus driver morning that and then bus driver in the evening and in the meantime do your teaching or whatever it is or administrator in your you know bus driver in the morning minute you know and the schools are paying for just as a way because they were saying that they can't get um you know bus drivers so and I don't know the the logistics on that at all but that I can't take credit for that that was something that I was um reading about again another wonderful idea yeah we have to confirm with that group that's
086not a violation of their contract as well and if that is a possibility please know I'd probably be the first one to sign up I've always wanted to be able to drive a bus so sign me up you already want to coach a sport so drive the team to the game bus and uh you know I just know our teachers just do a tremendous job you know all day long but their job doesn't end when they leave the building um so I just personally can't see a teacher wanting to come in the morning and drive a bus teach a class drive a bus in the afternoon go home and do lesson plans take care of their kids you know what I'll tell you what Mr Smith they do it in my school there's and it's
087again there's a lot of people you know uh and a lot of them are people without children who don't have children and they they find it you know fun to to be with their co-workers and to you know I do have a question on um so we talked about uh I had asked her if she was just yes and that's our reality to go before me I think if we have bargaining units coming up we need to start thinking outside the box okay because I I have to tell you I never knew that I was a painter until covet hit I I have produced some really nice pieces of furniture I never knew I had that talent and if I was offered giving extra work at night I'd go for it I I think we
088have to start thinking else I have a lot of questions on the budget I actually while you guys were presenting because my ADHD has to do two things at once I actually have I have questions but you you with the proposed of what we got you only said one maintenance person across the board no no no but didn't give a specific number here about maintenance the one position I was specific I mean was the HVAC export if you will no under maintenance only has one so that's what my question is because you want to cross the board right that's what I'm questioning I I presume I was told that we're short maintenance as of today we haven't filled positions correct so I don't understand how we're only asking for that was mine that was my
089question so in the two percent we're only asking for two but I think we're three not sorry we're only asking for one right in each scenario and my understanding is we're at least two or three down already when we return back to our seats I'll make sure I speak with Mr Osteen Mr shahada just for clarification with the numbers so as the district grows I your maintenance staff has to grow and you're grown by one I I don't see it so that that is a definite question on my mind um custodians as well I mean people don't understand but as we add more buildings with the Pre-K and all that that has to be staffed with custodians unless the teachers want to come at night and paint and do custodian work at the same time
090too it's in the summer you could think about that out of the box um but uh we have two custodians only in the in the two percent and only three custodians in the three percent I mean in the six percent so I'm a little concerned about that number as well um and keep in mind misters just to remind me this is just a rough draft that we won't understand that um and just if you could administrations idea so um security wise so we're increasing we want to increase security could you just give us an idea of where you want to increase that security um is it additional to the to the three spots that we have the three pla the buildings that we have right now um or is it just adding more into those
091buildings or just it's a little bit of everything president Smith in fact uh after conferring with the principles from The Big Three Mr Hamden Mr Jager muskega uh all Ransom Rave about the successes of this initiative and would absolutely benefit from more Personnel especially just to make sure that we're compliant for their individual contracts like lunchtime this will allow us the the ability to have a little bit more overlap so when an individual happens to be at lunch we're still at full force but undoubtedly the goal is to have a minimum of One Security personalities of our buildings with the understanding that we would hope to have additional larger elementaries such as School 17 school 12 school five things of that nature whereas a building like school four which is significantly smaller for the time
092being would be able to make do with one okay so in in the seven and ten number that would be expanding to the elementaries yeah the initial implementation phase was to ensure that all of our buildings have at least one specialist before we start to add more in the uh The Big Three anyone else we're gonna sorry not my microphone on um Mr gengaro thank you so much uh Mr Crucible thank you so much let me just uh wrap up the last slide there thanks Mr Junior ladies and gentlemen tonight um talked about the history of state aid in New Jersey we talked about Clifton and local fair share uh talked about our major concern of the the fixed costs just to maintain just to stay where we're at um and then the needs security
093requirements bilingual ESL explosion special education increases the need for space for uh preschool and others teacher paraprofessional retention Plus um you know we've seen paraprofessionals come here to our to this board asking um for us to do something about their salaries and and benefits and things like that so we also have five expiring contracts to worry about next year uh Mr Lucy explained the idea of bang cap or expiring federal grants um and what what we what we don't want to do is because we got extra money this year hire people that we're not going to be able to retain at the end of next year so if at the end of the day we have a discussion and this board feels you know what um we really aren't you know interested in in raising
094taxes then that that pretty much will will stay I want to use the word stagnant that has a negative connotation but we would just keep things the way they the way they are to try to do our best to to maintain but in order to move this District forward um I think the administration is hoping that the board will consider you utilizing some of the bank cap so that's what we have for discussion I would ask my team to come back to their seats um and uh what we need tonight ladies and gentlemen from the board is Direction so Mr UC can submit can have a budget to be prepared for next board meeting that we can submit to the county that is not a final budget we could say tonight that we want four
095percent and we could change our mind right but we'd have to send the budget to the county we could say tonight that we want zero percent I'd rather err on the side of saying more now and reducing it later but we want to make sure that we answer all your questions um on the budget from the presentation and anything else you might have in mind so [Music] yeah are we gonna go to the public or we'll do we'll do the board member uh questions first okay and then we'll go to the public all right so to keep some uh some water here uh we'll start uh and give everyone equal time to answer your question to ask your questions um so Mr Santiago if you have anything that you'd like to address we'll start with
096you and work this way foreign thank you um so we have a a request for for Paris and then we have Paris make full-time benefits and there's no um close to that so is that go ahead I could answer that so they are included on the bottom line so when you see that five there that's included on the lower number 36 so it's 36 times the projected benefits but they're not included in the salary line because they are they're already on staff they just don't get benefits okay thank you Mr Paris thank you Mr Smith um just just to clarify on the bank cap so if if we do not go to minimum four percent this year we lose two percent possibility that we lose that possibility it's gone it will be expired because it
097was done three years ago that zero percent year of the band cap that we splinted to it was the 2021 school year three years ago once three years passed you it expires okay um the other is I mean we you have some scenarios here these are all and I realize it's not finalized yet but these are additional positions um some of which I think are very critical uh this is coming from any tax increase right on this sheet these sheet the scenarios are tax increase and we're proposing the tax increase so when the 24-25 budget comes the staff we hire with this data this year we can retain them with the tax with the tax levy increase this year um because once that money expires it can't be recouped and then um we won't be
098able to raise our tax base enough to retain the staff in the 24-25 school year um and my last question it's just just basic math and I'm sure it's probably a simple answer for it um we're getting 22 million in state aid more than we had last year 14 of it goes to just our contractual obligations expenses for um for benefits Etc that leaves eight million dollars where is that where do I find that so to try to say it simply that would be to hire the people on the sheet or as many people on the sheet like I said it is a work in progress like we can move people around but the money is what it is it's to hire these people with that difference that eight million but be able to retain
099them because of the tax increase because we wouldn't spend this money we would have it set it aside so we wouldn't we could retain them in the following year so so if we did not uh have the tax levy increase we would some of these positions would be Jeopardy if we didn't that's CR unless yes they would be in if we hired them knowing we weren't be able to retain them then yes if that is the vision of the the board then we probably wouldn't hire up to that eight million you're talking about we could just retain and maintain in 24 25. understood thank you just just to piggy bank real quick the two the two percent that he asked you about that we would lose how much does that equate to in money just
100short of 2.7 million so I want to mention what probably everyone at home is stinking um obviously by the presentation we're going to need more stuff um with ell going up more students come in we're obviously without a doubt we're getting more stuff no matter what um last week the chairman for the Federal Reserve said in um interest is going to go up no matter what let's say we do decide to do that four percent now all of our taxes are going up plus the interest we get our state money because including ell um students who meet below the poverty line all this what about when all those people decide Clifton's too expensive now now I need to move out we're gonna lose the money from those people who are already here then what what
101happens after all those people move out because I've heard people oh I'm leaving Clifton is too expensive now oh my taxes are going up so much now all those people are leaving we do this again they leave and then what are we going to get back for stay date does it get less and less if enrollment goes I'm sorry if enrollment goes down significantly state aid would go down with it but um our state our state has been based around 10 900 to 11 000 students for the last probably eight years um and our preschool is ballooning too yeah Mr Mejia I think um this is a balance this is a difficult the difficulty of our jobs to balance the needs of the taxpayers who believe me they don't want to see their tax bills
102go up with the needs of the district and to try to find that that balance where the cost of everything has gone up so even if we didn't do anything right people's costs are going up and I know it's hard to say okay and on top of that we're going to raise your taxes but it's a balance between that and the needs of our children and I would say that you may have some people leave but the quality of your school system is the most important factor on whether people move to your town and stay in your town so I think the higher the better that we do um might might negate some of those people uh that leave but it's a justifiable and and reasonable concern and this is all assuming that we're just
103gonna keep increasing enrollment right what our current state aid is yeah well if we if our state if our enrollment stayed the same and with the same specialized population same ill population and all that it would still be the 90 million we're showing if it if we increase to 12 000 students next year our state aid would go up significantly thank you but that's we're we're not expecting any additional Aid we we believe we've reached the the fiscal cliff for first day we believe we're fully funded now there was a bonus next year or something that would be a nice surprise um we don't anticipate it okay opinion well um you know I I have to say like with um Mr Mejia I mean you know I have heard things um you know the referendum
104is is something that the taxpayers you know obviously have to pay yes everything's going up and then you know some people say you know who knows where we could be headed into a depression or something and then we might you know I think that um I'm not saying that not to hire people or anything but I I really do think that we really have to look to get creative and think outside of the box like I I hate to say it but you know maybe look around to see what other districts are doing and and be a little more creative because if you think about it and and you know I at home I mean I have a budget and you know it's not like if I want more in that budget that means I
105have to go look for it okay and just because you could doesn't mean you should and I mean they are the taxpayers um I get it with the school system but you know I'm going to tell you I mean I see a lot of waste in schools not saying it's here but I do see it and I have other friends that are in other districts and the amount of waste so like you know again there's things just have to be looked at differently I mean it's like when if there was a depression and you're in your household and you have your budget you're not going to go well I always spend on this I always spend on my nails and I always spend on my hair that's how we do it and that's how we're
106going to continue to do it like you know what you have to get creative and again I'm not saying you know you're not going to hire this or maintenance or something but you do have to start thinking and getting a little more creative because if we do go down that slope I mean there will be people that you know we won't be able to um hire or you know we'll have to let go or something like that I mean we've Miss bassford and I have been here when when that happened and there was a bunch you know and and that could happen and so it's like you know you say okay let's just say hypothetically okay we'll do the six percent and then everything goes into a recession and now people are you know hit
107hard I mean you know it is a difficult decision there are a lot of difficult and I think that one thing is that there has to be some thinking outside of the box and certain things aren't negotiable I get it in a school district I get it certain things aren't negotiable okay like security or something well I think that that that's a that's a fair point but I also think thinking outside the box doesn't get me you know 10 security guards in each school and I said that some things are non-negotiable I'd like to think that we have been thinking outside of the box we have been creative when I uh one of the reasons why I showed you those uh administrative costs we spend less on Administration than the vast majority of school districts
108in this state so we have thought outside of the box we've had to because our district has been consistently underfunded so we've had to think out of the box um so it's not that we haven't and um but we can always again it's not always and you know you've done a great job yes yes we have thank you and at the helm you've done a great job in your staff and you know the teachers and everybody has and but I'm just saying that you don't know where it could go and and you do have to look um and think again like well you know what more could we do because you don't know where anything could go I mean it could be you know I don't agree with you we don't know what the future
109holds you know so I just I I again you know we did get a referendum passed and it was very large and and it is you know taxpayers you know said okay and so I think when you say you know school districts and school districts will bring in people and you know it will be you know very the things that we will do will showcase the school and you know it it will be good but again you know you can't um there's only so much you can stretch somebody we might not have needed that referendum had we been properly funded though right so going back it it it it builds up over time we have been underfunded so long that's why maintenance wasn't done in our buildings that's why there could be no long long
110range uh planning in regards to facilities um and then when we started getting a little extra money from the state then we did zero percent which I understand we didn't want to burden the taxpayers but that zero percent three years in a row has compounded itself where are the base of our budget um is it wasn't built up if we had just gone to two percent we'd be in so much better shape today that's why the state says we are 18 million under adequacy right that I'm not please don't get me wrong a local Clifton taxpayer pays a lot of money I pay a lot of money where I live but the state of New Jersey says that our schools have not taxed enough now I everybody could disagree with that I'm telling you with
111the state of New Jersey says so that's why I know it's a balance I know it's a balance and I and I do agree I mean I do the you know the zero percent and I see that you know what I mean but then in the same way we might not have gotten the referendum if we went up to two percent two percent two percent we might not have gotten the referendum you know what I mean as that's touche okay so I mean and I know um you know Mr abadrabo and miss bassford you know you were on with me when you know we did talk to legislators about funding and things like that I mean maybe we can have discussion I know you said it wasn't much but like pcti and all the other
112counties I mean I don't know that's something viable with legislative committee or something I don't know but maybe you know what what we do need guys and I I will answer all the questions and we can have philosophical debates all night what we need is some direction right do you want us to go to zero percent do you want us to go to two percent four percent six so let's let's finish asking the question we're gonna move on some direction uh Mr Brunson you have any other questions yes thank you Mr President sorry about that so the positions themselves I know we've you see by the quantity over there and I think there's some that are absolutely necessary over here but some of the other ones that were referenced before I don't think there are
113some issues over here uh I just want to confirm I believe it was mentioned two times already so I apologize if it is not raised if we don't raise it by minimum four percent millions of dollars will be lost in perpetuity of funding that's 100 correct 2.7 million will be lost sure as I said during the presentation the if a board doesn't go to two percent the legally allowable limit of two percent future boards can recoup those funds by raising their legally allowed two percent plus what wasn't raised in Prior years up to three years two percent is on that cusp of the third year next year is the third year it so it would that the sorry two percent from the 20 21 school year would be expired yes can you please explain to
114the citizens to everybody in this room and to the citizens of our city what total one funding is and what title IV funding is please if possible sure Title One funding is funding that follows our students based on poverty level so we have certain schools that fall below the average poverty level of the city of the city those schools that are below the average poverty level receive a small amount of additional funding that covers the additional basic skills teachers in those buildings they also cover summer school for students in those programs as well as some of our a lot of our after-school tutoring but only in those schools that are designated as Title One this current school year that is schools 4 11 12. 14 15 and 17 as well as Columbus the remaining of
115our schools are not Title One title IV funding is another small amount of money that comes in for specific purposes um a tiny percentage of that has to go to technology but by tiny I mean like five percent so it's like I don't know thirty thousand dollars um the rest of it is targeted to Advanced programs such as training for our teachers in AP in high school as well as for things like mental health and counseling I believe we're paying I'd have to look if it's a counselor and a behaviorist for Gen Ed um or if it's a counselor and a social worker I have to take a look but it's it's for a specific mental health needs is that idea basic no idea basic is special education okay there's significant reductions in the 23
116to 24 school year we know what the big disparity is based on the estimated Revenue I can answer that question it's sound um budgeting practice at its in compliance with the county the Department of Education to budget 85 percent of what you got in the current year just in case now that is not what we think is going to happen we should get at minimum what we have been getting and potentially more depending on how if there's more 101 students or not but that is just a budget compliance thing that you budget 85 less than current year yes and in the federal grants the the Essa titles and Ida so the only way to increase these items essentially is if there are more residents or more students that hit this pin you know to hit
117a poverty level is that correct yes title one would only go up if we have increases in students who meet that criteria it's also based on federal formulas so um sometimes the FED does increase that formula um Esser is another large federally funded component which is some of which is specifically tied to some of these improvements and it's based on our Title One ratios also just to throw in there Title One title money is supposed to and Janina could probably explain this I'm sorry Miss casual love is good explain this much better than me above and beyond our own education it can't supplement our own education it's above and beyond yeah it's it's extremely restricted and it is subject to something called supplement not supplant so let's say you want to put um after school
118tutoring at all of your non-title one schools you would have to put an equal amount in your title one schools before even touching your title one money thank you special education it was described earlier there's a big increase and I've I think there is a big Need You also mentioned a significant increase in social emotional needs uh I'd like to know if if it's amongst all the grades or is it a grade school middle school high school is it a blend of all three of those um of those categories and is there has there been root cause analysis done for for some of the for some of these issues the increase in special education requirements and needs um so our special education needs and our counseling needs I think some of that is directly related
119to students coming out of the pandemic as well as the um just a shifting demographic the ESL students that are coming in are not just coming in needing English language support they're coming in needed needing academic and counseling support for traumatic events our own existing students have gone through a lot and it is this is a pre-k through 12. the behaviors that we're seeing in our classrooms it's as if all of our students were behind two years in terms of behavior and communication academically they're slowly catching up but the behaviors and the counseling needs and the way they it they interact with each other um definitely need is I think one of the big root causes increase in transportation costs about 1.5 mil is the estimate can we please give an explanation to everyone in
120this room and to the General Public why it's increased 1.5 million dollars is it just due to increases or there actually be a more services provided to District students it's both the it's it's more it's all it's our own staff as well as contracted routes um our our contracted routes a route three years ago that was thirty four thousand is now 80 100 000. um we had one student in another County that's uh mckinney-vento student that popped up this year we have to transport them 88 000. we it's it's the the commission who we get the contracted services from they bid it out and it's just the nature of the industry the the we have more routes for more students I need to be transported and we also the costs are also ballooning out of
121control it's a it's a Statewide issue for districts lastly we it was described before the 14 million dollars of the increase just for fixed costs and benefits so I want to let everybody know over here and to let the general public know that just the increase for something like benefits which is usually included in somebody's salary you could do that as a formula as part of a salary at least that's what I've seen fifty thousand dollars per family plan so I want to let everybody know what the costs are associated with these fixed costs and the increases I want to let everybody know what they are okay and uh that's essentially it these are the big ticket items that I went through when I sorted through these items and uh thank you very much everybody
122for answering all the questions thank you I think that we need more of these meetings because there's information being put back and forth and I'm grateful to everyone for doing this and if we need another one I'm more than willing to give you my time I think that's what our role era the list that we got was two percent four percent and six percent that was your wish list correct or is this what's needed to run the district at the two percent level perspective excuse me in order to where we want this District to be I I recommend that we use Bank cap and go to three or four percent so in order to get the bank cap we have to do four percent don't we or is it just yeah that is correct has
123to be four percent the reason it's four percent is because legally we can't use Bank cap until we go to next year's already um allow two percent so we have to raise taxes by the two percent that we're it's allowable and then you're allowed to use Bank cap because do Mike could you do three percent yes so then then one percent would expire and we're budgeting one percent of Bank cap I I I went through this and I a couple of things but uh I'm gonna I'm gonna email I have a lot of questions and they're they're minute so I'm gonna email that to me I'll copy um the superintendent at a courtesy um but um something that's sticking a couple of things Mr Brunswick that's your Forte your numbers guy things sticking out on
124me were increases in some of the um the things that we give the students but there's a four hundred and twenty five thousand dollar increase on the special education instruction for um related to purchase Professional Services uh it's um this account if that looks familiar too can you explain to me what that is because it was 175 000 last year it's going up to six hundred thousand dollars like it's the little things that get to me you're looking at the bigger ticket items I'm looking at I have a bunch of little things that are like me so I I really think we're gonna need another meeting because we're gonna as Lucy said we're gonna have to be really creative and think outside the box because if anybody's been watching channel 77 or 40 the last
125on Monday evening the city's talking about eight percent uh and we we really need a uni Alliance meeting ASAP like emergencies stat and we need to have conversation on both sides of the street because this is you're talking that's 12 if we go just two percent that's ten percent if we go four percent that's twelve percent I have to look at my budget as well and I have to look at the people that live around me and they're mostly senior citizens some of them are locked in some of them aren't we're going to price people right out of the box but we have to scratch our pencils I'm sorry doctor I promised you I wouldn't say that phrase what are you sorry about we have to scratch out pencils a little bit sorry I'm just
126trying to find that we do have a municipal uh Alliance meeting scheduled I'm just trying to we do I think it's at the end yeah too yeah okay good and so I think this needs to be discussed with a bunch of other stuff that I'll be sending um so send you anything you have right yeah absolutely um uh because what happened this week with some of the students around some of the schools we really need to be mindful but Mr Lucy can you explain that and then I have one other question and then I want to say something else sure so if you see the approved budget was 175 right we had to find the difference which mostly came from not being able to find staffed Paras okay um this is agency Paris okay dollars
127would be what when first step objection of agency Powers okay so I'm just saying to my colleagues that this is a red flag to me if we can pay 600 000 for an outside earnings agency why can't we give the power professionals more money to work here and give them incentives like this is ridiculous I know some people that really work their tails off in this District as the power professionals and they need to I'm sorry I I have to say this they need to stop being respected I personally have seen the benefit in my own home from a paraprofessional I have a success story because somebody took the time so you know what this is this that struck me crazy there's a one that it's on the budget for facilities a allowable maintenance for
128schools now it caught my eye because we're doing all the bathrooms over right we went from 65 000 in last year's budget to a hundred and five thousand dollars for plumbing can you explain why we need forty thousand dollars more aren't we gonna have new Plumbing so sure Mr shot uh thank you guys so for that for the bathroom renovation we're only renovating these fixtures the pipes are still the 100 year old pipes that are here so regardless of what happens unfortunately the pipes of Wells flood or they will um back up and we're going to have to maintain that somehow and as we've seen throughout this past year we have spent an exorbitant amount of money on piping with United Plumbing so that's something that we're going to have to just budget for next
129I'm just curious because you know there's no explanations to style incense if I gave my husband and my family the budget like this without like what I really needed underneath it I would be um branded at the stake um I have a question and what I'd really like to see is what the actuals were what we actually spent on some of this stuff like you know we have the approved budget but I'd like to see what the actual I I I'm not trying to give you extra work Mr UC but there's some things for athletics you know like uh my pet peeve is when when's the last time we replaced any of the gymnastic equipment because I know in 2008 it was there in my and you're still using the same equipment now in 2022-23
130um like I see that the budget and and the kids need what they need and I see the like for conditioning of the the helmets I get all that stuff but I don't see where there's Equity there with that bothers me the other question I have for you is on your wish list on the bottom line you have a remaining negative balance okay so where's that money going to come from now all across the board yes I mean it's close to it's essentially close to zero I know it looks negative but it's essentially balanced the only one that isn't is the two percent so the four the four percent and the six percent one it's only I don't want to say only but it's only negative fifty six thousand it's we're also projecting obviously you
131have to project because you don't know but we are projecting everyone would take a family plan commissioner best for this common to have left over because it's a budget that that's why so is it left over it would it would balance eventually it's a working yeah so you get it I think I answer one question please just want to clarify Mrs Bachelor there will be at next week's board meeting the preliminary budget you vote on so that you're just voting that Mr UC can submit it then there's another meeting where we have a budget hearing so you we have at least two more meetings on budget alone just so you know I know but I think that we need as a board to come home and have just dedicated time because I don't want no
132five minutes we got to do that and get to the other sections I think everybody has to have got this last week but you know we all have busy lives there was a lot of functions going on this weekend I really think that for the new board members with all due respect that we need to have this back and forth dialogue because now I brought some things to your attention all three of you you'll probably go back and take a a different look at it now and really start to see a different and with every one of the colleagues that are talking here tonight you see things in a different light no problem at all I just wanted to make it a little clearer if if I'm if I are if the columns aren't clear
133on the budget sheets there's a there's a column called the approved budget 2223. that that's what was actually approved by the county and that was the advertised budget the user-friendly budget the next column that says revised budget we need to make budget transfers it's it's not only common it's 100 necessary in any District to make budget transfers the revised budget while it's not exactly an actual cost it's very close to an actual cost because it's where we are in February it's as of February 1st so when you look at the approved budget you also look at the revised budget and you see if it goes up or down and if it goes dramatically up and then the 2324 ask is closer to the revised budget that's because of current year projections we need to recurrent
134your expenses that we need to project that we might not have seen prior to doing the 2223 budget is there an actual document that we can see the actual cost that was spent on that line on them on all the line items that we were given I have some Curiosities that I want to see where there's money left over listen you all bring good insight to the table regardless and nobody can say otherwise I want to thank the administration for putting this putting this together uh and Mike it's it's not easy to put this together and I get it and I want to appreciate you and your team I appreciate the fact that after the 22 million we're not going to six percent because in my head that was definitely no way uh me four
135percent is still in no way okay Mr uji and I've learned to live in the moment and not too much go moving forward I'll tell you what I mean by that by looking at this you're probably saying what are you talking about but how much have we raised taxes percentage-wise in the past three years last year uh current year and and then I'm gonna interrupt you given the referendum as well and I know people voted on that but I want that included so to answer not including the referendum right this second in the 2223 budget we raise taxes two percent two percent in the prior two years and even three years we raised it zero percent then the last fourth and fifth year we went under one percent okay and that's why there's Bank cap
136available okay having said that too there's all to go into the six percent band cap would recoup close to 10 million of the 18 million Danny was talking about Dr robertosie was talking about eight to nine Millions lost expired forever so what I'm what I'm trying to get at nicely is that there's percentages we should have gone up in the past we I think we all agree on that but right now and as others have said across the street is looking to go eight points and I am not comfortable enough to say four percent and eight to go to 12 this year is a slap face to our to our taxpayers to our residents and I'm not looking just at you this is the administration because as others have said we've seen the Paris the
137nurses have complained we've seen others who who are saying things are unjust and would like to see I want to see this money being take care of people live a lot of people live check the check all right imagine living Check to Check and yet your PCG bill is going up your food supermarket is going up as Dr Robert tells you mentioned earlier but yet you're getting your nails done you sign up for clubs you do when taking up golf you're doing this pretty soon your lights are going to be off because you're not taking care of the house now and that's what I mean by live in the moment I get what Mr Brunswick was saying and I I in terms of the budgetary options points of it and why things are increasing and
138why we need more money to keep up with the increases and I get and I see it if I'm mistaken that's what you're going with let me know but things are always going to go up we're always going to be underfunded regardless and we're never going to catch up because we have been underfunded essentially we need to make sure that I personally would like to see three three percent you talk about recommendations where to go I would like see three percent I think that's fair enough I think at minimum two no four and at least for the preliminary where C where three goes and then take it from there and then we can either shave it down if we still say no because again make pairs full time yes that's that's that's a given the
139ESL aspect yes that's given and I'm just looking at two percent column and we need to start Crossing off what we think is maybe just not right now you know my my daughter's a spoiled little girl and because you know what she's my baby but I have tell her no at times and right now Dr Robert tozi is like my baby and I'm gonna tell and I'm gonna tell him at some points no because we can't and this is I'm speaking for myself you know what I mean I respect the way I treat my own families the way I I would always treat this District our residents and sometimes we have to look at this wish list and just say no cut down that two percent or even give us something in between that two
140and F4 see what that three looks like you know and again it's this is my second budget I'm looking at today because I from where I from where I am looked at another budget and it's nowhere near what our budget is for this District uh and you both know where I'm coming from um but I think we need to settle down not think out to the Box because you guys have been thinking outside the box and you really have and this district has been doing very well but I think rather than looking outside the box let's look at what we have in-house and who we need to take care of first before we go outside and in terms of facilities it's not easy and and in terms of facilities Mr gingero Dr Robert tozi the
141administration and to our 14 employees from from the facility staff it's not easy to spread 14 across District because I'm dealing with work now where I have to call certain Plumbing certain whatever every single day to take care of and it's adding up more and more and more and more and thankfully in this District we don't have to deal with that because we have Specialists in-house that are doing it and and it's cost effective but again going back to the Paras and I don't want to sound like a broken record but going back to the Paris going back to the nurses going back to we need to take care of to make sure that they're settled they're looked at they're respected yes I agree with that and then look at the extras look at that
142wish list between that between that three at three percent between the two and the four so that's all I have to say thank you thank you excuse me Mr Smith thank you uh thank you for saying that I apologize um I I just wanna I just want to remind the board if we if we didn't say the reason why there's even a six percent on here wasn't because the administration was asking for it but the the finance committee asked for a two four to six so realistically that wasn't something that we were actually ever expected to get right so we just tonight we wanted to give you a comprehensive picture of the history where we've been how we got to where we are now and most importantly what do we have to do to to
143maintain and make our district better so but thank you for you know giving um your opinion on what a percentage a number because at the end of the day we do need some some guidance on a number I'm not going to prolong the the conversation just a few things that I I have to say um unfortunately this board is taking the Brunt of previous boards going to a zero increase today when I met with students at the high school and our student liaison committee met today with students and they said to us you know what we don't have the best of everything at Clifton High School there's a lot more we could have a lot more they deserve to have but we understand we have a budgetary obligation as well but we heard from students
144today that said to us you know a kid going to another school in the county you know they're not getting nearly what we get here in Clifton but should our kids should our staff should our buildings look at our just take a look at our buildings our school buildings we are now replacing bathrooms bathrooms a necessity we all have bathrooms that are over a hundred years old maybe down the line some other years in the past 25 years 30 years ago they should have replaced the bathrooms of course the bathrooms to replace would have been a lot cheaper back 30 years ago but this board is faced with 100 year old bathrooms we're not saying our kids are going to the bathroom in the Taj Mahal but they should have a respectable bathroom to go
145to and you know what I understand we we have we have so many aspects to look here and I know we all have budgets in our homes and we have budgets everywhere and Mr Mejia I know where you're coming from but I kind of I'm kind of the opposite I think people come to Clifton because we have darn good schools not leaving but because we have darn schools and they want their kids even if they have to bite the bullet a little bit they want their kids to have a great education I don't want to start naming other towns where people could go to that's not as good as Clifton and they could do that and they could pay a little less in taxes but that's what you're saying to the future of America that's
146what we're saying to our kids I don't think people are going to move out of Clifton because Clifton's building housing like crazy so and there's going to be people filling those houses I just think which people have to understand education is not cheap nor should it be I ran for this board because I wanted to be a voice for our students again do I think our kids deserve the best of everything absolutely but if we could get them the good of everything I think that's a goal that this board should try to achieve are there many things in and we didn't even tell the public and I don't want to prolong it but we can even tell the public some of the positions that are are asked to be added here it's just going to
147give you a few so we're looking for an occupational therapist one our kids don't deserve an occupational therapist a reading specialist a science coach a speech therapist one ESL and bilingual bilingual supervisor another guidance counselor for the high school administrative interns which Dr robustosi can talk about how beneficial that program has been it's not like you're at here a reading specialists that's not important for our kids reading specialists science coach should we not be proficient in in the area of science as a math I could see if we're making a budget that says not only do we want one principle in every building but you know what put two other Vice principles in each building could they probably use them in the in the schools absolutely but some things we have to look at and
148cut I don't think cutting an occupational therapist is something that I want to do and I know you all have said or some people have said about the eight percent the city is going to be that you know what what they do they didn't care about you have to be careful here yes we're all one city but we are elected commissioners to get the most thorough and efficient education that we can possibly offer our kids because a student today came to us and said you know what I don't know where I'm going to go to college I'm waiting to see what financial aid or what I can do but I worked so hard this year and I worked great with my teachers and and just now Dr robitosi just said that she got accepted to
149MIT full right full ride to MIT that's because Clifton gave that kid a good education and she worked hard at it not because we gave her come a real comfortable with you know these nice comfy chairs that we put in all the school no kids sitting in hard chairs would we like to give them comfy chairs absolutely but they still could get educated on on my point being is that's my ultimate goal to see our graduation rate to be in the high 90 percent to see kids succeed and move on and be successful whether they're in the workforce whether they're in the uh the trade business or where they go on to a college that is what we are elected to do and I just can't stand being punished for what previous people didn't do
150the right thing didn't do it and again I don't want to Batten out the city but their eight percent is eight percent because they didn't do some things right so they got to correct them now I understand we have to look out for the taxpayer as well and yes most certainly but those taxpayers came out for the referendum and said you know what we'll take a little bite we'll take a little hit we'll give up our nails or whatever you want to say they give up because it was important enough that kids are secure in school and safe with security it was important enough to change 100 year old bathrooms it was important enough for our kids and our staff to have a ventilation system and an air conditioning system where they don't have to
151sweat while they're trying to learn those are the important things we have to remember so as Dr robitosi said the the finance committee asked for these that's the only reason you have them I had asked Administration and we hire Administration to do this job they recommend to us this is what we need to run a thorough and efficient educational system here in Clifton and if they can come to us and say you know what at four percent increase we could do that at a three percent whatever that number is they're the Professionals in the area they're the ones that we hire to do the work yes UC has it a little tougher this year because he's got Mr brunsiac Right up his uh ear and that's a good thing so again I think we just
152need to give Administration Direction and if they're telling us so Mr Lucy I just want to clarify one thing at three percent we do not lose that 2.7 million so if we went to three percent we would lose half of the 2.5 the two percent okay president Smith would you like me to say how much a tax plan is yeah please um so increasing according to the tax assessor's report from last year the average assessed home is 178 thousand five hundred dollars now remember that's your tax assessed value not your market value one percent on the average home is 44 approximately forty four dollars or three dollars and sixty cents a month 44 a year that's one tax point so that would equate to a four percent uh tax levy increase would equate to approximately
153176 dollars a year or just short of fifteen dollars a month uh correct 85 where we have one in Clifton that's correct I've never seen one yeah school year for those looking for their assessed values you could go to on the NJ parcels NJ parcels and they'll give you the amount of your assessed home Mr Russi uh okay so 44 dollars per year on a one percent with the referendum how many years is that referendum being paid over the reference it was a 25 year referendum which they board chose to go with 25 instead of 20 to lower it a little further and it was a the first year was actually going to be higher than any other year but it was at a an average over the course of 25 years of 205 dollars
154a year on that same assessed average that's correct okay so just so I'm hearing correctly we had a request for a three percent that's different that's on the sheet here is there anyone in objection to for administration to prepare something for three percent and and if I may that's when I said three percent doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for three percent it just means three percent I just want to see three percent and then we can shave it down for preliminary if we want to it gives another set of eyes rather look at two and four this way you're not playing with numbers in your head and again just Administration Dr robertosie if you could just which is what I asked in finance you are the people that we hire you are the people that
155put this together you are the people that are involved so and I understand all that you presented in the front in the beginning and Clifton has been uh underfunded um for many years we're under the state we're under all that and people should take that into effect but if you're making a presentation to this board right now for a thorough and efficient education for this district for the 2020 324 school year I hate to put you on the spot could you give us no I don't mind being put on the spot Mr Smith um my recommendation would be that we go to two percent and use an additional two percent of Bank cap which would be four percent I believe that we can give a thorough and efficient education um with just two percent however
156I'm afraid that we won't be able to continue that without using that we'll lose that 2.7 million forever and I'm worried that that's going to hurt us down the line so it's not just for next year it's for future budgets that I'm concerned about is that fair to say that's very good um and and just one other thing Miss kousalevich talked about the um the answer funds Mr Uzi can you tell us as her funds are going away when so um the sr2 funds are going away this June or technically September but the fiscal year is June and then the sr3 funds are next June um because it's such a short time frame that's why we're looking on doing a lot of capital projects with the with those funds because they have to be spent
157so fast and they and they if you if you spent them on salaries obviously that's not sustainable so just quickly and it shouldn't be quickly because it's very important but quickly can you tell the public some of the things that this District did with those Sr funds I mean Windows was a major project correct in our in our schools go ahead I'm sorry Miss cousalevi could probably help me with this but when it came comes to the original cares funding it was PPE equipment now the original corresponding remember it was only 2 million it was PPE equipment it was overtime for custodians it was the air scrubbers that you see in every room that that was like oh and the um and more um Chromebook for the digital divide that was basically the cares funding
158the sr2 funding that was also that was the initial one to one because we were not one-to-one at all when that funding came in um that brought us to one to one and that initial funding also helped reduce class size for that um covid year so these are two just just I'm sorry just just explain that a little bit one to one means we put a Chromebook in the hands of every student correct correct prior to the pandemic shutdown the high school students had just received a Chromebook per child but K-8 did not have one-to-one Chromebooks at all um had it not been this is the only Silver Lining to the pandemic is that had it not been for this infusion of funds we still would not be one-to-one correct and it would be coming
159out of the regular budget that's correct and it's going to have to be in the that's correct and in the future after this funding is a not there it needs to be built in the budget and that's what we are actually proposing in this budget that's that 700 000 number I was throwing you correct in the technology section of the budget everybody could see that there's an increase for allocations for that no I I just wanted the public to see how we utilized that funding um instead of putting it in the general budget that was my my point to that Okay so so administration's recommendation um so we have a board member wants to see a three percent so we'll show a three percent uh Administration feels at two percent and using two percent cap
160bringing us to four percent um that that you could run a thorough on efficient education in the city or flipped them with that okay is there any other recommendations from the board on percentages so can we can we say here that wild and I know Mr Paris and I spoke about this but can we say here that the six percent is not something that this board wants to pursue can we take it off the table do you want to leave it on the table just so we can get them Direction please okay let's have a roll call on that or it doesn't be a roll call just a poll please story Mr abajava was six percent can we get off the table bye-bye adios off the list please uh Mr uh um I wanted to
161say something um when you guys came in you guys said you wanted six percent um before the additional funding came in right what would have been the recommended percentage if it wasn't for the additional funding it I think we did that after the after we knew that funding after we knew the financial committee it got we knew the funding at the finance committee no I couldn't think what he meant is that Dr robertosie said if it wasn't for the 22 million or before the 22 million they were looking at six to maintain to maintain correct it could have been higher than correct no that that's I think that's what he's asking yeah so and before you asked um what would be the recommended in order to maintain it the way we were doing it now
162which would be four percent so it would have been five or six before before the all the state funding you know four times without additional staff okay minimally so yeah I like to get her off too Mr Paris yep I agree yes and and myself um six percent was off the table Okay so we've we've had a recommendation for the two percent and two percent in a bank cap would that eliminate your three percent request say that one more time so Dr robitosi just said he would recommend the two percent and then using two percent of Bank cap to bring it to four percent would that eliminate your three percent or okay so his two and if I may yeah I'm still at three because at the end of the day if I can't afford
163something I'm not buying it I can Window Shop all I want no but what is what he's saying is is using two percent of it as the bank cap correct so if I'm so if I'm hearing correctly you want to go two percent and plus the two percent Bank cap correct so that would go four right I'm still stuck at three three plus the two percent Bank no two plus the one okay two plus one I got you well I gotta be sure you know why can't we have both and then I also would like a list of what was actually spent I want to see that I have to I have a lot more questions than I was asking today so we will email those Etc to Mr robotozy to you to the chair
164as well so you know um uh we're not trying to decide I understand what we're trying to do the direction that's right so I have a lot more questions before okay I can show confirm anything today so we we took this so just to give them a little direction we took the six percent off is the does anyone want to take the four percent off Mr Speaker can I just clarify with Mr Uzi what do you need to know tonight so that you can for for next there because we have a board meeting next Thursday what do you need to know tonight it would be appreciated if I knew what percentage to put in the budget book for the preliminary budget so I can get the loads of documents I need to prepare for the
165county now remember it's preliminary if we if we put four percent and you you guys ask questions from next week all the way to May 4th and you want it to go to three or two five it's uh it's totally allowed so if we put four in in I make a budget book we put four on the preliminary budget submitted to the county it's come it's preliminary it's changeable till May 4th okay we were zero last year and then there was a motion from the floor during the last the last minute 12th hour 11th hour right so so why don't we do this why don't we ask you to prepare two percent three I have a suggestion Jim sorry why don't we let the public speak before we make our decision we're not making a
166decision tonight we're just giving no but maybe they may have insight about which direction we should go well understandable this is a board working committee okay we need to work first okay then we'll hear from the public we're not not asking the public but this is the board working it didn't happen this way last year the finance committee agreed to do it this way so the board has to work first okay so again just so we can give some direction to to our administrators we want to keep the two percent on the table we've asked for a three percent and the four percent and we'll get rid of the six percent okay so can you get that information out to the board uh of course I could do anything I'm just I I need one
167number to prepare for the county I I I can't make three budgets so he's got to submit something so so we got a basic number I'm hearing you might as well go to the maximum and then we can always cut from that well um since the board is not interested in six I would oh that's what I mean I would I would suggest six is good leaving the four percent four and if we want to cut from the four down to three or lower I think that would that I would recommend that's a good idea of hearing everybody is there any objection to that you want to vote today Okay so there's no we're not going to vote I'm just doing a uh straw poll um so to have Mr UC prepare for the county
168uh budget the four percent this is not Final in any which way just so we're giving direction to administration at this point um on a four percent on the four no to prepare the for the no no no no Mr Mejia [Music] Mr Paris yes because well and Mr abujabo all due respect part of the reason why we're even having this discussion is because there hasn't been any foresight in the past as to the repercussions of the actions of very low to zero increases and in fact this is preliminary um and it's also what administration is recommending and it can't be adjusted yet I don't want to take it off the table at this point in time so I'm going to say uh yes to four [Music] Mr Santiago I would say yes to start
169and obviously we have to review um and it definitely needs to be open to further belt tightening Etc or wherever there are costs uh being cost effective and efficiencies okay Dr Danny no for uh to to preliminate to send to the county four percent yes so I like to make a recommendation that we go to three percent as a preliminary let me just see where my short pole was oh I got one okay five to three okay so I like them I would like to go to three percent yes straw poll Mr abadravo yes because the three percent which we haven't seen on paper all due respect uh allows us to see three percent to the four or three percent to the two and I think three percent gives us something on paper since not
170majority agrees with four and then we can cut it down to two or we can go back up to four uh but at least three would be a middle ground to see where we're gonna be password Mr um yes Mr Mejia no I wanted to see five because originally you guys said you wanted to come in with six I wanna see what five would look like in order looking ahead only because let's say we would have done six the next four probably would have voted zero what if um and then the year after one maybe then you're after zero zero zero zero zero again then it keeps going and going and going I just want to see what it would look like with five not saying that that's the ultimate goal I just want to
171see you know where it could lead us past the two years three years you want to look down the road because honestly many of us here we're going to be here for a while so we want to see what's gonna happen so we'll come back to your fine but minimally would you be okay with the three yeah okay uh just to give Mr hoochie some guidance [Music] yes vice president Danny yes and uh yes Mr Lucy um so Mr Mejia is making a suggestion for a five percent again straw poll to the board Mr Robbo to the five that's what he's asking yes no whoa no way no no thank you nice to meet you yes yes yes Mr Powers no Mr Santiago Dr Danny no okay so and I'm no so we uh have
172a direction for three percent please please prepare your books for uh three percent for next board meeting okay now we're going to open it up to the public thank you to the board for giving us some guidance I anticipate excuse me thank you to the board for giving us uh the guidance and I anticipate we'll have more discussions any questions you have we'll be happy to answer you can send them Mr Smith wants them to go to the chair right and then the board will get the question so that oh the whole board will get the questions and Mr UC or myself or whoever best is to answer the question we'll get we'll get the answers but we wanna so in case people have the same question as you or so we're not answering multiple
173different people we want to share your questions with the whole board that's okay I'm sorry I'll put the three together and then as time goes on next finance committee or as questions come into Mr Brunswick we'll need it for bye for next board yeah yeah and then I'll distribute any questions from everybody so then I can contribute it to the board so that we're on the same page but that won't affect you for doing yourself thank you thank you okay uh public recognition uh so the public knows the only subject matter that you are talking about tonight is concerning the budget presentation this portion of the meeting is open to the residents and non-residents of the city of Clifton for the purpose of addressing this particular subject matter pertinent to and directly related to the
174um 2023-24 uh budget of the Clinton School District did I do that wrong no no I'm sorry residents and non-residents are requested if they're in person to sign the registered provider for this purpose all speakers are asked to say state state their names municipality in which they live before speaking comments are limited to five minutes per person issues raised by member of the public may or may not be responded to by the board all comments will be considered and responsible be forthcoming if and when appropriate your questions may or may not be answered by the board members the board asked the members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of other individuals when they are speaking specifically comments regarding students and employees the board are discouraged and will not be responded to
175by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of the state of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will be liable for any comments made by members of the public members of the public should consider their comments in light of the legal rights of those affected or identified in their comments and be aware that they are legally responsible and liable for their comments uh so if you have a question um you'll address it to the chair and board members are not going to respond to those questions about the budget tonight okay you're just going to give them some thought all right so we'll do our virtual first do we have uh I see something I see Mr Canova we can't hear them Mr Canova can you hear us
176yeah I hear you okay Joe Mr Canova you're you're up all right so um first of all thank everyone for the bucket and the conversation basically what Dr Robertson said is what happened I mean we had an underfunding was the issue um we had our hsas buying digital signage Chromebooks and other or items related to continue about proper education because um so all those things turned around once we get our fun things back um and it was supposed to I think it was supposed to be even last year that we were supposed to have them before back up a little bit but when I was on the board my initial thought also was to say let's use this as a way to offset the facts increases why why any higher than zero and it wasn't
177until the last meat eating and we started bringing up things like our teacher ratio is being higher than most schools and how we had 30 kids in a class who were teacher and well over our total spend per student was lower than most and once I looked started learning these things in that in that meeting why I did a complete 180 and I want to take a whole bandcat and I still feel that way um so what's happening now is we have a 76 million dollar fund from the state that's where we're supposed to be that just keeps us inside this quote so all the people that we had let go in the past and all the positions that were cut now we could be even with other schools because we're literally in a one
178billion dollar deficit over 10 years so you don't just come back overnight um so at least at least that's gonna allow us to operate as an as a school like others and our comparisons were being drawn between us and Paramus Paramus according to U.S news says 8 600 more per pupil than Clifton so for us there'll be a 95 million dollars more entire budget or a 38 increase so let's keep apples to apples here the Passaic is 5 000 more per student Patterson 3 000 more Garfield 5000 more Montclair four thousand Nutley 1000. now remember we we passed a historic referendum where people would normally uh wouldn't want to come out of pocket but they came out of pockets they paid for many capital projects overwhelmingly almost 70 percent said yes now in my mind
179it's time for an academic record now you do that well you can't the catch is there is none but the way you can retack it and academics is to create the programs and buy the items and fund the staff needed to teach them so keeping Talent from District creating maker spaces for kids adding steam free country new condos over here on policy right many new kids living here are growing Pre-K we need to get those grants from those things with AI and the cost of changing the world we need to teach these kids these things how do we do that what does that mean that means that we need to adapt and be able to adhere to our mission so our mission is to provide all students with a quality education to develop the skills
180necessary to become literate lifelong Learners in an ever-changing world by not at least going to four percent and keeping our bank cap are we acting responsibly are we achieving that in that mission I think it's Justified to push forward I don't think it's Justified to push forward a budget that doesn't at least put into positions it can begin to turn around and uh academics and turn the tide for our students um I think people voted for the referendum because they believe in our schools and the staff I think they they feel these were like they wanted to improve them they want great schools for the kids in our town they want to invest in school safety they want High graduation rates and high academic scores seniors in town folks on fixed budgets and budgets and
181take advantage of a tax freeze so they won't feel any increase and if we have great schools they can almost guarantee the homes here will be in a high demand since that's a top selling game anybody's buying a home you're always talking about schools so we need to invest in the future of our children so to do that I think at least four percent is what we need to do become competitive to become a competitive school when when families are looking to build their family in the towns so I would request let's do some homework see how we compare financially when I first student spend on a ratio to school to school ratio and then let's come back to the table and talk about it because I don't think we have all the facts right
182now now as for this virtual meeting this is the first time I'm connecting in this way I tried the last time um you need to keep YouTube mobile rather than in the zoom waiting room last tech meeting I was at we agreed to Levy let everyone out at the beginning this way they were ended the whole time since we have that that issue um two meetings ago I didn't realize the delay was so bad close to a minute actually so one significant reading the public Fortune I tried to connect and then it said ended by host after two seconds I think that delay is screwed things up because sometimes with people in person you may want to get up and see which they have the right to do and online you can only do that
183so I think to fix all that um people should in the zoom should be let in in the beginning and also Zoom should be going last you should be doing this in person first so while they know thank you public person is ready well that's just my two cents everyone have a good night thank you definitely there was definitely an audio issue there yeah and it has been like that before right so I'm not sure what has changed yeah yeah but it's different than it has been before right I don't remember a band like that okay let's let's skip to we'll work on the technology end of it later uh do we have anyone else virtually okay uh seeing that there's no one uh motion motion to caused by Miss basford second by Mr abujavo
184okay we'll now open uh in person if there's anyone wishes to address the board on the budget only and only that topic please good evening my name is Lori LOL I'm and I'm the president of the Teachers Association the idea of the four percent would be an excellent idea and the reason is the following investing in public education through tax revenue is crucial for the growth and development of a community here are some reasons why taxing while raising taxes for public schools in Clifton is important improved education quality by increasing funding for Public Schools teachers can be hired and trained resources and materials can be updated and modernized and Facilities can be improved this will lead to an overall Improvement in the quality of Education offered by our school district better student outcomes with an
185increase in funding schools can provide more individualized attention to students as well as additional programs and services to support student learning this can lead to better academic outcomes higher graduation rates and increase college readiness economic benefits improving the quality of public schools can lead to economic benefits for the community well-educated students are more likely to secure higher paying jobs which lead to increased economic growth and stability social benefits Public Schools play an important role in The Social Development of children by investing in public education we are investing in the future of our community creating a more cohesive and supportive environment for everyone without adequate funding it becomes challenging for public schools to provide a high quality education that meets the needs of all students the lack of resources can lead to overcrowded classrooms which we
186do have outdated materials and inadequate facilities which can negatively impact student achievement and well-being overall investing in public education through increased tax revenue is a long-term investment in the future of our community and our students it can lead to improved educational outcomes economic benefits and social cohesion making it a vital investment for the well-being of Clifton New Jersey thank you thank you anyone else wish to address the board Joanne Macbeth Clifton New Jersey I agree with everything that was just said however I just like and I know your job is to look out for the students and the educational system I know that's your job but just be mindful that the city council is looking at a major tax increase for Clifton this year which is going to be on top of what you guys
187are doing and there's a lot of us seniors out there that have a fixed income that it's going to be a hardship although we agree and want to support all of this without having children in the system it doesn't matter we know that this is the right thing but just be mindful of what's Happening on the council end thank you okay anyone else we should address the board seeing on motion to close motion to close by Miss basford second by Mr abadrabo okay just so the uh public is aware that the board will be meeting at our regular uh board meeting next Thursday at 7 pm and the preliminary budget uh will be presented or will be voted on and uh presented to the county um and it's only a preliminary budget there will be
188continued work to be done uh board members any uh questions uh about the budget to uh please send them to me and I will forward them on to each of you and administration so that we're all on the same page with uh questions okay uh seeing no other business motion to close by Mr abadravo second by Mr Paris seeing no objection thank you all right thank you commissioner