BOE Meeting 04.28.25 @ 7:30PM

001[Music] Hallelujah. [Music] So, pursuant to the open public meetings act, adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner, posting written notice within the official Bolton board of the Bol of the Board of Education office, emailing written notice to the Burlington County Times and the Courier Post, and filing with written notice within municipal clerk of the Eastern Township. Roll call. Mr. Yates, roll call, please. Roll call. Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown is absent. Miss Mutramitz here. Mr. Dearcy here. Miss Fox here. Mrs. Null. Mrs. Null is absent. Mr. Thompson here. Mr. Peeleman here. Mr. Bach here. Mr. Compton was a notified late arrival approximately 6:30 p.m. We have a quarum. Mr. Bach. Uh motion to go into executive session. We have Mr. Thompson, seconded by

002M. Miss Fox, roll call, please. Mr. Gates, on executive session, Miss Bramotes, yes. Mr. DeMarcy, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mr. Thompson, yes. Mr. Peeleman, yes. Mr. Bach, yes. The motion carries. All right, we're going to return to executive session. Uh we'll be back for public session at 7:30. Thank you. [Music] All right. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. All right. [Music] We are happy. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Would all those who are able please rise for the pledge? I pledge allegiance of the standy for all. Thank you. Tonight's mission statement is going to be read by board member Mr. Thompson. The mission of the East Sham Township School District is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with

003students, dedicated staff, families, and community. The district provides a strong educational foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential, embrace self-directed lifelong learning, develop the skills necessary for appropriate risk-taking and responsible decision-making, respect themselves and others, problem solve individually and collaboratively, become contributing members of a diverse global society. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. I'll now hand the floor over to Dr. Smith for our final budget presentation. [Music] Okay. So final budget presentation 2526. This is the fifth budget presentation that we've done. The first was January 30th. That was a presentation about trying to chart the least horrible path in an absolutely horrendous situation. followed by the February 27th presentation which was again the least horrible path in a horrendous situation. Then March 17th the same. And then the fourth budget presentation was entirely

004unique and unprecedented. So that presentation was about a very unique opportunity that the state of New Jersey was offering to school districts to apply for additional tax levy if they were under adequacy. So for our district, we are nearly 15 million under adequacy, which is an an absolutely astronomical and outrageous amount. Um, per BOE approval. At that meeting, we have applied to the DOE for that amount. It includes $14,212,41 in additional local tax levy plus 710,000 in additional what's called incentive aid, which is basically just um additional state aid, which is 5% of that local tax levy amount. NJDE is reviewing our application. final status pending. Um per an initial uh review email we got from them, we have provided the required components, we are awaiting the final status. The uh that additional 15 million

005below adequacy. So that was and I'm this presentation isn't going to go back through like you know the previous four presentations all covered different aspects of where we were at that moment. All those presentations are located on our website under budget and finance. If you go to departments on the homepage um and go to uh business budget and finance, you can find those presentations. They're also in the ETSSD updates that go out every week. If anyone who doesn't receive those from the community would like to, um please just send me an email or my secretary Cindy Espazito will add you to the community contacts distribution group for those. glad to do that. Um so why do we apply right so just a quick recap um this is again for anyone who's seen prior presentations this

006will be very familiar state aid lost annually since and this is a a cumulative number that we now lose annually right so over $7 million um rising costs salaries benefits goods services special ed transportation pretty much any aspect, any operational wheel of a district at this point statewide. If you follow any headlines about where districts are at, you see that the costs are outpacing the local 2% tax levy cap of 2%. Uh our district in the most recent data available by the DOE, which is the very wonderful taxpayer guide to education spending on the DOE website, anyone can go on there and take a look themselves. We rank fourth leanest in budgetary cost, spending a little over $3,500 less per student than the average K8 district in the state, which is a really, really painful

007number because when you times that by our number of kids, it means that based on that data, there's over 16 million missing from our budget just to be average, just to have average resources for our kids who we think are extraordinary, right? And that's what makes that painful. Um, we advocated, we testified this year, as we have each year at the Senate and Assembly budget hearings. This year, we had a um kind of combined stakeholder team of BOE, ETA, and district administration. Our ask, our request at both hearings was to remove the 6% cap on state aid this year, which is an arbitrary cap. Uh that the state did not cap the decreases in state aid throughout S2. Now suddenly that districts might get an increase, they cap it. Um it did lead to better

008conversation with the uh elected officials especially at the Senate hearing than I personally have seen in the years I've been going. Um so it was promising you know that that there was a recognition that this is unfair uh a recognition that something needs to be done. What the disappointing part is the cap is still there. Instead, what the state has done is extend this opportunity to districts to take the additional local tax levy. Even if the cap were removed, though, we would still be um over six or 13.5 million below adequacy. We know this strong schools, strong communities and bears mentioning strong property values and ultimately our district mission is about kids. So uh within that additional tax levy application, what did it contain? and it contained all the items that were presented in our

009April 8th presentation. That's on our website here. They're recapped. Just going through these. It's a combination of maintaining items that were going to be cut in the the three prior presentations, right? So January 30th, February 27th, March 17th, talked about all of the horrible cuts that we'd have to make to dig ourselves out of millions of dollars of budget hole. And instead we get to talk about maintaining these and going back to things that were cut during the seven years of S2 like reducing class size back to where we were in in still times that were higher than what we experienced before S2 but certainly happier times than we are now. Um, keeping the extra elementary extracurriculars, late buses, pausing increases to walking, maintaining middle school and elementary class size, maintaining benefits for all PAR

010professionals who were earning them in 20 around 2013 when we last stopped last were hiring full-time pairs. Um, maintaining the team structure which is um, so fundamental to the identity of our middle schools. um and so on, right? We go through there. Um the uh yeah, wonderful, wonderful things that again, if we go back to this slide here, are just a portion of that 16 million that's missing from our budget just to be average. as well. The uh the application included around $8 million which would go to a half a million would go to maintenance reserves which is a um which we have depleted that reserves in order to balance our budget in prior years to a an un uh unrecommended level. And then about 7.6 6 million to capital reserves to fund the necessary

011infrastructure improvements that we've had to put off to survive. The only way a district survives when it's 16 million 15 million below adequacy per the state and 16 million below average according to their other data source. The only way a district survives in that type of situation is by making decisions financially that aren't sustainable in the long term. capital reserves. We have our buildings need a lot of work. It's a health and safety issue. This is going to let us do that. The one element of the uh reductions that have been presented so far this spring that we are staying the course with is transportation for two reasons. budgetary savings projected to be at least 800,000 and it it works. We already outsourced twothirds of our bus routes. Um it has become harder and harder

012operationally to continue to maintain our own transportation department. With that, I'm going to hand it over to Mr. Yates. All right. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Good evening, everyone. Welcome back. Um, so here we are finally at our final budget presentation here in April. If you have not uh listened to our budget presentations that took place, we started these discussions in January. In January, we talked about S2, its impact on our district, why are we here, how do we get here? We identified that uh our cumulative total state funding reduction uh from the onset of S2 to the projected 2526 is about $38 million for us. Um and each year that we pass a budget where our funding is not restored back to prior uh S2 levels, we will continue to absorb those losses, whatever they

013are. For us, it's about $7 million a year as Dr. Smith mentioned. Um, so here we are tonight and we're going to talk about our 2526 general fund budget. And you can see the number there in the top left. Our total budget is 100,186,119 next year. As we've talked about at one of our budget presentations prior to this, our revenues must equal our expenditures, not the other way around. Or excuse me, our appropriations must equal our revenues, not the other way around. And you can see uh it's it's hard to tell, but I I wanted to show just in graph style our different categories of revenues in the top right, different categories of appropriations. Top left. At our meeting in February, we did talk about revenues. Meeting in January, we talked about um excuse me,

014meeting in um uh January, we talked about revenues as well. Meeting in February, we also identified some of our appropriations and what those are. And tonight, we'll kind of look at each of these. So here we are with our final revenues and we're just looking at them in a percent of total. This is all the revenues that make up our total budget. Our tax levy at 88 million or almost $89 million is the biggest increase from our March tenative budget approval. It includes the additional tax levy authority that Dr. Smith had just talked about. Our budgeted fund balance went from $400,000 to zero. As a part of this application, we are going to restore our fund balance back to 2%. 2% is our maximum fund balance that we're allowed to keep. As we've talked about

015before, we are allowed to keep some money in a savings account. We call it fund balance. 2% is our maximum. So, it's 2% of our prior year expenditures. That's what we're allowed to keep. Right now, our district is about $200,000 shy of being at 2%. So, we're not quite there. So, in order to restore fund balance back to its maximum level, we're going to no longer balance with $400,000. And then we're going to put $200,000 back into fund balance so we can restore that 2%. Um uh just assisting our district's long-term fiscal health. Our state aid is broken up here in multiple categories and I want to talk about those. So state funding that we're always talking about. S2 funding is that number that says state aid there. That's the 7,159,894 makes up about 7%

016of our budget. An additional state funding that we receive is what's called extraordinary aid. And we talked about that as well at the January meeting. It pays for additional services not covered by traditional state funding and we have to apply for that and we get a portion of those expenses back to us. That's extraordinary aid. We budget the prior year's number that we received. Typically, we do see it increase year-to-year. So, we're budgeting the maximum allowable for us, which is $655,924. We also received some Medicaid revenue. That number is significantly reduced from prior years. We're down about $180,000 in that category. The state has uh changed the way they reimburse districts for certain Medicaid eligible expenses for students. In our case, we used to receive over $200,000. Now we're going to be at 27 or

017$28,000. Um and then the additional money here, the one to note that was not included in the March tenative presentation is our tax levy incentive aid. So, because we are taking the full allowable amount of the tax levy authority, we also will receive the full allowable tax levy incentive aid from the state of New Jersey and that is $710,62. We also talked about miscellaneous revenues pretty extensively at our uh January meeting. That number has not changed. We received some tuition from other LEAs. We have to budget the interest we might receive on our reserve accounts. And then we also are still maintaining the withdrawal of capital reserves for the identified projects of 283,000. Here's our year-to-year comparison of each of those categories. Please note that on this slide I did cate or lump all the

018state aids together as one number, but you can see the most significant increase for us is going to be tax levy going up at $18 million. And we'll talk about that number in another slide. All right. Um I wanted to see if there's anything else to talk about here. I don't believe our budget fund balance is down. So that's a significant reduction. We had also uh identified that previously in another meeting. All right. So let's talk about our tax levy breakdown. So how did we arrive at our 88 million or $89 million number? Well, this is exactly how we take the prior year, the pre-budget year number, which is the current year's tax levy that we're receiving, which is 70,89283. We add in the enrollment adjustment that we've talked about that this district's receiving. So,

019the board is taking their full allowable adjustment for the enrollment, and that is 2,336,320. And we arrive at our pre-budget year adjusted levy, and it's adjusted for increases in enrollment. And that gives us the $73,228,43. That number when inflated by 2% is the number that we were using at our tenative meeting to balance the budget. That's $74,692,971. In order to qualify for the additional tax levy authority, you had to take the full allowable tax levy uh that the district had at its disposal. So that's the 74 almost $75 million number. then you were eligible to take your additional tax levy. For us, the maximum amount that we can take is $14,212,041, which is how we arrive at the 2526 final tax levy of $88,95,12. And here we are looking at our appropriations, appropriation dollars, and

020then the percent of total. You can see that staffing, as we've discussed exhaustively, makes up the majority of our expenses. So 54 cents of every dollar goes to pay for staffing salaries. That doesn't include benefits. When you include benefits, which is in the second number there, that number balloons to close to 75% of every or 70 cent 75 cents of every dollar that we spend goes towards salaries and benefits for staff. all staff uh included in that district number. That's a significant increase from the March number, but I've included in that capital outlay. So, the additional money that we've identified for the from the uh tax levy authority that we're going to put towards much needed infrastructure improvements of this district is included in this district cost number here. So, you're going to see it

021significantly up. But other things that are in this cost are health benefits, prescription, dental, um health, our FICA costs for all employees, our PERS obligation annually, as well as uh our insuranceances for the district. So, we have to ensure against risk and loss. All of that's included in this district cost number. District costs are going to capture anything that's not identified below that that the district has to spend on. Think of things like software that we might need to maintain our facilities or software that we might need that's non-educational. All of those things would be budgeted for here. Curriculum and technology, that number has not changed. Our special education number has not changed. Our elementary and middle schools number and our operation has not changed. Our operations and transportation number has gone up somewhat because

022we are putting some money back towards utilities as a result of this additional authority. clubs and activities has changed. The district is putting, we were previously budgeting for $100,000 in this expense category. We as a part of this additional authority are putting back in um elementary clubs and activities. So, we've budgeted for an additional $250,000 in this number. As I said before, we're going to restore fund balance. To us, it's an expenditure because we have to put that money in. That's $200,000. And then we are depositing the maintenance reserve of $500,000. And of course, our capital projects number for with the that's assigned from the withdrawal capital reserve has not changed. It's 283,000. And here's your year-to-year comparison. So, you can see where in which categories the numbers have gone up. And our most significant

023cost here or increase is going to be in our district costs because that's going to include the roughly eight million or seven and a half million dollars we're putting towards capital improvements. And then here's the tax levy impact for all of the residents. So you're going to say, "Well, what does this mean for me?" And here's where you will be able to gather that information. The highlighted bar across the middle is going to show you your average assessed home value for Eve Sham Township. Remember, these are assessed values, not market values. It's not what your home's worth if you were to put in the market and sell it. This is what the tax assessed value of your home is. In Eve Sham, the average assessed home is $272,785. Our increase is going from $3,6547 from

024the prior year to $4,5645. It's an increase of $99 or almost $910 per average assessed home. You might say, "My home isn't valued at $273,000." So, it's a sliding scale. If you go all the way up to $100,000 at the top, for every $100,000 of assessed value, your increase is $33359. Some things that impact this. On the far right, you can see the net value taxable from 2023 to 2024. The net, that's all of the ratable base of the township of Eve Sham and all of the collected dollars that they have to generate in taxes is about five billion. 5.3 billion. That number is up 21.5 million from the prior year. So that means we're spreading out our taxes amongst a larger ratable base. That's helpful in keeping the increase down for everybody. Last year

025when we were at this uh table talking about this, we experienced a decrease in the net value taxable year-to-year, which means everybody feels it a little bit more. And then here's our capital project list. These are some of the things that we've talked about before, but we wanted to talk about them tonight. Of course, we will have our heat pump replacements. These are the individual uh air conditioning units that are available in just about every classroom space in the district. We need our roof replacements specifically at Deacy and Rice Elementary School. We're going to do parking lot repairs and replacements where needed and when possible. We have to update and upgrade our HVAC controls. So, some of our HVAC systems are tied into an old network. We need to tie them into a new network.

026So, we're gonna have to uh run wires to each one of our heat pumps that tie it into these new networks so that our maintenance staff can see those units on the backend software from their homes if need be. We need to replace our aging infrastructure. So this would be things for us like our boilers, our fresh air makeup units, our cooling towers, our rooftop units, heat exchangers, chillers, ventilation units. We need tree removal and replacement. This is a significant one for us that we face each year. Tree removal is expensive for us, so we're budgeting for some of that. But we have we own a lot of land and a lot of property that is adjacent to residential homes. So, when we get some fallen trees or trees fell and um we have to

027repair a fence or cut the tree up or replace the the stump or remove the stumps, this has to happen. If you drive past the admin building, you'll see some dead elm trees. I'm not exactly sure. It has something to do with a beetle, my maintenance staff tells me, but those elm trees are dead. And if you drive by, you'll see that they're dead. they need to come down because they represent a hazard for uh passing traffic and and um uh people walking. We have to upgrade our overhead announcement systems in just about every building. They're aging and um you know certain classrooms are struggling to hear important announcements. That represents a risk for us and we have to upgrade our phone system. Those two things are going to go hand in hand. And then

028our withdrawal capital reserve. We are signing the withdrawal of $283,000 specifically for the MMS sewer ejector pump station. That's the station that's located out here right by uh Tomlinson Road. And that is for um all of the waste that leaves this facility goes into that station and is then pumped out to the sewer so it can then be treated by the township. Additionally, we owe a pr-rated portion of the MUA fuel pump station replacement as per the shared service agreement. So we're going to assign some uh withdrawal capital reserve for that purpose and that's it for me. Thanks Mr. Yates. So just uh because of the distance in the room and so on. Um carried over this slide from the last uh presentation just to make the numbers a little bit bigger for folks. Um,

029so that's the uh average assessed home increase as Mr. Yates said, 25.4% and about $910. So um just to wrap up this final budget um the first in my memory and in many people's memories um that is talking about maintaining talking about adding building improving instead of cutting reducing decreasing. It's the only way the only way that we're going to get out of this not just yearly but but really like daily perennially unendingly the the nightmare of our budget situation which ultimately impacts our staff and our kids. Our mission tonight's about mission is to help students learn and grow to reach their potential to the greatest extent that we can. That's our job as a district. And the only way we've been able to do it in the face of decreasing financial resources is through

030the quality of our staff. But at a certain point, that becomes harder and harder. the ratios. If you go into again that taxpayer guide and you look at the ratios of students to teacher, students to administrator, whatever metric you look at in there, it's a tale of extreme challenge. This final budget lets us overcome that challenge and begin to meet our kids' needs better this year and beyond. and our staff and our kids deserve this. So, that's uh we'll wrap up and see if uh questions we have from the board. [Music] No questions from the board. Seeing none, any general comments from the board. No, someone's gonna talk. Oh, yeah. Let's let Mrs. Null go first because I think you have a question, right? Yeah. Oh, on the uptake. But um I I asked this

031question in an email at the last minute and I'm sure you can answer the question. I was curious about the capital reserves that we will get from the state approximately 7.9 and I had inquired about why you're moving that out of the reserves so to speak right now instead of like putting some into the reserves and then take it out slowly as we com as we move forward with some of the capital improvements up there. because you cannot do all of that as far as I know all of that big list of the projects in a year. So could you put some of it into the capital reserves and would we make any money on that rather than just taking it all from there? Yeah. So, we're assigning those two expenditures in the subsequent year

032budget so that we can spend that money on the identified projects that the board had agreed to at the last meeting. Um, the list is extensive because we don't know that the cost of each of those projects or what you identified. We might not be able to tackle this or that, but as much as we can get done, we want to get done. We've identified those as critical needs through our maintenance and facility staff who were here at our last meeting. If there is any of that money that we're not able to spend next year for those critical needs, those would be a deposit at the end of the year into our reserve account. Okay. And do we make any money on the reserve accounts? We make the same interest rate on whether it's in

033our reserve or in our general fund. Okay. So, we'll make the same amount of interest on that money regardless. Do you have an estimate of, you know, ballpark all there? There's a lot of things on that list. all of the heat pump replacements and so on. Just a general estimate of how long you think those um urgent projects will take. No, I I wouldn't have that, but that would have been a good question for Brian and Tom when they were here last meeting. Okay. Thank you. I had one I had one other question. Um did could you discuss anything about Yale and what the plans are for that? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Pman. Um, so and that is um it was a budget item, not not so much a budget item, but it was

034an approval item at the I believe at the March meeting. So, um we you know have an existing contract with Yale at Evans. So, they they um lease space from us there. We're very appreciative of that. And uh in the course of conversations with Yale about um basically them taking on more of that space at Evans um they asked would we have other space in the district. We um at the time, this was back uh prior to this additional tax levy, um when we were in a $7 million hole, we we were going to you we're going to have a lot of space uh unfortunately through reducing um in a way we absolutely don't want didn't want and um were forced to do uh teaching positions. So we uh were talking to them about basically

035they would lease space from us. At that time it was going to be in the six green pod at the Macy for six classrooms. They have six classrooms that were um they were leasing from actually Medford School District and uh we're going to switch and lease from us. Um then this wonderful opportunity additional tax levy. So, in the meantime, um we have been looking at what other space might be available in our district to in order to um meet the commitment that we made to them since they had to give notice to Medford back on March 1st. Um but they would not they'd be moving to a different district. So, um we have identified three rooms here at Marlton Middle, which would be for uh the three classrooms that they use for their middle school

036program. and three classrooms in uh the fifth and fourth grade pod at the Macy Elementary, which would be for their three classrooms for elementary school. Um we wouldn't want to have, you know, this way their their middle school classes end up in in a middle school. Um and and the elementary classes end up in an elementary school. Um the uh what that means for Demacy Elementary specifically would be um they they currently have two available classrooms which would we would shift so that those are those two classrooms are in that fifth fourth grade pod and then we would need to basically create an additional classroom which would be in the nearest possible room to that fifth fourth grade pod. Um, and that's that's how that's at this point that's how we're planning to do it.

037Great. Thanks. Yeah. I I would just add one other thing and I'm glad you you brought the just because it as we think about these pieces. So, a person might ask um what you know with all this additional levy, why continue forward with um this agreement? Well, a couple reasons. one um from a you know we we take every aspect of what we do including every dollar very seriously of how we you know that's a resource that we are um bound to maximize for for for children, right? and any district that has an opportunity to find an additional revenue stream of $300,000, it's an it's a that's a really large amount of money. Um, and it's one that we certainly would want to give an opportunity to and we can assess as we go along.

038Um, but that's that's that's one reason why we're continuing is because the the fi that financial amount represents positions that we're able to preserve and and money that we're able to put toward kids. The second reason is we we made a commitment to to Yale and they've been a wonderful partner for us with Evans. We're looking to expand that partnership and um you know the timing the timeline was all beyond anyone's control. Um, I think I said it at the April 8th meeting, you know, wonderful that we have this opportunity with the additional tax levy and at the same time, I can't believe the state waited so long to make this opportunity available. They put towns throughout our state through such unnecessary trauma. um they've known I we a district doesn't end up $15 million

039under adequacy overnight. This has been growing year by year by year. We could have used this opportunity at any point in the past and that's been a known fact. So to wait until not just the 11th hour but after midnight after the approval of the tenative budget after districts had to meet the their own timeline the DOE's own timeline and submit those tenative budgets to the county only then to make this opportunity available [Music] um meant that um by that point you know we we had that we had already begun moving forward with the Yale uh partnership. So thanks again. Yeah. Any other questions for the board? Any general comments from the board? I'll go. Um, so my comment tonight um is regarding the mail that we all received at our homes from the bus

040drivers. You know, we're all public people and we know that. Um, but regardless of the intent and your feelings are 100% valid, but when I got 20 letters in my mailbox on Friday, my initial reaction was a little bit of fear and a little bit of, you know, you know, again, regardless of the intent, there was nothing threatening in the in the letters. It was about your feelings about the outsourcing situation. And again, totally valid. However, it's my feeling as, you know, a public person, you know, there's ways to contact us and there's ways to do that here and there's ways to do that on email and there's ways to do that in mail to the board office. Um, it crossed the line sending emails to my home. I'll speak just for myself here, but

041to my home, um, you know, I I don't ever want to feel like my family, you know, I got into this knowing that there's a certain level of heat I will take, um, that my family might take, that my young children could possibly take, but I under no circumstances got into this expecting to feel in the least bit unsafe. Um because the feeling that I felt immediately was the implicit intent, not the explicit intent. The implicit feeling that I received was we know where you live and granted all information is public. It is not illegal to send mail, but to me it was a line that was crossed. And my plea to the public as as a mother first and foremost is that that is a line that is not to be crossed and just

042to be respected going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bramos. Any other general comments from the board? Yeah, I' I'd like to add to that that if anyone that was here at the last meeting listened to my speech about the vile comments that were posted online um particularly by a gentleman about myself who is a member of the transportation department. So to open my home mailbox to find 20 letters from that department. Again, nothing overtly threatening, but there are multiple ways to contact us here, email. We have mailboxes at the administration building. There is a level of boundary crossing when it comes into your home. And I don't know that I need to say any more than I said last time, but as Terry said, when you have people making comments about you personally and

043now that department is sending things to your home address, we have children. We we have nobody nobody wants to feel threatened whether explicitly or implicitly. And that was also my first feeling. Um, in terms of the budget, I I also feel like I said what I had to say last time. I I still stand by I would have liked to have seen us take half to restore the cuts and not put the entire state burden on the taxpayers. Um, I you know, we we do need everything. I understand it. But things are so expensive right now already that for some people an extra $150 a month can be make or break and that is where I stand on this. Thank you, Miss Fox. Any other comments from the board? Mr. Dearcy, I was going to

044save my comments till after the uh the meeting ended um with the board member comment section. Um but you know I I like Miss Fox um made many of my opinions on this very clear at the last meeting. Um you know I I spoke uh to the struggle that a lot of young families are going to have to have in terms of trying to afford um to live in Marlton. Uh you know kids who grew up in this school district. Uh the kids that we want to talk about it's about them right? uh who, you know, are not going to be able to afford to live in this town. Um it's it's just the reality. I mean, you know, um and I could be on a soap box talking about it, sure, but it's it's

045true and it's how I feel, so I'm going to have to say it. Um not just them, though, you know, low-income people, uh fixed income seniors, one in four of which do not uh are not registered for the senior property tax freeze. Uh so if you are not registered for that, you think you qualify it, please do it, especially now. uh that taxes are going up almost $1,000 for the average assessed home. Um I I will be voting though tonight because the tax increase is just too much and there was a way forward that we could have gone that would not have raised to the full levy that Trenton told us we could do because Trenton thinks that that's what our district should be taxing. But that's not necessarily what EVAM should be taxing. So

046those are my thoughts. Thank you, Mr. Dearcy. Any other comments from the board? I would just like to reiterate the point that Miss Bramotes and Miss Fox made regarding our board's accessibility. We continue to be the most accessible board around. Um we are available not just at our board uh building mailboxes. We are available via email, which is not a luxury that most towns have. Most board members do hide their emails. Um we're available via email at board meetings here. We do not cap our public comment at 30 minutes like most boards. Um, so I please urge the public to exercise one of those previous options when contacting us. Moving to one of those public comments. Um, we're going to do two public comments tonight. They're going to be backtoback. First, we're going to ask

047just for public comment about the budget. Then we're going to open it up to public comments about any items of interest. So, the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items pertaining to the previous budget presentation. However, if your questions or comments pertain to litigation, student or personnel items, or negotiations, we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public. Please limit your comments to three minutes per person. Is there anyone who would like to comment about the budget? And just really quickly, um, because I see some new faces. Uh, we're getting ready to put up our timer. Um, so that will tell you how much time you have left of those three minutes. It is a public comment. It's not a

048Q&A. The board does not respond to questions as you are speaking. If there is a question, obviously you're welcome to pose your questions. Um, if there's a question asked that the president thinks should be addressed at the end of public comment, he will either address it or ask one of the administrators to do so. Um, again, you should state your name and where you're from. Um, tonight I don't see as many kids as we've had at the last few, but if there are any kids that are going to speak, please just tell us where you go to school. We we don't need to know where you live. Um, and um, yeah, I think that should be it. Just please be respectful of everyone that's speaking, address your comments to the board, and um, keep, you

049know, the yelling out to a minimum so that we can hear everyone. Are we ready to go? Uh, my name is Bob Duca. I'm 35 years in this town. First, I have to say, uh, as a taxpayer, I have a hard time accepting the line, that proverbial mag falling out of the sky. That's my tax dollars you're talking about, sir. That was a terrible choice of words. Uh, I'm not here tonight to advocate for any layoffs, busing changes, healthc care in classes, make classes bigger. What I am going here to talk about is the $9 million you have in additional spending. 11 positions, $8 million worth of cash going to the reserves. Now, your audit shows that you have $3.7 million from last year, still in there. And the $8 million, by the way, is

050baked into every budget moving forward. So, next year you have $8 million you're going to spend. X mill you have $8 million. It's already baked in. Uh I know what to do better with my money, sir, than you do. It's not my s my money works better in my savings account and my own no account. Uh money and spending does not equal results. If we haven't learned that, we've got a bigger issue. Uh I read your summary online, your student report, uh speaks highly. It it doesn't say anything about deficient, inadequate, below adequacy. As a matter of fact, it says right here, "Students in the ETSD have wonderful education opportunities and do well on district state assessments." Um, then we're given a PowerPoint presentation to how terrible we are because we're not providing a thorough

051and efficient education. And why? It's because the state standard says we're not spending enough money below adequacy average. Uh, does that mean we're going to lower this the the salaries of our teachers to be average? Are are we going to eliminate programs to be average? Are we going to not teach English and math to lower our proficiency to average? Are we going to let our buildings fall to disrepair just so that we're average with the rest of the world? Um, I think we need to flip the script. We need to show that good governance can provide a good education. Um, your responsible budget, you have nice facilities. I read that we're the fourth leanest budget of a district our size, and I think there's 76. I might be wrong with that. We shouldn't be looking

052to go to 50. We should be looking to go to number one. In business, if you can do something and provide a quality some a project for something less, that's awesome. That's highly looked after. This is a business. You're a board. You have an executive committee. You have employees. You have students. That's your customer. Where are the taxpayers? Where are your stakeholders? A good, honest, healthy review of every budget, quarterly, yearly, is healthy. Make the decisions, but not based because they spend more. We need to spend more. In closing, I urge you to vote no. Take the additional $9 million. May I finish, please? I will wrap it up quickly. Take the additional $9 million out of the budget. Call a special meeting and pass a responsible budget. Doing right by the kids. What? Please

053wrap it up. I am doing right by the kids. I know you're doing it. You told me right here. Do right by the taxpayers this evening. Vote no. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Angel McDermott. I am the NJA representative for the EAM Township Education Association. First, I want to assure you that regardless of the outcome, you will not have any bus drivers coming to your houses and terrorizing you as suggested on social media. The purpose of the letters has been done by many associations throughout New Jersey to get your attention. As you are aware, earlier this year, the association took a vote of no confidence and shared it with you in the leadership of Dr. Smith. The education, the bus drivers wanted to ensure that you receive their messages in a means that is

054not controlled by the district. You will be voting tonight on a proposed budget that eliminates all but four drivers. Mr. Yates stated that privatizing will save 800,000. But what will the cost be? One slide showed that for this year 2425 the cost was upwards of a little over or more over 6 million, but next year was 9 million. 800,000 savings, but you're spending almost 2.2 million more. How was that savings? Over spring break, several of the drivers met to review bus runs to see how the district could be more efficient and save money. In reviewing the runs, the drivers were able to consolidate many of the existing runs. This consolidation made it so that the majority of the runs could be handled by the eve sham drivers and only about a third needing to be

055outsourced. That is the reverse of what is happening now. As they looked over the runs, they found that the company you hired had runs with only three students or five students on the buses. Did you know that? And for each run, you paid for it. Please understand, once you seed control of your transportation to a private company, you are at their mercy and they will take advantage of the district at every opportunity that they can. By keeping operation under your control, you have total control and you will know what to budget and how to budget. Dr. Smith had shared with me that the reason for outsourcing was not only financial but operational. The drivers have nothing to do with the operations of transportation. Any operational issues lie at the feet of your administration. I've heard

056from many drivers that when issues arise, the response is call Hillman rather than consult with the available drivers to pick up the slack. Each call costs more money, but it's done because it's just easier. By law, you must meet with the association and afford us the opportunity to make proposals that will save the drivers jobs and make transportation operation run more efficiently, which will also make it run more affordably. Dr. Smith has agreed to meet next week with a team that is comprised of association leadership and drivers. We are hopeful that the board representatives will be there as well. We ask the board to keep an open mind, review the budget again, and make contingencies to allow for the transportation operation to remain under your control. Once our attorney receives the remaining information that was

057requested on April 1st, our team can review and make the appropriate proposals for our meeting next week. We are committed to working with the board to consider all options to maintain all EVA bus drivers. Thank you. Hi, my name is Lisa. This is my first time here. I do not have any kids. So, I'm supporting all these things. I think there's a lot of things that are important that we need to consider. But here's my thinking. You have I looked at your budget. You have like the five math teachers, you know, one for each school. Why can't we just have one teacher that circles around every other day to another school? We have assistant principles. too. Why do we need that? Why can't we find a way to make a win by win and get

058some of the things but not everything? I mean, I'm not getting a raise this year, okay? My company's not giving raises and now I got to pay for all these extra positions you're adding in. I would like you to say no and relook at the budget and go slowly into the things you need, including the building repairs. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Joyce Luchi. I've been a bus driver here in Eastam Township for 25 years. This is the fourth time in my 25 years that the administration has suggested that our department be outsourced. Each time after numerous debates, it has always been decided that it would be less costly to keep EFA bus drivers. This board has yet to see any bids processed for this year to know if it would cost be

059cost effective to outsource us. To my understanding, that process wouldn't be until July 1st after this board has to vote on this budget. Why is that? Why are we waiting till July the 1st? Why is it being h what's being hidden here? How could this board consciously make a decision to outsource when you don't even know the cost? And we all know the bids will be low for the first year and the company will increase the cost of its high the company will increase cost at its highest percentage allowed after the first year. Mr. creates. I would like to know how you could continue to recommend outsourcing when you yourself have changed your own child's bus from a Hillman's bus to a Eve Sham bus causing the Eve sham driver to go out of their

060area to pick up your children because you didn't want your children on a Hillman bus. I'm sure all these other taxpayers whose taxes are going to increase over $99 and more would like to have a choice of who will drive their children to school each day. As I examine the additional needs of the district, I have a couple that I don't think are necessary. Is it necessary to have two traveling vice principles? How much help is that at a cost of $280,000? I don't think it's necessary. Do we really need new PA and phone systems in every school? I hear the PA systems out out of each school I go to while I'm outside. Not necessary at a cost of $850,000. Do we need every phone and every PA system repaired or just certain ones?

061I've heard that some of the schools have had them repaired recently within the past 5 to seven years. I don't think we need them all done. I would it it would save bus drivers jobs instead of doing all the PA systems. $850,000. $600,000 to restore two clerk typus. If we weren't going to restore them before, if it's working, why don't we just keep it that way? $120,000 for a case manager. Why is it needed all of a sudden? 480,000 math interventionalists in each elementary school. Why not have one or two traveling among each elementary school? More savings there. 650,000 for repaving parking lot at the Macy's school. I would fill the holes and save 32 bus drivers jobs. Reasons given to outsource is not the cost but the operational and effectiveness. That's not bus drivers

062responsibility to have the effectiveness and the operational be. It is administrations. We need more effective upper management, not outsourcing the bus drivers. Hello, my name is Rosemary Bernardi. Um, I just have to say Dr. Smith started off with strong schools and strong community. I was with the uh kindergarten uh initiative and we adv we talked about that all the time, you know, and you know, I always been a staunch advocate for programs. Programs is what makes EIM Township School great. Um but this budget isn't really talking about programs. We're talking about $7 million in capital improvements. So, um I do have a prepared statement. This has been one of the most remarkable budget seasons I can recall. In just four months, the Esham Township School District went from facing a $7 million budget deficit to

063proposing an $18 million tax levy increase. Prior to the last meeting, I emailed all the board members about how I would have voted and I still don't vote. I don't fault any of you for your votes. The budget development is a process and that vote was just one step along the way. However, between then and now, more work should have been done to address the expenses, particularly transportation costs where which are projected to reach uh 8 million next year, a major and growing financial pressure that remains unadressed, even with the plan to outsource. Tonight, I'm clear on how I would vote. I urge you to consider approving only half of the proposed tax levy increase and advocate to the DOE to allow the district to bank the unused cap for use over the next three

064years. The DOE created this opportunity for you to go up to adequacy. The DOE can allow you to cap bank it. I think it keeps the flexibility for the future. I know you all concerned about not taking care not taking it because it might not be available to you, but you need to advocate for it. There is no justification for the board to double dip on tax living increasings, taking both the 14.9 million adequacy adjustment, which is that 14,000 per pupil amount, and the 2.3 million growth enrollment adjustment amount. We're talking $10 million in tax levy. Last year, our levy was 70 million. This year it's going to be 88 million. The state calculates our adequacy budget the 84 at $84.7 million. So they say, you know, we take that $14 million or $14,000 per

065pupil and they factor in all these things and they say EAM, your adequacy budget is $84.7 million. They also say your local fair share is $85 million. They take our property values and our income and they determine what our local fair share is. No matter which number you use, the proposed $88 million tax levy exceeds the standard by 2.7 or 3.3 million. This is a serious concern. Frankly, it looks like a money grab at the taxpayers's expense. Adding to these concerns, the district still does not have clear strategic goals. Without defined goals, it becomes even harder to justify the significant tax increases to the public or to prioritize spending decisions responsibly. Strategic planning should come before asking the community to vote. You have the opportunity to take a break, confer with each other, amend the

066resolution. I want you to remember your sto stewards of both our schools and community dollars. Financial discipline and thoughtful planning are not wrap up. They must go hand in hand. Thank you. Hello, I'm Miss Donnie for 22 years at Eastam Township bus driving way back when my mother was a East Township bus driver when there was a shift gear. I was born and raised on Marbal Avenue. I would like to begin with ex apologizing to all the parents and the students for being where am I? I would like to apologize to all our children and parents we have grown to know and love for how horrific the past few years have been and for most of us trying to use our sick days. A lot of our old-timer bus drivers have over 180 days and

067this is what we get for being dedicated and loving our job. Bus drivers and aids have been trying to work and fix the problems, but due to the issues from the superintendent and business agent, I'm here to tell you at this moment, we are also dealing with no running buses. The ones since last the week before Easter had a flat tire, still was sitting there this morning with a flat. They couldn't get nobody in during Easter break to fix a flat tire. Or a bus that was fixed, broke down on Thursday and had to be towed, still sitting there waiting to be towed. and all the other buses that need to be fixed. Also, our CB radios are no better. The cameras aren't no much better. There is a lot of fixing up to do

068there. We all wrote emails, had meetings, spoke one-on-one trying to help and explain how this department can work. It always he says, she says, who knows? All we know it can be done. Mount Laurel, Mefort, Lenipe has proven this. Why can't this township with with the right leadership who understands a contract with a built-in late run who knows to use a driver that's on a standby hiring people that want to work and available to work all hours not pick and choose. That's what Senarity is for. This could be a good running department like it used to be. If we had individuals that didn't want to just throw it all away, individuals that actually think they will be saving money. Well, good luck with that. Yes, I will miss my job, but most of all, I

069will miss all the children and families and friends I have made in the last 22 years. Thank [Applause] you. Good evening. My name is Sandy Student and I sat where the board members are sitting for many many years and no one realizes you don't get paid and it takes time away from your families and your office. But as Mrs. Bernardi said, this budget process has been fraught with disregard and sort of reminds me of a child in a candy shop just grabbing everything they can. I think you've used a poor choice of words when you've said whatever we can imagine we wanted to do. If my recollection is correct and you go to referendum with the capital improvements, the state would pay 40% of that. I know you don't answer questions. I got that. And

070that would reduce your expenditures by over $3 million over this budget that we've seen tonight. and you have a history of passing a referendum. Most other districts can't say that. The other thing that really troubles me is Mrs. Null asked a question and your business administrator said, "No, we're not going to spend everything right away. So, why are we raising the funds for it now if we're not going to spend it in the following year?" It's very, very troubling to me. Um, it's kind of like padding your budget and in this climate, we don't want to do that. I tried to determine if all of the items listed were in the long range facility plan, but due to a snafu, I wasn't able to get that until 5:30 this afternoon. I know that the mission

071is children, and I've always understood that, but I don't understand how assistant principles could increase childhood learning, which is our ultimate goal. I also am troubled because I don't think the board and the administration has explored very very simple lowhanging fruit. Let me give you a for instance. This district owns real estate that is readily convertible to residential property. Will people object? Maybe. Would it be a benefit? You bet your sweet ass it would be. It will increase the ratables in town so more people will be paying taxes. It would reduce your need to come up with an excessive budget. And it would also show people that we can take a different path, not just taxing people. The states admitted they're not giving us enough money. My suggestion last meeting was don't submit a budget.

072Make them come over and run the schools. They told you they're not giving you enough money, but they're telling you you can tax the payers. The last thing I want to make a suggestion, if this budget is voted, buy a new projector and buy Bluetooth speakers to make the room more amendable to meetings. Thank you very much. [Applause] Hi, my name is Emily Jervisy and I live at 40 Paddock Road. I am speaking today because I am upset about the decision to rent out Deacy Elementary School classrooms. I've been following the budget process and attending meetings for years. I do know that the decision was on the agenda for March, but I don't remember much of the conversation being in public. This decision has a direct impact on our children and the fact that parents

073are finding out through the rumor mill and not by the board or the administration is insulting. As tough as it is, I do support a tax increase to full fully fund our schools. However, I do not support this additional money grab to rent out Deacy. These classrooms have not been sitting empty. They are actively being used by DECI students. So, the fact a contract was signed before final information on state funding came in is confusing, especially because we have seen such fluctuations between preliminary and final state funding numbers in the past few years. I look forward to hearing from the board and Dr. Smith on the following specifics. One, what next year looks like for each grade, specifically the fourth graders and the fifth graders who are going to be most impacted, both students and

074teachers. Two, what is being done to keep any changes to both teachers and students at a minimum? And what is being implemented for to keep other non-dem students out of the younger grade wings? Dr. Smith, you said numerous times that the contract was made and we need to honor it. What about honoring the needs of Demacy Elementary School students? Thank you. [Music] [Applause] I'm going to piggyback that. I am here today with a heartfelt plea to reconsider the decision to place the Yale program in the fourth and fifth grade pod at Deacy School. I am hoping that you take a lot of time to listen to what I'm going to say and give it the respect it deserves. I strongly feel that you should reconsider placing those Yale students into that pod. You said tonight

075specifically that the Yale students have to be summer. Keep the middle school with the middle school. What about our kids keeping our littles where they're supposed to be? I have taught fifth grade for 23 years. I am very aware of their ability to mold and adapt. However, as a parent, I don't want them to have to moan and adapt. At this point in time, the internet, social media, everything is ruining our youth. The sooner that we step in as parents and help this out, the better we will be in the long run. Putting our fourth and fifth graders, if this rumor is even true, because like you said, we hear it through the rumor mill. If it is true and our fifth graders of next year or our fourth graders get pushed into the middle

076school wing, they are going to be surrounded by material words, actions, and behaviors that are just too mature for them. Please consider our students first, not Yale's, our students here. Please, Dr. Smith, think about this before you place it. Put thought into it. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Erica Whiskawitz and I am a fifth grade teacher at Deacy Elementary. I am speaking on behalf of my colleagues, but more importantly of the rising fourth and fifth grade students affected by Yale taking over the fourth and fifth grade pod at Dece Elementary. We discovered this was the plan when several people from Yale came to our pod after school one day. Again, we are frustrated with the lack of transparency in disseminating this crucial information to staff and families. When we spoke with you, Dr.

077Smith, last week, you mentioned that the district made a commitment to Yale and that there were rooms available in dees. There are no rooms available. Therefore, two fifth grade classes, a computer class along with two resource teachers would be would need to be uprooted. Moving Deacy Elementary students out of the pod would push them into DMS, thus displacing several middle school classes as well. Not to mention, the fourth graders would be sharing a space with students who may have difficulties adjusting to the pod traffic, the noisy bell system, and other distractions. The fourth and fifth grade classes at Deacy utilize the pod area for projects, guest speakers, student council events, and small group pullout instruction. We do not have access to common areas at DMS as these areas are reserved for middle school only. Our

078current schedules and school procedures are created around the needs of middle school students. Adding Yale to our shared spaces would further stretch our resources. We feel you need to repprioritize your commitments and think about what is best for EFAM students first and foremost. While I understand the commitment to Yale was made before the tax levy increase was made available and you must balance a budget, your plan was not strategically prepared with contingencies if the sixth grade pod was no longer available. Even the original plan to house Yale in sixth green was not without many flaws. Your plan also lacked input from important stakeholders. It should have included all cabinet members, supervisors, and principles from the start as their expertise can provide better solutions for where to place Yale students. It should not be a two-man

079show. Mr. Yates and Dr. Smith, parents are not interested in paying higher taxes only for their children to come second to an outside agency. Currently, Yale students use trailers on the Medford campus. They are completely separate from the general school population for lunch, recess, restroom facilities, and other activities. Trailers would be a better solution for next year until more space is available at Evans. Trailers should be placed on Evans property so that no EFAM student is uprooted. We ask that you reconsider where Yale students are placed and prior prioritize our students first. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, my name is Laura Cots and my family and I have lived here in Marlton for almost 14 years and like so many others, we moved here for the excellent school district. What I've seen though over these past

080handful of years is concerning and quite frankly heartbreaking. My fourth grade son is asking me why he won't be in fifth in the fifth grade classrooms next year. And I don't have a good answer for him except to say that I will stand up here and make my voice heard for him. My second grade daughter was in tears because one of her friends told her that she was going to a private school if Yale students would come to Demi. Our students have had to worry year after year now about cuts and major changes to their school and education. It's not fair to put them through the stress and worry. School should be carefree and fun. Instead, our children are worrying about what changes are coming as a result of Yale coming to Demise, and they

081deserve answers. As parents, why weren't we asked for input before the contract for Yale was signed? Or like one of the other people said, why did you contact the principal, the teachers, the professionals? At the last board meeting, it was presented as a possibility to help raise money, but apparently it was already a done deal. This decision seems very shortsighted. What happens next year when there might be more than two fifth grades? Why do fifth grade classes in the resource room need to be displaced? Do you have a plan in place for if there's a possible disruptive situation that might occur? You mentioned shifting the classes as if these students are furniture. They are children. They have looked forward to this year. They've been through COVID. They've been through so much. And to you, for

082you to just say we're shifting them shows how you feel. And it's very disheartening as a parent and as a teacher. These are children, elementary age children who are being used like pawns so you can make more money. Let me be clear. My issue is not with Yale coming to Demi, but with the disruption it is causing the current students at Deacy. You said you had an agreement with Yale. What about the agreement though that you have with all of our current students? You also said earlier that our students are the most important, but your actions scream otherwise. Because our tax increase, we're able to maintain smaller class sizes and the jobs of the 10% of staff whose jobs are in danger. But you're sending a message with your previously proposed plans that you don't

083value the students and staff. Money first, people second. That's what it's been for years now. I am pleading with you to please live up to your previous words and put the students and the staff first. They are the ones in the building. They are the ones the most directly affected by these choices. They are not dollar signs. They are people. Hi, my name is Lisa Argus, 31 Albany Road. Um, I'm on the Deacy Elementary PTA board. Um, I have two children who attend Demi. Um, I support our board of education and Dr. Smith. I'm here to be a partner and I know you've seen that from me with previous things we've worked on in the past. But I do not support the decision to have an outside school rent space within our within our elementary

084school walls. This is not to be pompous or dismissive or to reject the Yale school. This is to keep our elementary school to keep the feeling of solidarity and safety alive as it stands today. I ask each of you, do you have right now or have you ever had children attend to Macy Elementary? If you have, you as a board would never have chosen chosen this spot in Deacy Elementary School to run out to anyone. I did bring a map which you can't see from that far, but um right here is where circled in blue that you can't see is where the elementary pot is. There's so much more school other than what's here in elementary. And you can see how um in this area we just have this close little knit community there. Um

085the part circled that's in blue. Um it's um yeah, actually you can't see it, but so there's spots in yellow there that we call pods. Um we do a lot of learning in these pods. Um and I'll email you the map so you can see what I'm talking about. I know Dr. Smith has been there, but maybe some other people on the board don't know how the school's laid out. Um, so we do a lot of learning in the pods, a lot of PTAing in the pods. We have a lot of fun and create core elementary school memories there. And this is where all of the activities um I mentioned take place. Um, and as you shift our students around into the um, middle school portion, this is all going to be lost. Um, and

086like I said, this has nothing to do with the Yale school. You could have rented this space out to anyone and we'd still feel this way. It is the fact that you're breaking up our elementary school and we can't sit back and watch that happen without a fight. And I wonder I also wonder too how this could have been a decision that was made without putting it out to a public vote to take over our school. And why Deacy? And why this spot? And I wonder why you can't break the contract. They haven't moved in yet. You owe them nothing and you owe our kids everything. Thank you. Um, hello. My name is Andrea Brown and I live at 19 Raleigh Lane. I'm in a I'm the mother of two amazing boys, but I'm also

087in a very interesting situation here because one of those boys goes to Yale and one of them goes to Demacy. So my questions really come from the Yale point in the sense that my son had to leave Jagger unfortunately because he got too disruptive. He threw chairs. He ran out of the building three times to the street. The school wasn't available to meet his needs. I question if Deacy has been looked at and ensure that these children are able to stay in that area if they elope and run um is the building. My son has thrown a desk. My son has done these things and he's a great kid and these children at Yale are great children but they turn into the Hulk sometimes. That's what we call it. And Yale is equipped to deal

088with these students and to deal with the physical and the destruction. I question and I keep my fourth grader separate from my 14-year-old who is autistic because sometimes the physical aggression can get rough. So, while I'm a Yale parent and these children are amazing and lovely, I I fear for some of the safety of the children in the Demasy school, my child included. Um, on a simpler note as well, the not simpler, but my fourth grader, these were the children that really got hit by COVID when they first started. They didn't get that kindergarten experience where they got to go in without masks and learn how to be a child and learn all of those things, but they did always see those fifth grade clapouts. And my son was like, well, if we move and

089we're not getting that, and that was something that was so special that these children will also miss, I believe. Uh it's a silly little thing, but it's a it's a momentous occasion for these children. So, I just hope that all of these factors are being considered, especially for the safety of our children. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jason Lutz. Um, I've been a dedicated EPA bus, you know, employee for 13 years. And I humbly ask you to save our jobs. We we care about these kids and we bust our butts to get them to school on time every day in a timely in a timely manner, safely safe manner. Everybody does what they have to do to make sure those buses are safe every day and nothing's going to go wrong. So, I

090think you should really look at this and say, well, it it doesn't make sense to outsource because you just don't know what you're getting. You know what you're getting here. We're dedicated. We're always willing to do what we have to do. And it's not easy to get up every day, come to work, knowing that you're not wanted. It your your job's pretty much done. And that's, you know, that's what we've been hearing for the last six months now or whatever it's been. So it it's not easy, but we try. Everybody tries. So just try and reconsider keeping the bus drivers in the budget. Thank you. My name is Kathy Munger, 52 South Locust Avenue. I have been a district employee for 20 years, bus driver for 14. And I noticed on the one of the

091slides that you're saying that twothirds of our runs are now being outsourced and it works. I don't know whether you're aware or not what we have been dealing with since the probably the past two years. Our coordinator and assistant coordinator do not have any background in transportation. We have been giving them suggestions since the beginning of this school year of how we have worked as a team over the years with our senior drivers and how we know where any other driver is at any given point and how we can come together and do those runs instead of outsourcing them all the time. Take for this morning for example, I came to work. There were four drivers that showed up for work today. did not have any buses to transport their children because they're broke. They

092need they've been sitting two buses have been sitting at Elkins right now for over a month. I don't know what the holdup is, parts, waiting for money. I have no idea. But you had four drivers that are sitting in their vehicles or in the building not being able to work. And then you had two drivers sitting inside the building on standby. So I would like to know what happens. Of course, they paid what, $1,100 to Hillman's today because we didn't have any buses and it was easier to have to give everything to Hillman or outsource it as they're saying instead of us coming together and putting our runs together. I I just would like I want an answer why we have been operating like this. It's been like this for the past six months for

093the most of the school year. We come, we show up, we're willing to do something, we give examples to upstairs. What can we do? And you know what they say? don't worry about it. And you come in the next day, drivers that are out, one, two, three, because they don't have buses. And then Hillman, Hillman, Hillman, Hillman. Of course, it's easier because you're just giving it all away. And I just want an answer. If somebody can give me one through an email, my district email is Kathy Mer. Why is this happening? How come we get no support? Thank you. [Applause] Wait for my timer. Oh, once you say your name, I'll Miss Jay. Um, I've been a bus driver here for 23 years. So, I'm one of the four that will have a job if

094that's actually what will happen. I'm also one of the drivers that got together to consolidate runs. So, it is possible. And as Miss Angel had already said, we have Hillman runs that only have three, five, maybe 10 students that go in the same district or same area going to the same school. Put all those students on a 54 passenger bus. Save my co-workers jobs. We do this day in and day out. We deal with so much that none of you even can fathom. And I apologize for any negativity that's been put on social media. I'm not part of that. However, I just want to say one thing. Myself, just two years ago, we had a different coordinator. I was put into a bus that had not been on the road for four years. It caught

095fire and I had three preschoolers on that bus. I had to physically pick them up and evacuate. This is stuff that we deal with that's behind the scenes. No one knows. So, when you're telling my co-workers that they don't have a job anymore, that's what you need to think about. This is what we deal with. Thank you for your time. Uh, hi, good evening. My name is Matt. I live on Lexington Circle here in Marlton. I have three kids. Uh, one have one who's a freshman at Cherokee who went through Demacy. I have a sixth grader at Demacy and I have a fourth grader at TMC who will be in fifth grade next year and we be impacted by a lot of this. Uh, first and foremost, that being said, I want to thank all

096of our amazing teachers at at Deacy. My kids have had an amazing experience. So, thank you very much. Um, I can't imagine how much harder their jobs will be when we move to 30 35 kids in a classroom, which by the way, I think goes against fire code. Um, they'll much less attention will be given to all these kids, which really leads to the suffering of their education. Uh, which by the way goes against your mission statement. You said this budget will will meet our kids' needs. How exactly will that happen when you increase the class size? How exactly will that happen when you put our kids at risk when you rent out space to Yale at the Macy school? You said you made a commitment to Yale to find them space. What happens to

097the commitment to our kids? Keep them safe and give them a good education. That's your mission statement, right? At least part of it. I along with everybody else at Deacy do not support renting out space to the Yale students. My children no longer feel safe there. How would you feel? I beg you to reconsider this decision not to rent out space at Demacy. By the way, how much money do you have in the budget for a lawsuit when something happens to one of our Demacy students because of an unfortunate troubled Yale student? Keep that in [Applause] mind. Good afternoon, good evening. Time is good night. Um, my name is Shalica. I come to these meetings time and time after again. And during the spring break, I did some looking and you know, stuff like that.

098Dr. Smith, when you first got here, the very beginning, this is what you said, and this was the last part of what you said is a last belief. We will not just rise to these challenges, but become stronger and better because of them, more communive and collaborative, more intentional in our decisions. is all aligned to the goal of helping our children. Right. That's what you said. I believe in genuine and real communication. Everyone's voice is valuable. Please share thoughts, ideas, concerns, and more with your principal and me. I will be looking for ways to listen together. As a team of district, families, and town community, we will meet the challenges we are facing. How to continue to serve our students in the best way possible successfully. I share words keeping in mind that more than

099what you say, we are what we do. Do you still mean that? Um because it it just doesn't make sense to me. And um when it comes to the busing situation, you're going to outsource buses. These bus drivers have known these kids probably since these kids were probably in prek or kindergarten. They've been driving them around. Um, and you're going to now make changes with that. To me, it makes no sense again. And like I told you the last meetings, I'm tired of talking up here because it's like a repetitive thing and it's like I'm still talking to a brick wall. Basically, my thing is make it make sense to the parents and the bus drivers if you're basically guaranteeing their kids are going to be safe on the bus. We feel more safe with

100the bus drivers that we have now because we've known them. They've known them for all these years. They know their kids. A lot of these kids have autism. I hear as a mom that her child has autism. Um, I can tell you for a fact, I've worked with kids with autism and their strength is like no other. Are you guys equipped to say, "Okay, we'll rent out Yale. Do you guys have DSPs in there to help them? Do you guys have RBTs in there to help them when they SIB? Um because it's still a part of your they're now a part of your district. Are you going to help the kids that's in your district when they're being attacked? Um it's not really rocket science when you're putting a autistic kid with a regular kid

101and it takes something as little as looking at them to set them off. So I completely understand where the parents are coming from where opening up the Macy for Yale students and it just has to make sense to me as a parent and it's just like I said I've worked with kids with autism before. I've seen it and you guys don't want to the gentleman said you guys do not want to face that lawsuit if it comes about if another child is attacked by a kid from Yale. the severity of being attacked because I have wrap up I will I have been attacked by a child with um autism. I can't let anyone speak longer. It's okay and I completely understand that but I want you to understand this as a parent you have to

102you may not be a parent so you may not understand but being attacked by a kid with autism is very severe. I've been that parent that was attacked by a kid with autism. [Applause] My name is David not 13 Oxford Road Marlton. I've lived here 65 years. I'm a school bus driver. There's things that have been going on here well before the start of this school year. Do you board members have any idea what's been going on with transportation? I wonder. I really think if you did know, we wouldn't be do doing this tonight. For the last two years, we've had one failed coordinator of transportation after another. The start of this school year. The first day was a failure. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. It was chaos. It was confusion.

103We were told, "Oh, there's problems with the runs. We're going to take care of it. It's almost May." Guess what? They weren't taken care of. Were they, Mr. Yates, Mr. Smith? No, they weren't. We were told by the coordinators they would be taken care of. I drive a 54 passenger bus. I have 17 kids for all my runs. Is that productivity? I don't think so. I pass a Hillman's bus on the same streak on the same school on every run. They could take my 17 kids and I could be picking up kids that from another Helman's route. There are so many Hillman's buses in this town and it's not necessary. You know why we have so many Hillman's buses? Mismanagement, poor planning. We tried to help and we were basically ignored. People like Daddy and

104Joyce, Wendy. I got a granddaughter that spent 410 days in Children's Hospital and almost died about five times. She rides a bus. Wendy is her bus driver. Okay? None of us are perfect and I'm sure some of the Hillman's drivers are okay. But let me tell you, a lot of them aren't. And a lot of them don't give a hoot about our kids. And I got a special needs granddaughter. She needs somebody like Wendy, not some random schmo coming from a yard in Berlin or Hulcom and wherever they're at. Again, we tried to fix this problem. We offered to fix this problem and we were ignored. And now here we are. We're going to lose our jobs and the taxpayers that work in the district are going to get their taxes jacked up 25%. That's

105like getting shot and hung. Good night. Hello, my name is Sean Crump. I live at 161 Crown Prince Drive. I was a direct uh support professional at Bankrooft and I know I have the battle scars to show you. I've been bit, I've been scratched, I've had kids that have ran out the classroom and just destroyed another classroom. Um, I was in the army for eight years and I dealt with more hand-to-hand combat at Bankraftoft dealing with kids with autism than I did when I was in the army. And I mean I mean it's it's bad. It's it's bad. You're going to deal with a lot. You're going to deal with kids using the bathroom on the floor. They're going to be run around naked. I'm I dealt with it all. I dealt with it all.

106And I hope you guys are ready for it cuz it's it's going to it's going to be bad. It's going to be bad. It's not again it's not their fault. It's not the kids' fault. They can't help it. But I hope you guys are prepared. I hope you guys did everything your due diligence to make sure that the kids the other kids are going to be safe because like like you said these kids you you can look at a kid with autism and they'll just snap. What are you going to do if you have a class walking by or you're outside? I remember when we had kids outside. I had this one kid. He would just he would just sit there. His name was Andrew. He would just sit there and I'd be like, "Andrew,

107what's wrong?" He'll just look at me and then he gave you that look. You guys are ready for that. They're going to You have to be able to learn these things. They may look at you like that. All right, he's fine. But then you have to see a look in their eyes and then Oh, all right. Get ready. Get some of these other kids out of here. He's about to go off. All right. Please address the board and not the other members. Well, okay. Well, I'm an American. I got my rights. But it's all right. It's all right. But anyway, um I'm sorry. But, um, yeah, it's going to be it's going to be rough and I hope you guys are ready for it. Um, like I said, I don't even know what else. I

108I mean, I've seen classrooms destroyed, kids that are 10, 11 years old flipping desks. You know, it it's it's it's going to be rough. It's going to be rough. So, I appreciate you guys listening to me. I love this town. I moved here in July. I used to live in Bronson Township. Um, I know I know one guy up there. That's my boy right there. You know, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate all the hard work some of you do. Um, but uh that's all I had to say. I appreciate it. Thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Ginger Deetszman. I live on Lexington Circle. Hopefully you can hear me. I'm sorry. Bronchitis. I prepared nothing, but I'm coming to you as a mother. I'm coming to you as the PTA president

109for Dacia Elementary. I am in that building multiple times a week. I can tell you that pod is not big enough for an additional school. That pod is utilized for so many things in terms of learning PTA events. Example, we just had coin wars. It's right at our elementary office. The level of noise is off the charts because the kids are so excited. But how will that affect the kids coming from Yale who are in the pod right around the corner from the elementary office? What is that going to do? I've heard that there's going to be self-contained that they are going to have their own administration, their own nurse, but we don't know. We haven't been communicated to as a school, as a parent, as a PTA. Dr. Smith, you meet with us every

110month, all the presidents. I feel like that is your opportunity to be so transparent. We can be your voice. We can we we can text all our families and all the schools right away with accurate information as to how things will get executed, how things are going to play out because what does happen if some if if a Yale student does run as an example was given, do we go into lockdown? But then how do we explain that to our children who aren't a part of the Yale program? Every child deserves to learn. They deserve to learn in an environment that's fit for them. I just really really encourage you to re-evaluate putting the kids in the fourth and fifth grade pod annexing the fourth graders that will be fifth graders into the hall that

111leads to the small small gym. They're completely out of the elementary experience. That experience is gone because there now where all the specials take place there where middle school is up and down the halls. It's loud. And as people have said, the things they're going to hear, the words, the situations that they're going to be exposed to, they don't need that yet. Let them be a child and let them be in fourth grade, fifth grade. Don't take over that pod with yell. Find a different place. I don't know where because I know that building is full. I know this because I have to work with Mrs. screen to find rooms available to hold PTA functions. There is no space. But if it's a done deal, we need to re-evaluate where those kids are going to

112be. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to comment about the budget? Seeing none, we're going to move to our second public comment. This public comment is going to be for any items of interest. So, the meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest. However, if your questions or comments pertain to litigation, student or personnel items, or negotiations, we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting. Since we do not discuss these matters in public, please limit your comments to three minutes per person. Is there anyone who would like to make any comments? Seeing none, we will move to approval of the minutes. We need a motion to approve items 6.1 through 6.3. Do we have a motion? Motion by Mrs. Null, seconded by Mr. Dearcy.

113Any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, Mr. Yates, roll call, please. On the approval of minutes, Mr. Brown, yes. Miss Moitz, yes. Mr. Dearcy, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mrs. Null, yes. Mr. Thompson, yes. Mr. Peeleman, yes. Mr. Bach, yes. Mr. Conton, yes. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item seven. and superintendent report and administrative items. We need a motion to approve items 7.1 through 7.8. Do we have a motion? Motion by Miss Fox, seconded by Mr. Thompson. Before we vote, I'll hand the floor over to Dr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Canton. Uh just given the time with the presentation and so on, I'm going to keep my comments short, I just want to recognize that teacher appreciation week is just around the corner and to thank our teachers and all their

114staff for their work and dedication day in and day out. Children learn from each of us, each staff member, in what we say and what we do. Our teachers are a vital reason why our district's quality of education has been sustained even as our district's financial resources have decreased. Tonight's final budget is a powerful embodiment of appreciation for our teaching staff. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Smith. Before we vote, any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, Mr. Yates, roll call, please. Roll call on administrative items. Mr. Brown, yes. Mowitz, yes. Mr. DeMarcy, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mrs. Null, yes. Mr. Thompson, yes. Mr. Pelman, yes. Mr. Bach, yes. Mr. Compton, yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item 8, curriculum and instruction. Do we have a motion to approve items

1158.1 through 8.4? Miss Bramoitz with the motion seconded by Mr. Dearcyc. Any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, Mr. Yates. Roll call, please. Roll call. Curriculum and instruction. Mr. Brown, yes. Mr. Bowitz, yes. Mr. Marcy, yes. Miss Fox, yes. Mrs. Null, yes. Mr. Thompson, yes. Mr. Peeleman, yes. Mr. Bach, yes. Mr. Conton, yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item nine, finance and operations. We need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.19. Do we have a motion? Motion by Mr. Thompson seconded by Mr. Peeleman. Thank you. Uh, any questions or comments from the board? Mrs. Nol, I'd like to make comments about the budget, which I was not able to do before, but I wanted to point out to the board in case you didn't know that there were

116300 districts throughout the state that had the opportunity to submit applications to the county superintendent and only onethird applied. I believe that they did not want to accept passing the state's burden to their taxpayers. I believe that our district is now telling the state that they are off the hook, that it is just aokay that they just give us $1,100 per student in Marlton. I don't think that's acceptable. Also, we have more residents staying in our town. Their kids are here. Their grandkids are here. They don't want to move. They like it here as I do. And I'm afraid that this will force a lot of our longtime residents out and that's really sad. Yes. Maintain the middle school team model. We all agree on that. We want to keep independent study. We want to

117keep class sizes down because that is so important. We wanted our paras to keep their benefits. We want to also restore fund balance and other things. But to add in so many additional positions and also take the 7.5 million for capital projects at this time in this uncertain economy and also on the heels of large increases over the past few years. Did we forget about that? And it wasn't just Esham Township, it was Lenipe Regional who increased above 2% also last year. So, in total, my taxes have increased $1,200 in the past three years alone, and now they're going to go up another 900. That is a lot of money. It really is. I'm sorry. It's just too much. And there was another way in my opinion. We could have taken some. We could have

118restored what we all agreed upon. We could have even taken some and did some of the capital improvements, the most urgent needs, and we could have gone out to a referendum. We just discussed district goals in March at our board retreat because we needed new ones. We needed updates. Goal number two, some of the board members couldn't go and some others left early. They had other commitments. Goal number two, initiate and complete a district referendum for capital improvements. However, there was a lot of work to be done. A lot of work would have to go into this, but it targeted a fall 2026 um bond referendum and it would be a lot of work between now and then, but this is what was presented to the board that we needed 80 to$100 million worth of

119improvements. So, um I just don't know why we abandoned that idea. the state would match 40% and I feel like we pre-surrendered. So, having said all that, I'm sure um you know that I was going to vote no, but I I really hope some of you reconsider because there was another way in my opinion. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the board? I just Yep. Sorry. Um just regarding the Yale situation. Um you know, I feel you, Deacy. I'm a PTA president at Marlton Elementary myself still. Um I just want Dr. Smith, we talked about this, but just commitment going forward if this is the plan that it has to be to, you know, I'm somebody who very much believes in the student experience and protecting it and you know just your commitment

120that we will go about this in the best way possible to preserve as much of the experience for Demise as as pos as as we possibly can. Absolutely. [Applause] Any other questions or comments from the board? Best way to do that. Seeing none, Mr. Yates. Roll call, please. Roll call on finance and operations. Mr. Brown. Yes. Much mowitz. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest of it. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest. Noted. Mr. DeMarcy. No to the budget 9.18. Everything else yes. No to 9.18. Yes to the rest. Your motion is courted. Miss Fox. No to 9.18 and 9.16. Yes to the rest. No to 916 and 918. Yes to the rest. Thank you, Mrs. Null. No to 918 and yes to the rest. No to 9.18. Yes to the rest. Thank you,

121Mr. Thompson. Yes, Mr. Peeleman. No to 916. Yes to the rest. No to 9.16. Yes to the rest. Thank you, Mr. Pman. Mr. Bach, yes, Mr. Conton. Uh, yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item 10, personnel. We need a motion to approve items 10.1 through 10.11. Do we have a motion? Motion by Mr. Thompson, seconded by Mr. Peelman. Any questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, Mr. Yates. Roll call, please. Roll call on personnel. Mr. Brown. Yes, Miss Mowitz. Yes, Mr. Dearson. Yes, Miss Fox. Yes, Mrs. Null. Yes, Mr. Thompson. Yes, Mr. Peeleman. Yes, Mr. Bach. Yes, Mr. Compton. Yes. That motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Yates. Moving to item 11, policy, of which we have none for this meeting. Moving to item 12, committee reports. Are there any committee

122chairs who would like to share a report? Miss Fox, not a report, but I would like to just say one is coming from curriculum. Um, there have been a few parents that I've been speaking with regarding the ELA concerns. Um, I I did have an update and then work got insane and I left the update on my desk. Um, but it is it is being discussed and I will have an update next meeting. Thank you, Miss Fox. Any other committee chairs like to share a report? Okay, moving to old business, we have none. Moving to new business, we have none. Board member announcements are next. Are there any board members who would like to share an announcement? Mr. Peeleman. Um, this isn't an announcement so much as just something I wanted to say after much

123of the public comment tonight. The a lot has been said about many of the issues that were raised. I am sympathetic with the Demacy parents and their concerns about where the EL students um are going to go. I I just I really feel the need to say that the language regarding autism and autistic children was vile and disgusting. That lumping all autistic children together under one banner, lumping an entire spectrum of people as behaving in a simple single way and saying this is how autistic people behave. This is how autistic children react. You'll never want to be in a room with an autistic child. is unbecoming of this district and the people in it. I am shocked and appalled that that was the language that was used tonight. And I I just cannot get over

124how any of the kids listening at home who any of the parents listening at home that have children on the spectrum feel after listening to this board meeting and after listening to the people in the community speak about that community in such disparaging tones. Thank you, Mr. Pilman. Mr. Thompson, as a father of a child with autism, you should all be ashamed of yourself the way you spoke about the children with autism. It is a spectrum. It is not just one way of being. It operates many different ways. My child is not a biter, not a hitter. The only thing he's going to do is he's going to attack you with hugs and kisses. You should all be ashamed. Are there any other board members who would like to speak? Mr. DeMarcy. Um, I want

125to speak more to the budget. Um, you know, again, I said a lot of it last meeting. I I said a lot of it prior to the vote. Um, but I I just want to reiterate, you know, uh, our state, our community, we've been in an affordability crisis. Um, but the vote that we took tonight 100% contributed to that to a level of which that is unprecedented in our town's history. Um, you know, again, I I not just sympathize with the people who have to figure out how they're going to deal with this now. Uh but but my whole big thing with this and I've been saying it since last year is like you know we owe a a duty to like make sure that this town is an option for for people um you

126know people who want to live here like the kids who go to this school right now, right? Like you I went to this school not too long ago, right? Um I I love Marlton. I do. I really really do. Um, years ago, I I I would have thought to myself, there's no way I'd want to live any other place. But it's like, you just have to think to yourself is like, is this going to get any better, right? You ask me, this school district shouldn't raise taxes for the next like decade or so because of how much we just raised tonight. Um, and to that point, it's like now we have no excuse. Now we have to have the best services, the best instructions, the best classrooms, the best teachers, everything, right? Because now it's

127the old saying, you get what you pay for, right? And people are now paying for it. Um, so I I really really hope that, you know, some actions happen at the state level, uh, where Trenton can can get its get its stuff together. um you know, some changes happen with with with who's leading us um and the funding formula can have some common sense to it and that we could get some of our money back and that we should take that money that we in theory would get back and and we should dedicate it to property tax relief for EU Township residents should that happen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dearcy. Any other qu uh comments from the board? Mr. shock just to kind of respond um to Aiden's comments. You're right. We should make

128sure that everybody is held accountable for this. There's no excuses. We gave everything we could to support the schools and we need to make sure that everybody's accountable for that and we as a board need to do that and that's what I want to see going forward. We still need to fight at the state level. That still needs to happen. you know, that still needs to continue and hopefully we can, you know, do something down the line, you know, about to make things better. But as of right now, you know, I use my vote to support the schools and support the teachers. And what we need to do is from here on out is hold everybody accountable. You know, there needs to be results. There needs to be, you know, progress on things we want

129to see progress on, and that needs to happen. And if it doesn't, there's no excuses at this point. So make sure everybody's held accountable. Thank you, Mr. Bach. Any other board members would like to share an announcement? Mr. Bilman, just one last thought. Mr. Dearcy, I just want to agree entirely. Now that we have the funding, it is our duty to make sure we have the best schools, the best classrooms, and the best educators possible for our children. It's our responsibility to do that going forward. I wholeheartedly agree. Thank you, Mr. Pilman. Any other comments from the board? I will just end by this board knows I'm not the most articulate um board president. So I will just say that I wholeheartedly and emphatically echo every single sentiment shared by Mr. Pilman and Mr. Thompson

130during their board member announcements. With that motion to adjurnn. Motion by Mr. Peeleman, seconded by M Mr. Thompson. All those in favor? Hi.