001[Music] my [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] do [Music] so [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] then [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] i like to call this meeting of the eastern township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern country board of education in the following manner one posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office two emailing written notice
002to the berlin county times in the courier post and three filing written notice with the municipal clerk of eastern township can i have a roll call please mrs cappello here mrs everhart here mr fizzy caro here miss fleming here mr canton here mrs noll here mr lancelata here mr megan here mrs ryan here we have a quarrel thank you at this point in time i ask us all to rise for the pledge of allegiance indivisible with liberty and suspect at this time i'm going to read the ysham township school district's mission statement the mission of the ishmael township school district is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and community the district provides a strong educational foundation that will empower our students
003to 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 and become contributing members of a diverse global society at this point we are going to be moving into the public hearing on the 2021 school budget so the presentation by dr smith uh how this will work uh for the uh for this meeting we will dr smith will give his presentation on the on the final budget at that point we'll then open the floor to board members for questions and comments and after that we'll then open it up to the public for their questions and comments as well following that we'll then adopt the budget and have any more debate that the board needs at that time uh
004then vote on the budget and then open it up pack the to the public for any comment of interest that they have i just wanted to kind of give you tonight the the idea of how the the ebb and flow of this will work so at this point in time i'm going to give the floor to dr smith thank you mr visacare okay so final budget presentation third budget presentation first one was february that was the preliminary then the tentative in march tonight the final and just um i think it's a point of late that we do three we're only required by code to do one some districts do too i don't know of any district that does three it's a fantastic way to let voices be heard um and especially when so much is
005being cut from a budget so um some of these slides will seem familiar they are from prior presentations i'm going to go through them fairly quickly because this is the third time through we included them all in this presentation just so that if anyone were to look just at this presentation or just at the tentative or just the preliminary you would have the whole story in one document this year this slide i think i'll pause on for a second just um the the total amount of reduction is um a lot right and this year more than any other in that seven year sequence although next year is not far behind at a projected reduction of one million six hundred fifty one thousand dollars other impacts this year that chapter 44 loss i'll point out has
006gone up since the last presentation it's now at 950 000 yearly through the the latest open enrollment we had that increased from 800 000 in the prior presentation what i'll pull out of this slide is that primary driving question how can our district maintain the effectiveness of our educational services while costing less money this slide it looks like a piece is missing from kind of from the bottom there but let me looks like the uh a return got added in i just want to make sure we can see everything we're doing in here so hmm looks okay in my mind might be the uh the screen possibly in any case what's different about this slide compared to the last presentation is the staffing changes you can see down below there so added to the general
007fund budget is a half media specialist position that's a position that we actually cut during this current year as we did take steps immediately during this current year to generate savings knowing the very arduous road we have to travel now and in the future budgetarily but we we do you know a lot of times when you cut a number of positions what emerges is spots that need more bolstering so you know we cut back the entire media specialist position at mms and uh we we need a half position there so we're gonna bring it back um the kindergarten teacher that's due to enrollment so we need that we're adding that in and then the sr3 grant and you know the deal we did release some some guidance recently kind of a comparison of um the
008various as for grants we do and they have said that more guidance is coming on that one thing we do know is it can be used for class size so we have three related arts teachers one school counselor and then what's missing from the bottom that you can't see is half of a special education teacher and then i'll let mr shinty take slide good evening everyone so on this slide we're looking at any changes that occurred in our budget since the uh tentative budget that we presented back on march 11th so looking at the top part for revenue we we were able to increase our extraordinary aid by a hundred thousand dollars based on what we have received in past years um and then below that as dr smith just mentioned we had increased kindergarten
009enrollment for full day so we were able to put another 49 500 into the budget so then looking at the other side the appropriations and we changed there we were able to decrease the operations budget by 111 000 and change due to the fact that we were able to move the ionizer lease out of our operating budget and charge it to the sr2 grant um we had some changes in um salaries since that um tentative budget projection which we were able to decrease 16 000 and change and then unfortunately going the other way our special ed tuition we had a few kids that we were able to bring back into district which was a good thing however we had a few more kids move in from other towns into the district that will have to
010be sent out to private school placements so the net change ended up increasing our budget by a little over three thousand dollars the next two lines i'll uh talk about together because it's all insurance um we had projected a uh two percent increase in our auto property uh workman's comp insurance and things like that and when we got our bill it was a three percent increase so we had increased those lines by four thousand and five thousand dollars the next line the prs contributions um we um got our bill for this year it comes in april and the bill was greater than what i had budgeted for this year so we needed to increase that budget line to get it in line for what the bill for next year is going to be so we
011had to increase that by 51 000. the the next line which dr smith already talked about a little bit we we had to do an open enrollment for all our employees for our july 1 start date of our health insurance plan and we had a number of people switch to the chapter 44 through the new jersey educators plan so that increased the benefits uh line by 150 900 and then the last change was um we were able to uh incorporate back into the budget uh five more uh paris that give them benefits through the the 2122 school year and that cost is 62 500. so the total revenue changes compared to the appropriation changes came out to a net of zero okay so in pr previous years uh when we get to the final budget
012we just don't look at the up at the general fund budget we look at all all of our budget the general fund the special revenue and the debt service budgets because they're all they're all separate so um looking at those we do a comparison between last year's budget and the proposed 2122 the first column was last year the second column is the 2122 proposed and then to the right of that you see the differential the increase decrease and the percentage of increase or decrease between the two numbers so obviously our staff salaries are down because we've eliminated a number of positions so we would expect a decrease there employee benefits are down a little bit based on some of those based on some of those reductions the prs contribution which is the third row as
013i had talked about we had budgeted last year 3.9 i'm sorry 1.39 million this year we're budgeting for 1.4 million and our bill was right around 1.4 actually this year so we were a little under budgeted last year so that's why we added a few more dollars into that budget line uh general insurances and whatnot pretty much steady other district costs they're down and that's to d to do with the um sros uh being now partially funded by the township that's the major uh contributor to the change in that number jumping down a few more special ed is up and that's basically where it was in the tentative budget the increase there and then going down further the operations budget with transportation the main factor why that's up is that last year's budget was under
014budgeted and we actually uh explained that in the tentative budget uh what we had budgeted and what the actual number was so to get that those to get that transportation budget in line we had to increase it this year clubs and activities minor increase there um and then capital projects last year we had 671 000 in the budget this year 215 and then special revenue last year's 2.1 million this year at 1.7 and then the the last line that you can actually see is the debt service our debt services finally dropped off we no longer have any uh debt in the district as far as from uh bond referendums so um it went from the 2 million last year down to zero now the net difference in the whole budget is 4.2 million down about
015five percent thank you mr ashanti this slide is a repeat from prior presentations so is this slide um i did add one piece in red appropriately discussion with etea about options for maintaining paraprofessional benefits that's a very positive development as a step being used that's something that really took shape most of all in the last two weeks and um just want to say thank you to finance committee board members for their work in that process thank you to eta for their work on that process um which is ongoing so you know the latest um information shared back and forth was actually just an hour or two before this meeting so i do want to point out that it is um it is a continuing opportunity so the budget tonight what we vote on is adjustable
016right once we send it to the county office there are always adjustments and so approval of the budget tonight continues the opportunity for further discussion towards options for maintaining paraprofessional benefits and that is a positive that is a point of light and i'm sure that you know given the progress made so far that um you know a positive outcome can be reached and we will make the adjustments based on that outcome at that point so i didn't want to share that positive okay now we're going to look at the other side of the budget we're going to look at our revenues and this is uh you know all-inclusive our general operating budget special revenue and our debt service so looking at that the uh the fund balance is down um the first line going across
017and that's because we had less excess surplus to move forward into this year's budget compared to what we had available to move in move forward into last year's budget the tax levy is up two percent that's the album amount we can increase the budget uh for the tax levy so we've taken it to the max um and two two lines down the the state a that shows the the reduction that we're getting this year 1.7 million the line below that as i talked about before on the adjustments there's the 100 000 edition on the uh extraordinary aid from 250 to 350. um then going down to the bottom the federal grants which is our special revenue we were 2.1 last year this year we're at 1.7 based on what we're allowed to but pre-budget and
018then the debt service is the last two lines obviously in next year's budget there is no debt service so like in past years this the slide should be familiar to people obviously our tax levy is on a fiscal basis and the uh taxes are actually on the calendar basis so half of our budget from last year was the first half of the 21 tax bill and this budget will be the second half of the 21 tax bill and then of course the tax rate it's a functional number of things the general fund tax levy that service fund tax levy and the assessed value property tax properties which is called raidables um they all impact the actual final outcome on the um on the uh excuse me the increase in the taxes um for this year
019what we have presented as the increase for the tentative budget in march it's still the same in the final budget presentation so on this slide here we're actually looking at the calculation which the first column shows you the uh 2021 budget the uh the uh part that's the the second half of the 2120 20 21 budget which would be the first part of the tax bill for this year for calendar year 21. then the next column is the 2122 budget the numbers half of those numbers which make up the second half of the this year calendar year so when you add the two together that gives you the actual 21 tax levy and the next line is the ratables they're up a little bit over last year so that's a good thing um and then
020we look at comparing the um 21 tax rate compared to the 20 tax rate and that gives you your tax increase set 0.0175 um one and three quarter cent so in the average home this year which is up a little bit which is um at 271 900 the increase to to that household would be 47.50 on this slide we do a breakdown to show you because not everybody's on the average number you could be above or below it so you can go across and see approximately you know where your house falls and then all the way to the right would give you your actual uh tax increase for for this year and that was our presentation mr vasquero thank you dr smith okay at this point in time uh this is where i open the
021floor to the board of education any board members who have questions or comments pertaining to the presentation please laura's yours ah mr elizalata thank you thank you mr pittsguard uh dr smith just to reiterate or just to make sure i heard things correctly if this budget passes tonight there is still a possibility of ongoing talks between the union staff and the board of and the board there's continual talks so that the powers may be able to save their benefits yes so we've had pretty much i would say daily discussion over the last two weeks um and the uh latest the most recent communication came in um in those communication today so by the time that latest communication came in it will need more discussion on our part you know on the boards part um so
022uh in fact i would say it's it's a um it's even more than a possibility it's a guarantee that there will be more discussion going forward thank you very much dr smith can i just add into that real quick i felt like we've had some extraordinarily positive movements uh in the last couple weeks and i'm i'm incredibly grateful um for the the dialogue between the etea and the board of education in particular for the board um i'm i really am very thankful for how well uh the the finance committee has worked together on this and vice president everhart has worked on this um we've at some points in time have kind of been on-call doctors uh getting paige to come in and meet at various days and even weekends and i'm very thankful for that
023and i'm also thankful for for what the uh for the eta and their their constant dialogue and i think it's really important for all of us to realize that we are having a vote tonight and it feels like everything gets tied together tonight but there is still time and we're we're we said we said very positive all right and that means we're we're getting close but it's not tonight but we're gonna have some more positive conversations and we feel like we're in a better place than we were just a month ago far better place you know the uh miss no my mic i had a couple of questions mr rashenti the i was wanted clarification and uh i'm sorry i'm trying to find it on the ionizers the sr2 funding i know we're using that
024funding to pay for the ionizers can you please refresh my memory the cost of the ionizers and how many years we were going to be paying for that yeah sure the the ionizer cost was around 430 000 we had at least purchased it over four years so we would had to build into our budget 111 000 for the next four years so we were able to remove the lease payment out of the current budget for the 2122 year and we're we're putting the whole cost of the ionizers into the grant so the um the least the least going forward will be removed from our budget okay from this current year and that won't come back in because we're going to pay the whole thing off correct okay and what about the thermal scanners did we
025uh are we putting you know the grant application in for the i'm driving at we spent you know a significant amount of money on getting our buildings ready to open so then the s or two funds would help with the cost of those that one actually so actually uh those thermal scanners we were able to pay for that with grant money over the summer okay so um we won't need to use as your two money for that we need it for a lot of other things but but uh that those are covered i hadn't i'm sorry i didn't print this so i'm trying to scroll through there was one um other slide here and i apologize for not having time to print this out but there was the slide about oh here it is other
026impacts to 2021 22 budget the first line chapter 44 loss i understand that uh the second line percent substitute slash higher spent over budgeted amount can you please talk ab talk about that sure um so i'll give you one example of that so when we started the year our daily substitute rate was 90 and then we raised it to 105 and then actually 120 and then we we currently are at 140 a day for our substitutes um and that was basically market-driven you know um some districts had to close this year and go full remote because they literally couldn't staff their schools we that was a primary goal for us was to not let that happen and that that so that increase in daily submarine enabled us to avoid that that fate um we do
027anticipate returning that sub rate down to a more historical level um you know in time but um at this point it's probably going to be the level we're at for the rest of this year at 140 a day um and then there were other uh so other costs within that um just um we have we've had staff out for different coveted related reasons over the course of the year um on medical leaves related to covid and so we have to fill those spots with substitutes along the way okay and then the miscellaneous revenue loss yeah the uh the reduction in the miscellaneous revenue in the 2122 budget is mainly because of the impact of covet on our enterprise fund on our ecc program the before and after school program and the teddy bear academy for
028the last um i guess a year and three months uh the the program has not been running very well because obviously the participation levels are way down which affects the revenue and we've been trying to keep the programs going and the costs are not in line with what the revenues are so i can't budget monies to be brought back into the budget next year until we make up for the losses that we that occurred uh during the durham cove okay and then the the very last question is that the loss due to decreased fr enrollment can you please refresh my memory what is the f slash r enrollment that's um so that stands for free reduced lunch enrollment um a wonderful program by the u.s department of agriculture this year that enabled all students regardless
029of their free reduced lunch status to get free meals and um not a cost to our district no cost to our district but um what it did do is it depressed the it decreased the um urgency or value uh for completing that pre-reduced lunch application and so districts statewide are seeing um decrease anticipating decreases in free and reduced lunch enrollment as a result for next year and i did say that i read in the paper that they're continuing this program in the fall is that correct did you see that that the the free lunch for all students is for the whole 21 22 school year oh okay not just the fall the holes okay i knew i i saw a headline recently about that okay that's all i have thank you thank you mr snow
030mr lancelot you had a question uh just a few questions um so i wanted to get some just some numbers out there i i feel like i've been answering hundreds of emails over the last couple of weeks with people saying find another way you know make it happen and i'm looking at the numbers that you're that you have up there and it looks like there is huge losses from the teddy bear academy huge losses from the lost revenue from kindergarten and preschool 1.7 million dollars in state budget cuts all the the the charges and the things that we bought for to make the school safer during covet and then on on top of that is another nine hundred thousand dollars uh from chapter 44 losses 44 enrollment mr lanzalata chapter 44 was rolled out in
031december so there were there was that option on the table in december for open enrollment you're a teacher possibly it was presented to you absolutely okay so we had i don't know 200 and something employees move at that time so in january 1 that was 400 000 is that my number correct so since so december they opted for chapter 44. immediately mid-year now we didn't budget for this we have to find 400 000 to cover benefits for these for the staff that moved to chapter 44 yes to the 950 that it's gonna cost for 2122 we now have to find 1.35 million that we didn't have before yes uh i'm very well chapter 44. i i know exactly what it means and i just want to make sure that that everyone else knows the under
032on the the severity of the budget cuts that we are that we are that we are receiving so now with all of those budget cuts i mean we're talking over four million dollars if i'm not mistaken 4.1 4.2 million dollars so we're receiving nester 2 grant which is pet will pay for our ionizers we are receiving sr3 grant which is bringing us back a half of a media specialist three related arts teachers and a guidance counselor we are selling land which i know we don't have the money yet but i believe that's going to bussing on our end or on on on on the board's end you've eliminated two administrators 17 teachers through attrition and 23 other employees through attrition if i'm not mistaken i think these numbers are correct um so when you say
033through attrition so um i'm looking back at the slide that has the uh professional versus um non-certificated staff and um let me pull that side up on my here we are yeah so so uh so 45 positions total 23 of them professional 22 um paraprofessional or support staff not including four already from the prior year so and there was one administrator it wasn't uh not two but one administrative position which we cut that was actually one of the first ones that was um a curriculum supervisor position which was eliminated when kelly cam went to become principal of rice elementary school thank you dr smith i just wanted to just to make sure that that that everyone that has been emailing us realizes that we are working our our tails off to try to number one
034stop the bleeding from the cuts stop the additional bleeding from the covid and and chapter 44 losses there really is no money and we're but we're still working very hard our finance committee and is working with with um you know the union in order to make it to try to make this work my last thing is tonight we're voting for the number if i'm not mistaken and how we get to that number is still on the table correct correct thank you can i add one thing to what mr lanzalotta said absolutely miss null jeff i agree with you as far as yes many many emails and i want to apologize to everybody because i could not answer everybody and and you know i i'd like to answer but i was very overwhelmed by all of
035the emails um you know parents teachers the paraprofessionals so many and i just could not answer all of them however i wanted to say that jeff this reduction has been going on before dr smith um you know people say well you knew this was coming you should have planned for it we had been planning for it and mr physic everybody who's here mr meegan knew um mr bolin left bieler what did we do it was that his name i'm sorry yeah we got we took um mrs schroeder got rid of the demacy elementary school principal or vice principal whatever mrs romanelli took on extra work that's one thing that comes to mind and then miss cam curriculum supervisor at rice now we have been doing and thinking and then covet hits the public doesn't know
036we were hemorrhaging money we had to return money to parents for full day k this all adds up my point is when you say you knew this was coming you didn't plan for it no i'm sorry i could tell you every last little detail if you want to reach out to me so i reject that notion i'm going to switch gears for a moment i i just i just want to say that i personally am very happy um with the the reinstatement of the three related arts teachers i'm very excited about that and i'm also i'm also very happy that we were able to find a way to keep that guidance counselor at demacy i thought that was incredibly important um and i know that others thought the same thing too to see that being
037able to be reinstated is incredible i think that'll be helpful for the uh for the the load of kids uh that that in in this building in this physical building in itself so i i do applaud i applaud everyone here for getting that work done and i'm also thankful for the uh the sr3 grant and allowing that to to actually happen um so i want to take that positive out there for a moment because i know that was something that was kind of on the radar for everybody i was on my radar as well uh and i'm i'm very happy that we were able to reinstate that and uh as in terms of related arts teachers and and maintaining and keeping that that's always near and dear to my heart i always feel like that's
038like the uh that's the first thing that school districts always try to pick on and i it always drives me insane so i was i was very happy about that as as well um our kindergarten program with the full day and i think that number's increasing that's actually incredible news for us i believe in terms of coming out of him pandemic all right and we're having the uh the confidence in parents to bring their kids in full day that's that's doesn't just speak well for us but speaks well for everybody out there as well uh that that the confidence level for that so that we're able to do that speaks volumes of all of us everyone in this room uh and their ability to have parents feel confident for their kids to come in full
039day and that ultimately helps us that ultimately helps us so i'm very confident about that as well i'm very thankful for that uh also for the half media specialist um and i believe in their uh there was a half special ed as well all right but i just wanted to throw that out there for everybody it's a good job on that any other questions or comments mr fisa cara miss fleming yes thank you i just uh again um i know the committees and the union have been working very hard uh i love to hear that there has been open communication and that's what it will take to get us down this long long road but thank you very much to all that were involved and i know the past week has cumbered many many hours
040of your time so thank you again anybody else all right um at that point i am going to close that portion of uh of the of the meeting the presentation part and questions from the board members um and i will be opening it up to the public for agenda items only i just want to make a note before i i read this and and set up all the the ground rules i did get one email here that i i will be reading and i'll read that in a moment um i i'm looking over it and i i just want to say to the person that's that's online i am not confident i can get through this in the allotted time i will do my absolute best but i don't want to be the micro machines
041guy if anyone even gets that reference anymore that i don't want to speed read through this thing so um but that's you know i just want to say i want to do my best on this um so with that being said the meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however your discussions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd 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 uh i also ask make sure your your name and address uh very important that you say that to us i will be as respectful to you for your three minutes as possible if i feel that you're coming into a wrap
042up time i'll i do that i will try as graciously as possible to tell you please to to close up your statements if you're if you're pushing beyond the limit and i will uh we will do our best to answer your questions but we'll try to answer questions after you're done uh so that uh we're not in a in a back and forth and we don't we just quite frankly don't want to waste your time okay so first um i want to read this email this is from jennifer alkowitz i just want to apologize to ms alkowitz i did not have a chance to truly read this i got this right before the meeting started so i will do my absolute best i apologize in advance thank you for allowing my letter to be read
043i'm writing because this body has chosen to not make their meetings available to public comment and conversation except in person but individuals explained that they could not attend the meetings in person as they were quarantining because of letters sent home from the school or they uh they could not leave their child alone or other situations made it possible for them to attend in person you ignored their request while other boards are allowing virtual engagement even boards you sit on and letters regarding positive cases from the school were sent out just this week i mentioned this because it is behavior like this that has created an unnecessary layer of distrust and concern over the last six months concerns have been raised regarding the impact of cutting these powers benefits and we have not heard a response
044regarding any of the concerns raised one what was the promise made how did it come to be and why you have all access and means to obtain the details of this promise you created suspicion by not investigating or addressing it your ethics are also called into question on this because the first opportunity after john security left his position is when you immediately raise this proposal two operation and student safety concerns concerns have been raised which of you have observed to pick up and drop off at the schools within the district which of you observed their day-to-day operations so that you could understand the concerns raised in this forum by those who actually work in those buildings every day i'm asking who stepped out of their own school to investigate any point over the last six
045months what is the turnover rate of powers without benefits again we've asked this question over six months and has not yet been answered i think we're all smart enough and have been living and working for enough years to know what happens to businesses when their tenured employees leave and those who replace them have a high rate of turnover what i will add to this is what every hr manager is thinking who watched these proceedings don't be shocked when after you take the decision to strip these individuals of benefits not only do they resign but the powers continue to turn over at a higher rate additionally you can expect recruitment for new powers become exponentially harder because really why would they choose to come here to a district that doesn't value them or understand by their
046promises to them fiduciary responsibility number four you are in a tough position no one envies the position you are in the issue i take is that this budget cut wasn't a surprise coven and its impact was a surprise budget cut was well publicized years ago the amounts of the cuts each year were well known to you all when you look at the budgets and they were passed in previous years you took advantage of various opportunities so you did not have to cut much at all then we've all done what you've asked we brainstorm ideas on how to address budget shortfalls we've offered ideas small and large phone calls and letters have been written have been written cuts have been offered and every idea that has been raised as being used to pay for something else
047not all the money you have and will receive is barred from being used to cover these power benefits five iep delivery multiple teachers i'm going to wrap up with this with this portion right here iep delivery multiple teachers across every school district have reached out to you to explain the negative impact parents have reached out to you to explain the successes seen and the negative impact what is the impact of not being able to execute the ieps next year like you did last year special education budget line item increased by five point five four percent this year and dr smith will tell you that it went up to pay for students being educated out of district all right i got to stop there because we're well over time all right there is uh just there's
048another section there's a basically there's a closing here i want to say that this again is the comments of gender gender for alkowitz um sakowitz i apologize to not be able to read the whole thing um but also please uh bear in mind uh that uh you know we have have read it too okay um that is the last and only of my emails that i have is there anyone who wishes to come up and speak good evening debbie vancuren etea president i speak tonight on behalf of the entire etea membership for the last official time as the president of the etea i stand here tonight in solidarity with the et executive board for the last four years i have been the voice for over 700 members when i started this position i told my
049members that i am the oldest of five children and i am in the business of standing up for others over the last four years you have heard me speak boldly on numerous topics and i know that we haven't always seen eye to eye as the president i've stood for my members as as an educator i have stood for what is best for my students not always an easy task as i was jotting down what i was going to say tonight i really had to stop and think are we happy about the guidance counselor being added back at demacy of course we are are we happy that there won't be as many positions being cut at once as once predicted of course would we like to keep our two sro officers at demacy of course i've
050never felt safer in this big building as i do with officer d and officer steve but there's still this situation with the paris let me ask why don't you want to keep our paris and and with their benefits this situation has caused many sleepless nights for our paris and those of us on the executive board and i'm sure some of you as well you've shared that before the last time i stood at this mic i asked you to have this para situation resolved before today this situation with our powers is still ugly dr smith i have a question why did you want us to have the paris vote on those options before the meeting tonight if we weren't going to resolve this before the board members took a vote this situation has done nothing but
051help to destroy our district we are not moving in a good direction we have now pitted our paris with benefits against those without benefits and now etea members with medical coverage against our parish who will not have benefits just thinking about some of those conversations that we have had when we got together i don't understand how you can offer the choice between benefits for a member and their child versus a member and their spouse how can you put someone in a predicament where they will need to pay so much more to cover their whole family do you guys realize that this will leave some of our parents with only a few hundred dollars in their paycheck we know that dr smith presented other options to the etea however a pay freeze was never an option
052that the etea could even consider for those of you who don't know how that went down the last time let me remind you we took a pay freeze the etea took a pay freeze to save jobs and guess what the following years our members were still let go do you guys realize that a pay freeze isn't a one-time hit most people do not realize how that works it will accumulate and affect our pensions for the rest of our lives so you can see why that was not an option even though it was brought to our attention a few times we still think there are other options some of that emergency relief money could be used to save our paris benefits the sale of the properties that's going to come through could save our paris benefits
053we are also hopeful and i don't know if everyone knows about this but the 55-44 if that gets approved eastern township won't lose the 1.7 million so are we going to be able to stay status quo like this year we are still disheartened that you won't consider the savings that will be available by switching to the state health plan we've heard you voice your concerns that the state health plan rates may go up but let's face it we don't know what the rates will go for our current plan they could go up as well so once again we stand here in solidarity urging the board members to vote no on this budget i'm sure there's at least one of you who sees our concerns and could potentially vote no please find another way i know
054jeff said we keep asking find another way to save our paris benefits board members i thank you for listening to me one last time as the president of the etea i won't be going away i will continue to stand here with our newly elected president russell bowles congratulations ross [Applause] just first uh mrs van karen i want to thank you for your service as eta president although i didn't get to overlap with you for most of those years um it is a a very important service that goes above and beyond your already important duties as a classroom teacher and i know that um you know you've left and as you said you'll you'll be around but you've also left a model for the rest of the leadership to uh look to in the future um
055i wouldn't i don't want to go into too many details regarding uh the communication back and forth because that really is a form of negotiation but i do want to say to the the the timing of it um just so people understand so you know it was only two weeks ago that the conversation about adjustments specific to para benefits was able to begin and we were waiting for months for that moment so well i'm very glad that it came and and that's the most important thing the timing of when it came was completely up to etea that's the first thing uh second thing what was voted on today and what was offered back to the board were two different things so if what had been offered back to the board after the vote had been
056exactly what the board had offered in the first place it would have been an easier situation this evening potentially but what was offered back was a counter offer which out of respect for your offer it would behoove us to discuss it internally which we have no chance to do when it comes right before a board meeting so i think those those background facts are really important to giving the larger context so we're all working from the same reality if that makes sense so that's that's my comment thank you mr megan yeah i want to reiterate also thanks for your service but one thing you said when did we you said we offered an option as a pay freeze i've been part of all the exchanges on what we offered as solutions to this and to
057me a pay freeze means a zero increase so did did we i mean i have it in writing what we sent you did we really say zero is a pay freeze as an offer in one of our options all right well let then let me clarify what we were trying to accomplish as best as we could in a short time frame so chapter 44 as everybody is aware maybe the public may not be as we're aware of it as much as much detail as the school board and the union members are chapter 44 a state mandate allowed union uh benefit members to opt out of the contracted plan design that we had which we budgeted for and provided better financial incentive for those who made the option so as miss knowles had mentioned as we
058showed on there one million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars of unplanned expenditures left our checkbook and went into collectively not individually because i know everybody benefited differently by electing in chapter 44 but i want to make this clear 1 million 350 000 left our checkbook and went into the pockets of the unions and the participants in the benefit plan so no no well it's my turn you said it was a pay freeze i'm gonna explain that a paid decrease is a little bit different so i'm sorry i didn't hear you are we talking about 2010 or are we talking about today okay you know what up on that chart in a budget and what we have to present to the district has nothing to do with 2010 it has to do with today so
059let's stay focused all right this is this is not a back and forth mr meagan so let me clarify again let me clarify what we offered for everybody's understanding mr mr megan just focus focus back over here i don't want to get into a back and forth here that's what we're trying to do here all right so let me clarify what we what we offered for those who are not part of that we did ask for a little bit give back of the 1350 1 350 000 we needed 500 000 we asked for that to come back not the whole 1 million 350 000 that left our checkbook and went into the member's pockets we asked for five hundred thousand dollars back to allow the paraprofessionals to keep their benefits in full to me that's
060not a pay freeze the three percent contracted rate increase wasn't going to be in as a whole was not going to be impacted in fact when you add the 900 950 000 to the already 1.4 million dollar pay increase puts them almost at about a five percent pay increase all we asked for was five hundred thousand dollars back i do not look at that as a pay freeze i just asked for a little bit of the money back to share among those people who are going to be impacted why because we lost a lot of state aid and we needed it in order to effectuate the coverage for the paraprofessionals so that's my clarification did i get back my paycheck all right okay i'm not asking for paychecks let me clarify i i know you're
061saying i'm over my three minutes i'd like to speak please my name is mary madewell i'm a second grade teacher at field elementary school and i came up here to speak very nicely and mr meagan there's not a lot that makes me angry but you have made me angry because i actually led the effort to get that law passed in eve sham township school district and i'm going to tell you that all but two of your schools sent me paperwork that i baxed over to offices so those laws would get passed because people could not pay their bills you talk about an alternative source of revenue i listen to don adiago talk about an alternative source of revenue revenue comes from somewhere it comes from people's pockets and i'm sorry i don't i am not
062okay i am here for those people who aren't able to pay their bills because you this board negotiated us to pay some of the worst premiums than any other school district in the state of new jersey okay i went to people i listened to them i met with them face to face so you know what i'm not going to say these nice things asking you to save their jobs you should save their job they work with these children every single day i've got pictures that i've sent me to profit or any other people on curriculum showing you the work they do and it is not your face mr meegan i have seen miss earlhart come chill schools and a few other come to our schools come see what we're doing every day you have us
063overworked and underpaid i listen to a woman sobbing stopping at sweeney's california town hall meeting sobbing because eve sham township school district put her daycare out of business we now have an empty building sobbing they could have cared less they could have cared less okay you seem to think that this is just dollars and cents these are people who have mortgages to pay sick children to take care of i know people who sign and ask for that law change because their children could not have their medicine the way their doctors prescribed it they had to wait five weeks instead of getting it in four so please do not sit there and say we have not given i have sat here and i watched you come in here i have been sitting here since at least
0642015 watching this board bank cap bank tap expire cap i live in medford metro i pay 15 000 a year and a lot of it goes to letter p regional i don't know why we cannot pass the k to 12 budget i don't know why everybody seems to think that it is such an hardship to have a 30 increase put on your taxes in a year so that these poor people can keep these benefits so that when your child comes in your autistic child walks in the door they need to know who that face is that's going to greet them and it's the same face it's the same stakeholder who buys into our eve sham mission we're here for every kid okay so don't sit here and play this argument i i'm so sorry i
065know i'm out of time thank you very much i appreciate it if you give these people the consideration they deserve you don't know what it is i i want to i want to reiterate something because we're getting you don't have you gotten the emails from people telling you the hardship that the insurance is let me let me reiterate something i want to reiterate something and i apologize no go ahead um and i have to give others a turn obviously um i want to reiterate what i said earlier today because i feel like we've suddenly gotten lost in the weeds out of nowhere here all right there is an interest on both sides to fix this problem there is a clear interest on both sides to fix this okay so why wasn't this but why wasn't
066this net right this this cast out of a net for collaboration put to all stakeholders why why was it just kept internal why was it just kept to the negotiation process we're not sure what that means miss made well um yeah just because we've gone for misses thank you oh yes yes okay thank you um there will be another public comment later in the board meeting so thank you hi my name is anna maria forte i am a parrot at feeler and i would like to make a few points that i hope you would consider first of all i'd like you to see all these faces with these faces there are at least at the minimum right now 14 children standing with them understand that two you have brought up the fact that you have
067not hired for positions that were moved for example kelly cam i understand that and i think that was a great idea but us losing our benefits is not equal to that moving someone from a one position to another good paying job with benefits is not the same as us losing not to think and these are all and don't get me wrong these are wonderful employees even the ones that the ones that you kept i have been in their presence they are amazing my other point is i know we are still negotiating we are negotiating because our backs are to the wall we are not happy but it also goes to show you how important it is for us to keep our benefits and how important it is for us to stay in the schools that
068we work in we are when you think about it we are contemplating giving up a lot of our paycheck to maintain benefit we are contemplating and i will give you the figure i am coming out with maybe a hundred fifty dollars a paycheck if if understand right now today if this negotiation keeps going i don't even get benefits i am one of the five to lose i am cut off my whole family will not have benefit even if you agree to it i don't i am losing mine there is five of us that are losing ours if you agree if we negotiate five faces that will lose them understand we are part of this community we are small business owners that are struggling that have been struggling for a year and a half now due
069to the pandemic and you are taking our benefits away thank you for listening that's all i have to say i could ask thank you next question and i thank you for your comments um did you the the option earlier the the the pay freeze that's really was pointed out it's not right i'm not a freeze have you seen that yeah you know that option there are two yeah i need a family plan i have children no no the the options that involve the the decrease in the rays oh yeah did you see that one there were two of those nothing benefited okay okay okay all right hold on hold on you don't have to answer if you don't want to uh it could be rhetorical but the the reason i ask the reason i ask
070is because the reason i ask is that there's a lot of finger pointing and instead of continued discussion wait wait wait wait wait hold on hold on she she still has the floor give give her one sec mr balls you can have your turn okay mr bulls please go ahead russ bowles vice president i work here at demacy so the plans that dr smith's referring to the one that he's trying to get everybody riled up over are the ones that we had mentioned debbie had mentioned in her speech that was the pay freeze so we didn't even entertain them because it was due to a pay freeze would you like to elaborate well i'm just you said the word freeze but i think debbie walked that back right well mr meegan said it wasn't technically
071afraid i view it as a freeze so he called it a reduction call it what you want you know what it is it was a break in the contract anything else okay [Applause] okay i just i would just like to say that this is public comment so make a comment but let's not have any shouting from the audience so that we can focus on the comment being made okay if you have something to say at the microphone get in line and say it at the microphone so we can focus we want to be able to hear what everyone's saying we want to be able to hear what everyone is saying so please be respectful to the person at the microphone please be respectful to everyone in this audience and at this table so that we
072can hear and focus ladies and gentlemen i just i'm so sorry i i'm so sorry i i i have tried my utmost at every meeting to give you every amount of respect possible i allow you to go over time i allow you to project your emotions towards us i give you everything that i can all right there this is intense it's intense for everybody i i am i understand that i understand that but i i do want to hear the person who's at the microphone that's extraordinarily important to me it's important to the board it's important to dr smith and ultimately very important to all of you we all have the right to be heard and i do want to hear that person it is very difficult for myself this board and for everybody else
073to hear that when when we're all shouting at each other and this is towards all of us in this room all right we we need to be able to refocus ourselves so that we can hear this dialogue because what you say at that microphone matters it matters okay and i want to be able to hear it and i want to be fair to the people who are speaking all right so please let us all afford each other that i think that is only right i'm sorry please i'm joy being i'm the computer teacher at buehler elementary school i just wanted to point out that mr lanselot had asked if the budget passes tonight the conversation would still continue by reason if the budget fails to pass tonight the conversation will still continue the reason you're
074cu you feel bad about that the reason you want the conversation to still continue is because this is not sitting easy with any of you nor should it it is wrong to take the benefits away from these paras they work really hard those benefits they're not something that you're giving out of the generosity of your heart it is compensation for services rendered and they render a very necessary service so please i urge you to vote no tonight and still have the conversation continue thank you hi joan mclaury 53 marlborough avenue i work at jagger elementary i'm in para really bringing me to my shelf i know as you continue to debate the numbers we are forgetting that we are human beings and as though i truly don't feel like you think of us as that
075right now we all of us will go to work tomorrow and we will continue to greet those beautiful children every day with a smile with the help they need anything they need and we will do our best to show them respect i wish you would afford us the same as i look around i see words that we should all live by every one of us i see signs saying respect we do not feel respected i may speak i'll speak for myself but i'm sure most here do not sacrifice we as the powers are willing to sacrifice but you had us vote on the hardest thing i've ever had to vote on today disgraceful determination well the determination that i see is is from you not all of you some of you you're determined to divide
076us and all we are all we are trying to do is make an honest living make a difference in these children's lives help these children to be the best that they can be every day the only reason we are all every one of us in this room is here today is for the children we show them we care every single day do you take the time to even go and say hello do you go visit the classrooms do you have any idea do you know any of their names please practice what you preach thank you yo i'm not gonna address anyone specifically but i just want to make sure because a lot of people emailed as well questioning have we been in the classroom so on and so forth but so the public doesn't always
077know but i just want to point out there are many of us on this board who have little kids in the schools and yes we're in the classrooms lanzalotta right how many kids lancelotta three two leah yeah and trish did raise kids here joe so i i i will yeah miss noah i'll let me take you back off that on a second um many many board members do make an attempt to go into the schools more some more than others based upon their availability i have attempted to come into the school several times but my situation situation's precarious because for me to do it i have to literally take a day off from school to go to school which is feels weird doesn't even say that out loud but i've made my attempt several times
078i've taken tours of schools walked into different classes um you know with classrooms uh i've been to bieler to demacy marlton middle uh numerous so we have been in there but listen listen it just just shh just to just reiterate i i want i want you to know that now i mean again a lot of people up here just just like you we we have we have jobs sometimes it's extraordinarily difficult to do that but what ms knowles also trying to say is that we also have kids and we sit in our kids rooms and get to see that as well as they grow up so we get to know our home school extraordinarily well i feel like i know every nook and cranny of dimasi i feel like i know every little bit of
079it all right and i'll be the first one to admit that i maybe don't know rice nearly as well i don't get to go there as much as i want to but i i would also say that many board members here including myself if we have the time we'd love to go into these schools it's actually a highlight for us that's actually a benefit for us we enjoy we enjoy that we love that we love being in your rooms and sometimes the the ethics of of being on the board of education does prohibit us from doing some things too so i just want to put that out there as well i'm so sorry i know you you want to speak sir please quite all right i i'm not doing you're addressing my wife's letter i'm
080mark alkavich thank you for reading part of her letter i apologize i couldn't finish it i i understand um i have some other points to make um because i am a father of a child in the autism program here for some backstory we moved here in 2010 just before my son was diagnosed as being on the spectrum early intervention came in we sat with them we were living in a rental apartment at that point and because we were in a rental apartment i did the simplest thing i could do i turned to the woman from early intervention and i said what town do i need to be in she said don't you dare move don't you dare move if my grandson was diagnosed i would tell my daughter to move to marlton holy sh whoa
081that's a rave my child has attended preschool at rice miss candy the speech therapist there is probably the reason he speaks today these women work so hard with these kids and they are the backbone of the program but let me step back again as a parent we go to all kinds of outside therapies run by by groups i have seen advocates come and speak lawyers come and speak and i have turned to them and said i have not had a problem what's going on they say oh you must be an ipshim so yes you guys this district has run a blue ribbon special education program for 10 years in 2013 i believe this argument came up once before and i came to a board meeting and looked at the budget and i went aha that's
082why you had the last line item being a payout for a multi-million dollar lawsuit in special education of course you have a great program you wanted to avoid another lawsuit and these women are the backbone of that they make the iep's possible these teachers have told you a speech therapist gets half an hour a week with a child if they're lucky it's up to the paris to carry on what the speech instruction is these women are the people that make it possible for my son to go to chorus to do after school programs to do any of these things they are the lowest paid and yet they are the backbone that is probably keeping you from lawsuits they make sure the children get on buses safely they make sure there are no issues with elopement
083they make sure they're clean for god's sakes what's going to happen there are lawsuits coming up all over this country because idea is recognizing that special education has slipped during a pandemic the parents in this district have been very very forgiving but when you lose these women who have so many years of experience and put up with so much and make sure these children are healthy and safe and don't and there aren't allotments mr smith again my wife's statement was there's an increase in the special education budget this year why because students are being sent out of district when their ieps can't be met more students will be sent out of district this is a these are cuts depth of a thousand cups you're lucky and i say this as a parent wait one more
084thing sure just so you understand i did not live in marlton this whole time i moved to medford and fought to have my son go to jagger i made medford pay for him to come here and then as soon as medford was like oh no we're going to rebuild the program i scraped together all the freaking money i had and bought a house here to keep him here please i hold nothing against any of you my wife holds nothing against any of you rejected your thinking you are about to make a horrible decision that is going to lead to liabilities and problems and that is one part of this equation that i don't think you consider one more thing in authentic where we're way past sir i understand one more thing before i think sir
085are you still planning on moving the md students from their home schools to i believe here to mesa is that still a plan so yes sir you were over five minutes there i understand that no so i think you're confused i think you said empty but i think you mean tr i i when you're talking about programs so we have a we're consolidating we're merging our ld programs in elementary and middle so the children will be taken from their home schools and bus to a different school before you do this i want you to think about one thing this is just to address you if any other demographic was told that they would be taken from their home school and bust to another and basically segregated out what would happen that's my that's one other
086question i have for you please before you think about taking children out of their the schools where they're with their neighborhood kids consider that thank you very much and again please i hold nothing against any of you i just don't want to see a horrible disagreement again reminder for people we have to cut these things off near three minutes and i and i i'm trying to be as delicate as possible with this but please please be mindful of that i'm sorry please continue on hi i'm beth fisher i'm a marvelton resident i live at 16 palm road in marlton i'm also the second third fourth fifth grade autism teacher at jaggard and i'm not here to talk about the paris i'm here to talk about my students i have six students with autism in my
087class and let me say again second third fourth and fifth yes in one classroom and they're wonderful children i love them but they have a lot of needs and there's one of me i can't do it by myself let me tell you about some of the things that they need um several of my students have devices to help them communicate because they are non-verbal and i can't communicate with them all by myself oh the peres those paras take care of that i also have kids with feeding protocols because they have a tendency to stuff so much food in their mouth that they're going to choke themselves paris take care of that they're in charge of that we collect a lot of data if you don't know about kids with autism they don't develop the same
088way that other kids do they do develop but we have to really collect a lot of data so we can see those things the kids are not as obvious as they are with typical students the paris do that uh my related art when my kids go to related arts that's my prep period like with these other teachers the kids don't want to go oftentimes the paris take care of that i have a kid who won't come in the building every single morning because he doesn't want he wants to watch the buses go by those paris take care of that i have kids who don't want to leave at the end of the day because transitions are so difficult for them they don't want to go anywhere one or two or three of them don't want
089to go anywhere every single day those paris take care of that we have kids who can't take care of their care of their own toileting needs those paris take care of that we have children who run out of the building and try and run home or run wherever it is that they're going to run we have paris who have chased them down and been able to bring them back in the building and the paris do that the paris do so much i ca there's no way any of us who work in autism or in sbs where i worked before that or any of our self-contained programs we can't do our job without our paras i need them the school district needs them the students really need them and really that's what we're all here for
090is for the students so i just want to take a moment for everyone to think about what we're really here for and thank you for your considerations [Music] corrine halabira 13 olympia drive eve sham resident rice preschool teachers aide i'm here again to talk on behalf of all the paris behind me um this has been a fight since september 29th it's been exhausting it's been absolutely awful from day one you guys wanted to cut our our benefits and yes there are options on the table and we did discuss them yesterday we asked for more time because things weren't clear they were very confusing to us and so we didn't get the extra information until after lunch today needless to to say the anxiety of all the people behind me since september 29th has been through
091the roof it hasn't been fair people are crying people are having health issues over this people were worried sick about their families their jobs their health insurance during a pandemic there is money out there my question is if that 1.7 million isn't taken away would you consider putting our benefits back as they are to have parents decide whether they're going to put their spouse on their insurance or their children or to actually be working for benefits only and come home with no cash in their pockets is horrendous i have never felt so unappreciated undervalued disrespected i don't feel that way from my teachers that work with us and i don't feel that way from the people in my building but i do feel that way from all of you we work hard and so i
092ask if that money goes back will you consider keeping our benefits intact as they are now [Applause] thank you ms halibur i would just in response thank you for your comments um we are open to all considerations you know as things move forward that is why you know when we go back to the presentation this evening we spoke about it being a point of light that the discussions are still continuing between um and again these are discussions that just started a couple weeks ago so a lot of ground's been made up and covered to get to this point they are continuing additional changes whether it's legislative changes or any other option well is it possible for you to go in executive session now and discuss it because we have waited since september 29th we have
093waited a very long time and it is not fair so i i just if one one piece and because it's a we want to hear from everybody it's a very big room but it is a public comment it's not it's not true we treat it as a public dialogue because that is the heart and soul of who we are as a district in a town but at certain points like it is meant to be public i will respond but i just want to point that out um what you would be asking us to go into executive session to discuss is something that isn't even a reality you know so so what you're saying is no no to the uh um what i would like to point out and take the opportunity is that that word
094reality is probably the most important word this evening besides the word paraprofessionals it's the word reality and it's very important that we operate in the same reality okay it's why our board members ask questions it's why they offer comments you can to try to articulate that common reality we're all living in it's not a happy reality right it's a reality of reductions coming from all directions it's it's not a hollywood reality you know it's not it's probably not a reality where there is like a magic solution at the end it's a reality that requires a lot of hard work very difficult choices putting taking our emotions which are very real because we care about every person and still having to make hard choices so dr smith i just want to say one last thing if
095you decide to cut all of our benefits and and that's the way it goes and you need to hire more classroom aides to bring in for the reduction of all of us you can't hire people if any of you have watched the news places are going out of business because they can't hire people people aren't working they don't want to work you can't hire a classroom aid before covid if you think you're going to hire them now you're not my name is linda sutter i live at 326 stony brook lane i've been at para at jagger for 17 and a half years and i look at you all of you and i really i really plead that you think before you void us of our benefits we're the ones that were here the longest we
096were the backbone we started a lot of the autism program i started with the autism program we have worked so hard you with all this going on and all this stress every morning we have a smile on our face when we go to the buses it's all about the kids i have to actually listen to this song carol king you're beautiful every morning driving to work that you have to have a smile on your face it's been so hard and the children would never know it we go in and do our all and that's all we've been doing we made such a wonderful program the md program was already in effect and doing well autism is doing that program has done wonderful just like andre's dad just said um please remember us don't just cast
097this aside because we're the ones with benefits and why us i don't understand we we did so much and we still do so much we're here for the long haul we've been here we we love the children i've lived in this town my whole life our school district is is phenomenal and i'd like to see it stay that way the special ed program is a big program and us keeping children in district is saving you so much money and we're the ones being targeted please please please just remember what we do thank you [Applause] merrill schindler nine dominion drive i've been a paraprofessional a jagger for 21 years seven months um i listen to the mission statement every time we come here you know the the mission statement and you talk about respect and um
098i don't and trust i don't know how how are the parents supposed to trust when you can't take care of your own staff we are here working for the kids and try ours our program is huge it is a large portion of your district jaggert alone i think has something like 11 special needs classes that's a large portion in addition to the typical classes um why are we being treated differently to me it's it's just pure discrimination why were we targeted why are we the only ones that are being asked getting our benefits cut it is pure you know to me it feels like i am being discriminated against we are here trying to keep the district the way it it has been its reputation has been and um on any given day there are
099tons of failed to fills i think there were like 93 people out on friday in the district so how are we going to um be able to comply with the ieps if there are so many people out i'm asking you to please consider i know it's a money thing too but you also need to consider why we're here and what we're doing it is a mission to keep the school district strong but if you but our program is a large part of your district so when you're thinking about cutting the benefits think about the people that are going to walk away and what it's going to do to the program thank you hi i'm cindy carey bortons road in little mill section of marlton um i just wanted first i just wanted to say with
100dr smith i'm thinking back to the first day you came to rice in september and a lot of us paris were in the cafeteria having lunch and you we introduced ourselves to you and i said cindy carey tim carrey's mom oh tim carey great kid audrey gillen you knew her children you knew sue beck's children you knew dawn dravacy's children all because you taught them at cherokee and you said to us it is such a great feeling that the parents that raised good kids are now working with our preschoolers at rice and i want you to remember that because i for one will have to leave because my husband is a retired endodontist on call all the time um and he's disabled so i carry our benefits so i will have to leave if i
101don't if my benefits are ceased um i want to talk to you about um everything that uh the paris did we came to the meetings with you we discussed taking um paying more towards our premiums at those meetings we contacted the state senators the governor we called numerous people um to try to to try to raise money to try to get our money back for our benefits we had flyers made and we um and we went door to door in our neighborhoods to let the parents know what was going on that our hours were being cut we were going to spend less hours with their children at rice alone we have 14 12 full-time paris which would be six hours a day less in the school for for paris because we would be cut a
102half hour every day to be reduced to to um to part-time hours so we were do we were willing to come in the middle to meet in the middle with you to do we did our we did everything that you asked us to do in order to try to to to get a resolution to this situation and i just want you guys to know that we really did make an effort and this was very very stressful for most of us and through it all we remained a family we will remain a family at rice whether no matter what the outcome is because that's who we are and tomorrow i'm going to get a little three-year-old boy or girl off the bus and i'm going to have a smile on my face and that whole day
103is going to be just about those children and not about any of this and in closing i just want to say mr fizzy caro we do not we work on columbus day and lenape regional does not so columbus day in october would be a great day for you to come to writing unfortunately i do work i have an in-service that day so i i actually do work on that day they give the day off for the kids but they don't get the day off for us i would i trust me i would but that's unfortunately not an option for me i'm so i know that was like a moment and i feel like i just spoiled the moment for everybody but that literally is the case but we're there until 3 30 every day too
104so any any time you can come have snack with us come any time and when you get you're offering me a snack goldfish i'm game all right i'm there i'm there i'm there thank you hi can you hear me okay my name is rebecca depersia i'm at 7 sandwood drive i actually spoke at the last meeting i don't know who remembers but i'm that mom that uprooted the my entire family so that my kids could get a better education and that my son with special needs could get the support that he needs now i moved here because the reputation for eve sham of marlton is amazing i said this before therapists doctors that i've met with go to marlton go to martin go to marlton and here we are i feel like if you're going
105to take the benefits away from the pairs that you are going to ruin the reputation of yves sham schools people said it they are the backbone of this of this program and without them i think it's going to diminish the possibility of having new residents like myself coming into the district um because they're going to go to that other district that's better that all those parish just went to left here to go there and potentially you could use lose residents that have been here for many years because of the school district they may go follow the new school district that has all these wonderful paras and i want to say i feel for the paras i really do i mean especially the ones that have been here for their entire careers and maybe for the
106last year or two are going to have to leave and go to another district that does offer them health benefits and it's terrifying to think about having to pay for benefits for your family especially if you're the one that's carrying them for your entire family it's very expensive i personally we pay our health benefits it's ridiculously expensive um but to be honest i'm not here for them i'm not here for the paris i'm here for my kids i'm here for my son i'm here for my daughter i'm here for the kids in my son's class and those parents that cannot be here because they can't leave their kids with anyone else be for fear of covid and other things i am here speaking as a parent i'm here supporting the children they are the bottom
107line what's important to to us this is why we're all here and especially for kids with special needs um transition something different new faces is terrifying for those kids i can't go into how much my son has done better here because of his para she welcomes him every day he looks forward to seeing her every day he adores her and it's because of the work that she does with him that he is doing so well here so the idea of her not being here or the other paris not being here next year is terrifying to me as a parent to see what next year is going to look like we need these people they're they and i by my heart thank you all so much because i could never do what they do they have
108the patience of a saint and they make no money and the best we could do the least we could do is give them benefits for what they do so please please please vote for what is right vote for my children vote for all the kids that go to the school and the kids the special needs kids i can't emphasize it enough how much they need to see the same para day in and day out i just hope that you all vote for our kids thank you good evening my name is lana kubo i'm a resident 103 cottonwood drive i've been at jaggert school as a paraprofessional for 23 years and i'm also the power rep for etea i just want to say that the point of light to us are our paras and we work
109tires tirelessly every day we give hope to our students our teachers we wear many hats we we talk about guidance counselors and we talk about nurses and and being a parent we do that that's what we do every day all day we it would be a true disservice to our community to our schools to our parents to our teachers our students if this budget doesn't pass and you take away the benefits i will say most of us a lot of us have been we're talking 20 years 23 years 25 years 18 years 15 no matter what that says a lot for a district a lot that we we are willing to to be here that long and do this is it difficult absolutely but we love it and we love the students so i also
110want to leave you with a quote uh an article i read back in august in the um marlton sun and this is a quote from you dr smith all of my experiences that i have accrued are part of who i am and how i think today and i am grateful for every one of those stops along the way if i were to write a book i'd call it something like everything i need to know about being an administrator i learned as a teacher i would hope you would stand up to that i'd also like you to leave you with the other quote that you ended the article with the schools are embedded in the town here they're not separate from it it's a dream honestly to get to come and work in a town that
111has meant so much to my family and me and to serve a community that i care a lot for we care a lot for our community as well i hope you look at us i hope you see i hope you understand what goes on remember we're a school we all work together it's not just a building it's who's in the building the heart of the building that's us the paris everyone maintenance it's everyone secretaries teachers we all come together and we work hard and it really will be a disservice so thank you for listening and i hope you reconsider and this budget and vote that we will keep our benefits in our hours thank you i just um this is cooper thank you for those comments and um thank you for even spending a few
112seconds from the three minutes on words i would have said um it's it's very meaningful to me to hear you share those uh in some ways they echo to me what mrs curry said about um the students i've had over the years because again that comes that goes back to teaching right um and it is um even as we see here now even as difficult as this is the challenge and the challenge of public service is to do make hard choices you know make hard choices for the mission which has come up and i'm we started reading that again at the last meeting i'm very glad for that the mission is focused on students and that's at the heart of of these conversations and there are some difficult truths and i'm going to come back
113to that word reality some difficult truths in there you know um and for anyone watching at home they may not be aware we have more paraprofessionals without benefits than we do with benefits and and that's been a reality that's become more and more so over the last 10 years um it is so you know when we talk about paraprofessionals i just want to make sure that people are aware there are groups within that okay um it is it makes it it makes it all the more important for me personally hearing those words to be able to you know that the emotion is real all those names and there are so many more names you know that that came to mind as mrs curry was talking epic names beautiful names of kids that were students and
114families that sent many kids through cherokee fantastic families who were part of our district and at the same time it comes back to the mission and cutting over four million dollars while trying to maintain as effective programming as we can for our students and that makes it incredibly difficult and incredibly important and that's why we have three budget presentations and that's why we're listening all tonight and we pro you know we won't ultimately agree on those decisions we stand in different places we're in different roles but that's ultimately why a board exists and why an administration exists um and it doesn't you know again we'll hopefully we'll come to an understanding about the the um through the eta discussions regarding the prayer benefits for this coming year but what brought us to this moment is
115because of that harder bigger picture of reality um despite all the emotion of those names going back many years um and i just want to share that as a follow-up and again thank you for sharing those words of mine good evening you probably remember me i've spoken at the past few meetings um i'd like to share a little story with you if i could a personal thing that happened this weekend to me a very happy occasion as many of you might know my i have a son justin beck who is now on the united states coast guard i hadn't seen justin in 16 months he had been on two date somewhat dangerous patrols and he was just recently in the bering sea in alaska well he came home and paid me my husband and i
116a surprise visit this weekend i was so happy to see him as i'm sure you can imagine as my husband was however i had looming in the back of my mind what was going to happen here tonight and just thinking of what i could say you know to to make the board change their mind and vote in a favorable way for all these people behind me who work these powers work tirelessly every day and i just had to tell you that story because in all my happiness this weekend i had moments of where i was just so worried about what was going to happen here tonight and i really really hope i was hoping when i came here that this would come to a resolution i was hoping for an answer tonight and i really
117hope that you seriously consider everything that everyone has shared with you tonight and please reconsider save the paris benefits and let's put all this stuff behind us because it's going on way too long thank you very much for all of your [Applause] consideration very well thank you for letting me back wait wait wait no we can only do one per per this round though let's make sure everyone who hasn't spoken has an opportunity to speak first okay lucia millington ate bancroft road and i'm back again um you know it's been i know we've all had a really difficult year i know y'all have had a difficult year i'm weary i'm tired they're tired and i know you all are tired too so you know i'm i want to point out maybe positives instead of just
118uh the negatives because we've all had enough negativity this year so basically i want to just say thank you for the efforts that y'all have put forth i know the board has worked hard it might not be everything that we want it to be but when we started this i remember talking to you joe outside and he's saying there's just no way so you know maybe we're not getting everything but i i just want you all to know that i i recognize and i think a lot of us recognize that you have been working hard so thank you for listening to us and for considering us and for fighting for us even if even if it doesn't work out the best way i still think you all have been a good quarterback thank you thank
119you tracy brown from arlton middle school sorry putting emotions aside you've already heard all of that we could go on and on about how wonderful the powers are um but truly if did you you just mentioned dr smith the whole idea of like the powers that with benefits and the powers without benefits and i'm not asking for specific numbers i don't need to put you on the spot with that that's up to you but i know at the last meeting i asked did you look at turnover rate did you look at retention did anyone because i know pretty confidently the powers with benefits are about the most loyal people you could ask for and if those 55 i don't even know what number we're at right now lose their benefits the majority are going to
120quit if if i had the magic power to have them all not show up to work one day and let you see honestly what that would look like and what that would feel like because in reality you keep talking about reality i don't know how you're going to hire people to replace them not just like because of the good human beings they are but some of you are in business you know that it's really hard to hire people my husband has not been able to hire a person in his job he's the owner in a warehouse competing with amazon and all of that has not been able to hire someone in months has raised the rate higher and higher people don't want to work they want to stay home they're making more money sitting home
121that is a reality the true reality right now i have no idea how we will replace these 55 ladies and our schools will be a hot mess without them it's just a reality so again i i've been in your seats we've said this many times i've done that for six and a half years now i'm on this side you'll be seeing a lot more of me starting monday i'm the official vp and i'm going to keep coming here on behalf of everybody here but again put the emotions aside and talk about the reality these people stay the retention rate is high and they are reliable and i think you're going to have a really really hard time replacing them we could really be in a really bad position for september because a lot of them
122will quit reality so i really again hope we find a way i know that the money's not falling out of the sky but we've got to find a way reality is going to stink and it's going to hurt the kids and all of these people's families thank you for your time uh i i will uh follow up on that um mrs brown the uh so the the budget that we presented tonight just several understands does include benefits for all of our paraprofessionals who've had them the year prior through the first half of this year that's built into the budget okay um so you know when you say september they will have benefits as the as it currently stands all the way through to january first okay so and then again we're working with eta on
123conversations but i'm just i'm i think it's important okay um the uh okay at this point we are going to be closing uh public comment for agenda items only miss ryan did you have something that you want to ask yeah i have a couple questions and i'm not trying to be obtuse i'm just really i have a couple questions um someone mentioned that the board wanted this i don't think there's anyone on the board that wants this i just wanted to clear that up especially myself but someone else mentioned september discussing power benefits in september versus power benefits now i think that's apples and oranges if i'm wrong please correct me i think in september we were talking because of the hour reduction versus now it's budgetary so if i'm wrong please stop me i'm
124just clarifying for myself to make sure that i understand and following along the home schools i know that some people are concerned with moving programs to a different school so that they'll be in different home schools but i think that that's already happening in some cases too so just stop me if i'm wrong just i just want to make sure that i have everything i was trying to listen to what everyone was saying and the woman i'm sorry i don't remember your name but you're the power rep for the eta um thank you for your words i was just curious and i'll ask the administrative staff and the finance committee and the eta was she involved in the discussion process because i think it would have really helped if the para representative was there as
125well so i don't know i mean when your talks with the eta i was i'm sorry i don't remember your name i tried to write it down but no oh okay okay sorry i was just curious if there's if there's a conversation you wanna have afterwards that's perfectly fine but we just can't do this kind of back and forth um that's okay miss ryan i i apologize all right um all right at that point we've closed this so now this card just just so a clarifying question in terms of the budget that we're voting on tonight how much this money can you save that question for when we get to the motion of it sure let's let's do that let's get into the motion process because i'm sure we have questions and comments that we're
126going to want to say there so let's let's try to let's try to hone this back in into uh into the parameters of our of our agenda i apologize miss farming but i promise i'll get to you first in that comment section okay uh at this point in time we're gonna move to item four which is the adoption of the 20 2021 2022 school budget i need a motion to prove item 4.1 the resolution to approve the adoption of the 2021-22 school budget do i have a motion motion by miss no second i have a second seconded by ms all right at this point we have questions and comments uh miss fleming i give you the floor first thank you mr fiscaro i just wanted to be clear in the current budget that is we
127just made a motion for before we vote how many paris will be losing benefits and how many pairs would be cut from salary sure sorry um how many paraprofessionals in terms of their position be gone at the start of september 21 22 and then in terms of saying that all of our current paras will have those benefits till june 1 2022. is that correct okay so they would lose them june 30th yeah thank you thank you mr plumbing i'll there's a couple questions there the first question so we are eliminating para positions but there are no pairs who are losing their jobs so the positions that are being eliminated are due to retirements and other vacancies okay okay okay as far as benefits the existing budget the one that we presented here uh continues the
128benefits for all paraprofessionals who currently receive them through to december 31st 2020 2021 2021 this year okay thank you and and that's because the uh eligibility is based on the six months prior of what they've worked so um and what we're discussing what we've been discussing the last two weeks and you know the options that have been put forth are ways to um ensure the continuation of those benefits for the second half of this year yeah thank you for the clarity yeah any other questions or comments can i ask a question related to what miss fleming asked and um or clarification because you're discussing miss fleming the health benefits and dr smith says through december 2021 because there's a six month look back period to clarify though dr smith in this budget how many paras
129will be um how many pairs will have reduced number of hours beginning september of this school of the next school year do you understand what i'm asking because the benefits are delayed so to speak because it's the look back so in this budget how many paras will be told basically that they are going to be part-time in september that's what i'm unclear in them i'm very embarrassed that i have to ask this i'm the chairperson of the finance committee like i shouldn't even be saying this out loud but you know i have learned a lot and know a lot but you know so many changes at the last minute so the uh to your question thank you for your question because every question is an opportunity to share more information so um there are eight
130pairs that so that the eight who have the years of service 23 years or more in the pension system as of july 1st those eight in the current budget have their benefits carried for all of next year okay any other paraprofessional their hours would have to drop below 30 hours a week starting in september and the distinction there is so we have um kind of a couple different groups of paraprofessionals based on the hours that they work per day there's a group that doesn't receive benefits works 5.75 hours per day and the groups that do receive benefits work 6.0 or 6.25 and then there are three that work 6.5 hours per day so when we say so so part time and this is the former english teacher in me but part time kind of implies
131like half and half or what we're talking about is a difference from 6.0 to 5.75 or from 6.25 to 5.75 hours per day on average and if you take that 6.0 hours per day times it by five days a week it's 30 hours compared to about 28.75 hours a day for the 5.75 employee so um it's it's it's not you know it's a meaningful reduction in the sense that every hour is important but in terms of um it's not 30 to 15 it's it's 30 to 28.75 or somewhere in that range so there there are 52 pairs who receive benefits currently who don't who opt into benefits and we're saying that eight are currently accounted for and the in the budget that's presented tonight which leaves 44. that's been the magic number that we've used
132in our communications with the eta throughout the last two weeks including weekends including evenings all for the great cause of trying to come to an understanding which we took good steps today again and that's the number so you know if we can find and i believe we will um a solution for those 44. thank you okay uh other questions or comments miss noel are you was that everything or jeff moore or no i i didn't want to cut you off i feel thank you any other questions or comments because i'm going to ask mias a couple questions real quick because i again i want to emphasize something on this we we stated earlier today earlier in this meeting that despite what the vote is we can untie tether the negotiation for the benefits and what
133goes on there and solve that after the fact correct right correct i just want to hit that point yes then on top of that it was issued a couple of times uh charged at us a few times to vote no on the final budget mr rashinti i have a question for you all right and i hope in no way do i want to put you on any kind of spot here um let's go to that scenario and let's say the final budget fails what happens there because we're we're right along that line of where this has to be turned in so so what would happen is that we'd have to advertise for another public meeting to vote which we'd have to wait at least 48 hours and then we'd have to take another vote it
134has it has to be submitted to the county office by next friday so any any changes that we make to the budget i have to go into the state software make all those adjustments and have everything done and to the county office by friday okay all right i just need to know that because i wanted that kind of clarification on that thank you um but again to reiterate the point they're they're untethered from each other and i think anish you might have said it best although i probably will butcher this you know basically what we're doing with this budget is we're creating the buckets of sand how we move the sand from bucket the it we can we can do that regardless and that's incredibly true tonight is not the end all be all here
135we make changes to the budget all the time all right we're just setting the definitive number so what we do here tonight does not emphasize one way or the other what is going to happen i i have said this before and i will say this again there were very positive things that had been happening in the last couple weeks and i'm going to stay on that positive note regardless all right and despite this moment here that's not going to stop okay that is not going to stop there is between us there is a common goal the question is how long is that road going to take and i am hoping not much longer okay so i just want to emphasize that because we have been bouncing stuff off of each other all night long tonight
136all right but i want that common fact to be there that you know like anishi had said to me earlier and i i'm just gonna use that example one more time all we're doing is setting the buckets of sand up how we move the sand from bucket to bucket how we move the money from place to place what we do and how we fix things we can do that we have that room and ability to do so which is what we have been working on in the last couple weeks all right so i just wanted to throw that back out there again and um is there anybody else who has any more comments or questions pertaining to what we are doing can you can you turn your michael on this no i think you've had
137it off can we comment before our vote or should we just this this is the comment before the vote oh okay i was not sure okay so i do want to just say a few words as the finance uh committee chair i wanted to of course say thank you to all the finance committee members and our vice president miss everhart for your hard work as many have said tonight we've met weekends late night meetings so many meetings and um with the etea so i want to thank them as well we met with the eta leadership many times as well and i'm glad that they were able to sit down with us and discuss options for this budget um you know it was a big task to try to figure out how to make up this
138significant deficit um so one question and then a comment my question is if this budget does not pass tonight and well where are the cuts going where's the money going to come from and what has to be cut in the future in order to get the budget to pass like what what is going to happen if that doesn't pass where where's the money coming from that need to support the pass well i think the question mr lanzalata and mr shane again i i i fall back to you on this one is that if the budget fails you can't repass the budget as is we'd have to be changed that's that's a good question i i don't know um i i would think you could still vote on the same budget because you're you know you're
139voting on the actual dollars of the budget um so i i think you could vote for the sa i mean you could the thing is you could move money from one line item to another another and the total number is still the same yeah so by not passing the budget tonight and you say we want to decide to put something else in the budget and take something else out we do that every month yeah yeah we do that every month through firms we approve that we approve that in every in every finance and operations section every month but i think the question you had mr lanzalata was the idea that does the budget have to have like some kind of metamorphosis if it goes no no what i'm what i'm trying to say is is
140if we decide tonight to to keep the powers benefits then that money has to be cut somewhere else well nobody's deciding tonight on that you're voting yes or no on this i understand that but what would be the repercussions of that do we know repercussions of what vote question is nothing i understand what he's asking so jeff hypothetically you have three categories of expenses one you don't the top line the revenue the monies coming in are not going to change in the next week so it would mean we had category a category b category c right now say the pair of benefits are in c right now we budgeted half a million dollars less what we would have to do is take the money and cut a cost out of category a category b to
141up category c because the bottom line of all expenses has to equal the top line of all the inflows so we know the top line and the bottom line so i think what you're asking is what we would need to do we could sit and say electricity is going to go down a half a million dollars pair of benefits are going to go up a half a million dollars but we have to you know it's not going to happen it's not a feasible projection that the electric bill is going to go down by a half a million dollars so john would need to come up with another category in his presentation to their increasing benefit cost and lowering something else and they'd hold this accountable for it we wouldn't get through the county saying the
142electric is going to go down a half a million dollars because they look at our history and say it's not going to it's not going to fly we have to present a balanced budget so as an anish had said we can manipulate the buckets as things happen there may be some positive things that happen on the top line in the next few months i know we've talked about different things land sale the the clarification on round three of the government surplus okay at that point top line goes up then we can adjust all the categories of the expenses but right now based on the knowledge that we know all we know is how much money is coming in we know what the state aid is going to be we know what the max levy on
143the tax increases are going to be and who knows what's going to happen in the next few months that we can adjust that we just have to balance this and this have to balance now there's not a lot if it doesn't pass tonight and if you said hell i'm not voting on this unless i see another half a million dollars in in employee benefits then john would have to find he'd have to cut salaries at half a million dollars so that's the problem with that the problem with that jeff is that 85 of our budget is salaries and benefits okay so if you're going to put one benefit back in more than likely you're going to have to remove another salary that's where i was that's what i was was wondering will it come from
144uh staff other staff i would believe most if not all would come from other staff okay and how how many staff members are we talking about it depends what those positions were okay i mean if it was if it was teacher staff teacher staff members how how many teachers are we talking about uh seven to ten perfect and and that six hundred thousand is half of a year so you know two in other words if we were gonna for a full year it'd be double that right you know so you're looking at around twenty sixteen to twenty sixteen to twenty because you got it with with the seniority and the tenure you'd have to start it's not as though if it was cutting one administrative position and you have somebody at a ten thousand dollar
145somebody at five you can't just pick ten you'd have to go with five because more than likely they have less tenure so it would be easier if you had a pot of money that you had to eliminate to pick the higher salary people but it's not possible sure you know eliminate the yeah i i totally understand but my my question was geared to i mean if in fact this did happen would it be teacher salaries and how many teachers would get caught and you've told me about close to twenty twenty four people here's another way of looking at it we we've eliminated 45 positions and i don't remember what the chart had shown salaries are down 1.4 million but we have to remember is those that are staying there's a three percent uptick so the
146differential in that salaries was about 2.8 million dollars representative of 45 people now a lot of them were retirees so we got the the benefit they were on the higher end of the salary spectrum but now when it comes to us eliminating a different positions we would be taking the less tenured people and they would in those positions and assessing which department in which category that would be a whole different discussion and i appreciate everything that you guys are explaining i just i i wanted to make that clear in my mind that you know that it would it would cost staff about 20 teaching salaries 20 additional teaching salaries thank you miss fleming yes um and if i can't answer ask the question then please you'll let me know um when we spoke about the
147ionizers and paying all that off and i understand that's a loan payment gone if we paid fifty percent of that off instead of a hundred percent of it off what's the pros and cons to that obviously i know what khan is that's essential funds and mr richinti can explain that's not for benefits this is the problem this is what you know yeah we we could do that and would it would free up money in our okay and our sr2 grant to be available but it can't be used for benefits and and actually and mrs fleming it's a great idea and we actually intended to do that we fully we intended to use the 111 000 from paying off the ionizer for this year to build more benefits into the budget but what happened was the
148second open enrollment period for chapter 44 brought in another 150 000 in cost which was even greater than what we saved by paying off the ionizers so any other questions or comments all right seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs capala yes this is everhart mr fizzy frisicaro yes miss fleming yes mr catherine yes mrs noll [Applause] no yes wait a second mr megan yes this is ryan wait wait yeah i i just listen all i um i you're entitled to vote however you wish which but you made the motion you have to you made the motion normally when you make the motion in under robert's rules of procedure that's we do the second you don't have to vote for it but when you make demotion it generally says i support the
149board taking this action specifically to prevent people from making motions that they want to fail so um um that's a great question okay um let's see this make this meeting more complex uh i would suggest in my opinion if your anticipation is that you would vote no i would declare this to be a non-vote that's my recommendation that the minister reflect that have you withdraw your motion and have the chair entertain emotion from somebody else okay um i'm sorry i didn't read robert's rules book no we just we've brought into this before and with the board of education been here a number of years and we've had a number of votes that went um if if interesting and correct me if i'm wrong mr donio in terms of how we're doing this because it's actually
150been a while since we went back to this again um so miss miss noel if you do wish to vote no all right you would have to retract she would have to retract her with all her motion yeah before the votes count yeah withdraw the motion so can she do that now uh i would suggest that she could do that now if the vote i would rather that she be allowed to do that you're the chair you can rule on this but i'd rather should be allowed to withdraw and not vote no on emotion that she's made because we've had that experience in the past i concur with that that idea i encourage that decision so what we'll do here is is this is this miss null you can withdraw your motion and then allow
151another board member who wants to vote yes make the motion and then we can second again okay is that something you wish to do okay i wish to withdraw my motion for item 4.1 item 4.1 correct yes the second does it the second need to agree to that no uh normal ms cappella made the second do you do you agree with that all right we're we're good okay all right so then what we're going to do is we're going to entertain a res a motion for resolution 4.1 to approve the adoption of the 2021-2022 school budget do i have a motion motion by miss capello second it executed my mr megan okay we're good on questions comments right cause i'm gonna move past that we've we've debated this thing to death all right let's uh
152let's go to a roll call please mrs capella yes mrs everhart yes mr zacchara yes miss fleming it's the same same vote different motion please don't do that [Applause] [Music] now mr canton yes this is null what no mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes this is ryan yes motion passes okay all right moving into 5.1 all right this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal items or negotiations we'd ask you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss those in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person is there anyone who wish to speak same rules apply as for per the the first round thank you for nothing 20 years seeing none i
153will close that portion of the meeting at this point i need a motion for adjournment motion by miss ryan seconded by mr hansen all in favor aye [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] you