001[Music] shoot [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] do [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'd like to call to order this meeting of the yesham township board of education pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office emailing written notice to the berlin county times in the carrier post filing
002written notice with the municipal clerk of yvesham township may i have a roll call please this is cappella here this is everhart here mr fizzicaro here miss fleming here mr catherine here mrs knoll mr lancelot here mr megan here mrs ryan here we have a quorum thank you at this point in time i ask that we please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance indivisible with liberty today is the this is a special meeting in terms of the preliminary budget of the tentative budget i should say for the 2021-2022 school year um dr smith in momentarily will be giving his presentation on that tentative budget i want to just explain for everybody uh the board and the audience uh in general the how this is going to work um dr smith will will
003give we'll give his uh give us presentation uh there'll be points and times obviously because of the position we're all in right now and the state of how everything is we're all kind of heightened and tense right now we're gonna have a lot of questions a lot of comments uh i ref i would please ask and urge that you refrain from that while the presentation is happening after dr smith has done his presentation the board will then have a chance to have comments and questions as soon as the board has done their dialogue at that point we will allow the audience to have their chance to have their uh their comments and uh and and their questions all right um when we go go to that it is one comment per per person or one
004one time up per person all right just please uh please remember that um and we there's a three-minute time mark there but we're not my plan is not to completely hold you exactly at three but we ask that you be respectful of that of that time period if i have to in any way shape or form interrupt you i don't like to use the phrase cut off because that's not what i want to do i will ask you politely if you could please just just wrap up your your final points when i do that please indicate that i absolutely 100 do not mean any disrespect to that all right i i don't want you to feel that in any way shape or form i'm trying to stop you from saying what you need to say
005or what you feel you need to say okay but we we do have a constraint that we want to stay within i thank you all for for uh in advance for respecting respecting those uh those requests at this point in time i will leave the floor to dr smith on the tentative budget presentation thank you for the extra pay on my pay scale by being a doctor to me you are so we have the opportunity tonight to go over our tentative budget it is um a wonderful thing actually that this is the second time we're seeing the budget so we saw the preliminary budget two weeks ago and in our district unlike a lot of districts we have that extra step and the purpose of that extra step is exactly what we've had over the
006last two weeks which is opportunity for conversation for voices to be shared heard listen to all towards trying to walk together and have the best understanding together of the choices that we have to make for our district for our kids every year and this year um this is only the tentative budget not the final budget and you know that's um a really important distinction so the final budget presentation is early may and so we have about two months between now and then so also lots of time for conversation reflection and sharing some of these slides are the same as last time but i do want to go through them again just since it's only been two weeks since the last one and there are probably a few additional people watching tonight that didn't see it
007last time and the storyline is really important here because um it's taken years to get to this point right and we we're here this evening but this evening is actually years in the making on multiple levels so this shows how our budget this year is actually less than it was in 2018-19 our enrollment has fallen eleven hundred students since its peak it's a huge drop right um we're all hopeful collectibly hopeful that the um you know the new building that's going on in town will um bring new families in and children and help sustain and grow our enrollment in the years moving forward of course that remains to be seen that we'll see in time how that may affect things but as it stands right now we're down we're projected to be 1100 students less
008next year than we were about 20 years ago the this slide shows the drop in state aid over time and then this slide connects back to that previous slide about drops in enrollment so why is our state aid dropping why are we actually in year four of a seven year sequence of state aid reductions and the reason is that our population's dropped our municipal wealth has gone up and our personal wealth of residence has gone up and those are the three factors that the state uses when determining stated distribution so what that leads for us is this year our state aid is dropping one million seven hundred and sixty three 000 which is actually forty thousand dollars more than it was projected to be that is the largest percentage drop among all nine lenape region
009districts it's the 49th largest state reduction by percentage out of the 577 districts who receive state aid and next year again because it's taken years to get to this evening but there will be years beyond this evening that are with us tonight and and are part of the con must be part of the context and what we consider is that next year this data reduction isn't a whole lot less projected to be a whole lot less than this year and the year after that another million and then lastly about 325 000 in 2024-25 other impacts we saw this year that chapter 44 loss started on january 1st in fact and it was due to the new jersey employer healthcare plan that was offered which many districts have seen a negative effect of that personnel costs
010increased due to covid which if anybody you know sees my weekly updates that i send out you've seen just in the area of saves of substitute pay how we started the year at 90 and then now we're up to 140 a day for a daily substitute and that's been very necessary because with it being a pandemic it's been very hard a lot some districts even had to shut down not due to covet but due to lack of staff in the building that was not the case for us but um but one of our remedies for that along the way was to increase our our sub rates um we were also a full day we we've been a full day district since the first day of school other than we went to a shortened day during
011the height of winter and you know so right from the get-go you could um you know work in a neighboring many neighboring districts for a partial day for the same amount that you would have worked in our district for a full day but the full day you know was good for kids it's worked we're back to it it's working again and that's why we did it miscellaneous revenue loss so we have a number of miscellaneous revenue generating programs in our district which in a typical year bring in positive revenue teddy bear academy full-day kindergarten before and after care this year remote learning care but in the pandemic our numbers dropped and we suffered a loss the projected lawsuit increased free reduced lunch enrollment that is um all districts are seeing that basically um you know
012the u.s department of agriculture offered a program this year where all children regardless of free and produced lunch status can receive a free breakfast and a free lunch it's at no cost to the districts it's supported by the department of agriculture but it did sort of remove some of the motivation for applying for free and reduced lunch and so a pre-reduced lunch enrollment is down and then s2 that's our stated reduction that we talked about before primary driving question how can our district maintain the effectiveness of our educational services while costing less money and that question has a certain aspirational seed in it because it's hard to cut over four million dollars and maintain maintain implies equivalency right but it's not equivalent we're you know we're cutting four and a half million dollars so we
013have tried to maintain to the greatest extent possible the effectiveness of our educational services and that drives hard choices very hard choices i'm going to pass it off to mr ashinti to talk a bit about the numbers on this slide uh good evening everyone and uh tonight this is the first news slide that that we put into the presentation and basically it's showing what's changed in our budget since the first preliminary budget presentation that we did two weeks ago the top half of the slide we're looking at changes to our revenue and we've increased our revenue by putting some capital reserve into our budget 215 500 so that way we can remove the rice fire alarm project from our operating budget and fund it through capital reserve um also our state aid was decreased and
014we talked about a little bit about that we had gotten our state aid numbers uh right before the board meeting and we have to adjust for that so we lost an additional 41 in state aid and then the last piece there we have to reduce our miscellaneous revenue because of the change in the transportation things that we were going to do since we're not going to move forward with the subscription busing and the uh that program we won't get those revenues so we have to remove them from the budget so it's at a total of 83 616 in changes to revenue on the appropriation side we had some adjustments made to uh staffing which resulted in a decrease of four thousand eight hundred and two dollars we finally got our uh final premiums on our
015health insurance and it came in a little bit higher than what we projected 37 500. we received our bill for our prs contribution for the um people that belong to the pension system that aren't in the teacher's pension we have to make a contribution every year for that um our our bill came in higher than what i projected so i know next year it's going to come in was going to come in higher than what i had budgeted for so we had to increase that line by 29 two forty two the next uh change was to um other uh district costs and that that is the additional money that we needed to put into the budget 12 500 to fund our share of the sros for the school year we already had i think it
016was 187 000 we had to put a few more dollars in to fund our portion of the sros and then the last thing was special on tuition we had to make a minor adjustment to that based on uh students moving into the district moving out of the district over the last couple of weeks so the budget has actually gone up by uh 83 616 dollars okay this slide is the same as this this slide that we had shown two weeks ago it looks at our appropriations or that the expense side of our budget for next year the first line is staffing second line is employee benefits those two numbers together equal 82.41 of our budget then you have the prs contribution our um insurances other district costs which are mainly um other things that are
017district-wide that part of that is is the sros it's one of the items in there then our curriculum technology and personnel budget and of course to the right of that is all the percentages of the budget that these items are special ed 4 million and change the elementary middle school budgets operation transportation four million seven hundred and seven thousand and there'll be another slide to break that out to give you more detailed information on that particular line item clubs and activities because we anticipate that come september we will be providing clubs and sports to students again so we have to budget for that then we have our interest on our capital reserve account and then the 215 500 that we're including into the budget to fund the fire alarm replacement at rice school okay so
018now this slide here is looking at our appropriations the the first column is the our current budget appropriations the 2021 budget numbers for each category the next column is the uh our tentative budget that we're proposing tonight the cost associated with each category the next column gives you the differentials whether it's up or down and then the last column is the percentage change so for staffing we're down 1.3 million which is a minus 2.8 uh next line is the the benefits line that's down 725 000 which represents a decrease of 3.82 the curriculum technology and personnel budget the third line down 72 985 which represents five percent special ed is up 580 000 which represents 15.54 percent uh the elementary middle school uh budgets um are down a hundred and eight thousand which represents a
019decrease of almost twenty percent in that budget area and the operation and transportation up 000 which is an 8.84 increase in that area clubs and activities are up 12 000 which represents a 2.8 increase then the last line which is the house skip over the interest line was that there's no change there the capital projects in the current budget we had used 671 500. towards our out of our capital reserve towards capital projects in this budget we're proposing to use 215 500 which is a decrease of 456 000 representing a 67.91 percent decrease okay so this slide here is what i was talking about a little bit earlier where i wanted to show some more numbers on specific lines in the budget the special ed line is the first one going across then we have
020the current budget that we started with in the first column the second column is the adjusted budget so we make adjustments to our budget throughout the year and that through through transfers between line items and that gives you where the actual budget is currently now and then the last column is showing the tentative budget that we're proposing for next year in that line and then the increased decrease in the percentage so as far as special ed um there hasn't been much change in our current budget the the the um the increase is really due to additional students that we're going to have next year um so right that's what's going on in that line now then the the next line where it was grouped together the operations the technology operations i'm sorry in transportation i
021split those two apart the uh the first one you see the operations budget at 2.338 million in the uh 2021 budget where the adjusted budget is up a little bit at 2.393 million and the tentative budget originally was 2.6 once we removed the fire alarm project from the operations budget and move it to the capital reserve that budget is actually 2.4 million which represents a 56 558 increase over the uh adjusted budget that we're at right now uh which equates to a 2.36 actual increase in that budget line the the bigger one that that gives you more information about you know why the big increase when the the numbers were lumped together is the transportation uh line and the original budget and transportation for the 2021 budget was 1.986 million however when we had put
022our contract out to bid for our um contracted bus routes the bid came in quite a bit higher and we had to adjust that budget uh to 2.290 million and then you compare that number our adjusted budget after we adjusted for the increase in costs that occurred during this budget cycle to what we're proposing in the tentative budget of 2.257 it's actually a decrease of 32 874 which is a 1.44 decrease in that budget line i'll turn it back over to dr smith thank you mr shinty this slide um so we're going to go through some of the projected reductions these slides are similar to last time first one this one was developed through reductions in departments department funds um significant reductions that took a lot a lot of work to get to a relatively
023small number but at the same time every every number and that is an enduring understanding of this evening every number is big as we try to get to the reductions we need to make this also included elimination of outside media services and so any media service needs we have our inside media services we provide them for ourselves this relates back to my update from today so and it's it's such a nice thing to be able to share something so positive the township is going to provide our district with 250 000 to fund the seven sros our school resource officers for the portion of the year that we were going to have to go out through a separate ballot question to ask the public for so this is wonderful on many levels for one thing it
024guarantees we'll have the school resource officers for the full year and it's seven so we currently have eight our ballot question was for seven so that means that um dimacey was one a shift from one per school to one per school building considering demacia as a duplex one building middle and elementary together so we are grateful to mayor vesey deputy mayor cooper our whole town council town manager corrales and others for that news provided to us and again it is greatly appreciated another wonderful update the township is going to purchase two of our properties um there's one in cambridge park and another in country farms for park space and this is a win on so many levels i don't even know how to count them all but we've been trying to sell these properties for
025years and so this help is resolves that part provides open space gives us a tremendous financial assistance that exceeds the transportation changes that we had in the preliminary budget presentation which would themselves have represented some cost to the township in terms of safety measures so that's another win and it means that we can remove those transportation changes from about from our budget for this year the details are still being worked out through discussion with the township and i'm sure we'll have more information to share in the time ahead but um you know one of the kind of phrases that um has come up in my uh newsletters is points of light you know because we it's been a rather dark year in a lot of ways i mean we're approaching the one year anniversary from
026when um a national emergency was declared march 13th last year due to the pandemic and um so to get so much wattage of points of light in the same week um is is you know wonderful and again we're grateful to the our town leadership for this amazing support salaries and benefits so as when mr ishinti was showing the slide that showed the apportionments of the budget you could see that over 82 percent of our budget goes to salaries and benefits so that is um with that amount you know over four fifths of the budget in that area it is an area we must look at and we have looked at for savings the um the positions here 45 positions total each one of them through long discussion over weeks and months at all levels of
027administration to do it going back to that driving question from an earlier slide trying to maintain the quality and excellence of our educational program while costing less money so each one of those numbers represents answering that question and as a i know uh you know we talk about this a lot but it bears saying as our north star that our district exists to serve kids first last and foremost professional staff so this is a slide that was not in the presentation two weeks ago eight elementary teaching positions due to class size increases and you know this brings our class sizes just on par with other districts we have benefited for years from having a lower class size you saw that enrollment drop right 1100 students we've lost so now through some staffing reductions to save
028money our class sizes will will be what they all have been um in our surrounding districts the um that you know and again i'm very deliberately saying the word positions here because there have been so far 11 retirements and vacancies that each one of those represents one less person who is currently in a position that could lose their position and we still have some year left and every district has seen an above average number of retirements and vacancies this year so we anticipate that number 11 in the far right column will change will increase it's not possible to say you know which which schools which grades um that is always an evolving factor due to enrollment by grade and by school and enrollments always changing six positions within related arts again due to class size
029increases and scheduling efficiencies six positions within special education mostly due to merging programs housed in multiple schools into single schools and this is one of the ones that i think you know as we go through this entire process trying to do it in a way where we're not in some cases can we do something potentially even better for less money you know because that word maintain i mean that's that's the ballpark we want to be in but every once in a while you can actually improve right and that's that's the the goal above the goal and um among other improvements embedded in that bullet item of merging programs is it it allows for example more consistency within a single school and more communication among staff who are involved and among other things more single grade
030classes where if it's distributed in multiple schools programs in multiple schools you might have more multi-grade classes so and there are other benefits too but um the and then uh one elementary instrumental music position due to retirement two math positions due to middle school detracting this slide was also not in the presentation last time it talks about our reductions within the realm of uh our support staff which includes paraprofessionals who are our largest support staff group 22 fewer positions 21 retirements and vacancies so better than the professional slide in terms of those two numbers being almost the same this includes two custodial positions three secretarial bookkeeping positions five lunch aid positions 12 paraprofessional positions and the biggest part of it is the paraprofessional health benefits which are projected to save three-quarters of a million dollars
031this coming year and then each year they're after a million and a half and the reason that those benefits end on january 1st of 2022 is because eligibility is based on the six months prior so the hours worked from january 1st 2021 through june 30th 2021 determine eligibility for july 1st 2021 through december 31st 2021. the there's a sub bullet there about paraprofessionals of 23 years or more of service which are five total as of july 1st 2021 will receive benefits for the full year next year it was actually two days ago in this same room here in this space where mr ishinchi and i met with about 30 of our paraprofessionals to talk through kind of as a question and answer meeting to hear questions that they had and we met also on monday
032afternoon in the rice media center again with about 30 of our paraprofessionals similar just an opportunity to um hear their questions hear their voices as this is um affects people who are very dear to us the there aren't any any words i could say that would make it um it would make it what it other than what it is in terms of the savings and on a pandemic this has been the toughest year in many people's careers and that is in the room with us as well we did not choose the timing of when these cuts came due right this is we go back to the slides from the earlier part of the presentation and tonight was years in the making steps not being used so among the many things that we considered and have
033are moving forward with i just wanted to include the things that we considered and looked into quite deeply and then have not done so the top item there we spent a long time looking at savings achievable through eliminating the middle school house system moving grade five to middle school eliminating an elementary school none of those steps comes close to the savings on the prior slide cutting educational programs which obviously is is the last thing we want to have to do and fortunately we don't have to solar expansion we looked into that not feasible additional for cell tower no interest there facility use fee increase we held off on that because our facilities weren't in use this year and we did put out a survey this was an idea that came to us from we went
034to every uh school and met with staff to solicit ideas and hear voices and have conversation and one of the suggestions out of that which i believe was when we were at jaggard was to um survey our staff to see if we increased the opt-out reimbursement would more of our staff opt out of health benefits and could that save money and um the results showed that we would we would be losing money if we were to increase the opt-out reimbursement additional steps being used so because actually um you know this is trying to save money for this sheet for this coming year started months ago um we eliminated as retirements and vacancies came up certain positions that total uh almost half a million dollars four of them together curriculum supervisor learning disabilities teacher consultant school
035counselor and media specialist each one of those is a huge position you know and instantly it makes the the work involved be distributed across the remaining pairs of hands and shoulders and all the while i did want to put this up here as it's come up at times we before we cut the curriculum supervisor so before we cut that administrative position we were already the number one most efficient district in the state among all 74 k-8 districts and administrative costs and that's for example the most students per administrator the most staff per administrator sale of property so you know that's i left that up there just as i wrote it two weeks ago because it just shows what can happen in two weeks right um and uh very soon here we will own two properties
036bus advertising small amount every bit matters a lot cell phone reduction activity fee increase and then that communication advocacy with state officials is um works on many levels most recently i met with assemblyman peter's assembly woman's stanfield and senator diego in separate meetings to just explain our situation and along with a few other superintendents from the lenape region um explain our situation the state funding reductions the covet costs um i think one thing that is lesser recognized is the coveted costs for districts that have been in personal year you know the funding distributed the districts hasn't been accounting for you know whether a district was in in person all year or whether they're all remote all year and we've been um very fully all very fully impersonal here so and i'm going to pass it
037back to mr ishnt4 this colorful slide okay so [Music] now we're going to look at the revenue side of our budget the first part we looked at the appropriation side now we're going to look at the revenue side and and look at the comparisons between our current budget uh the revenues and the tentative budget that we're proposing for next year they're the first two columns the current the tentative and then the last two columns are the increased decrease between the two and the percentage of change so the first column is our miscellaneous revenue and that's down about 305 000 for next year then we have our fund balance or surplus that we put in every year last year we put in a little bit more than we were able to put in this year and
038that's down 223 000. um then the next one is surplus uh other and that's that's actually called excess surplus so if you accumulate more than two percent surplus in your budget you have to um appropriate those dollars into your next budget so when we were putting together the 2021 budget we had 925 000 180 in excess surplus that we had to make part of that budget at the end of this current budget the one that ended in june uh we only generated 357 220 dollars of excess surplus that had to be incorporated into the 2122 budget the withdrawal from maintenance reserve we put more money into maintenance reserve this past year so we have more money that we were able to incorporate into the tentative budget for next year so that lines up three hundred
039and eighty thousand dollars six fifty five um our emergency reserve um the current budget we we incorporated 83 304 dollars into the budget the tentative budget for next year we only have two thousand and one dollars left in that budget in that reserve so we're budgeting the balance so where that line is down capital reserve which i already talked about a little bit before the current budget we're working in we budgeted 671 500 and the tenant of the budget for next year we are budgeting 215 500 so that lines down 456 000. state aid we all know that our state is being reduced every year the difference is the the 1.7 million that we were cut this year extraordinary aid we're anticipating receiving about the same amount of extraordinary aid that we did from the
040previous year so that line is unchanged the medicare reimbursement also known as semi is basically the same it's down a little bit 3064. then you have interest on capital reserve accounts and then the last line is the tax levy and that's that's up 1.2 million which is the maximum amount we can increase the two percent that we're allowed to increase our tax levy so when you add up all the numbers um our budget is for next uh year and intended budget that we're proposing to move forward is down 1.7 million or 2.23 percent so the color code that's something new that wasn't on the slide to uh two weeks ago and the reason that i color coded these numbers you'll see in the next couple of slides at this point it's time to dispel this
041myth that the school district is hiding money that the school district has funds that they're not appropriating that they're hiding money and the union constantly misrepresents to their people and misinforms them what our surpluses are and what monies we have available to us and that's a disservice to this board of education that's a disservice to the sport of education okay this slide here was a little bit hard to read but up up at the top of the slide when it's available tomorrow it'll be on our on our board doc's website there's a link that you can get a clear copy of this slide in the next slide which will walk you through where all our star pluses are there are no hidden surpluses so this this slide here is actually from our audit report it's
042page 96 of our audit report the audit reports available you can pull that off of our word docs website as well check the numbers the exact numbers that are in our audit report our audit is done by a certified public accountant an independent firm that checks all our numbers so the uh first two numbers are our access surplus numbers which i talked about on the previous slide you can match the color code up from what we put in our budget from uh the current year what we're putting in our budget for the next year the next two numbers after that are our emergency reserve numbers those numbers will call will correlate back to the previous slide as well and they'll match up with the numbers that we put in our current budget and the numbers
043that we're putting into our tentative budget the next two numbers after that are maintenance reserve accounts and again those numbers will match up with the numbers that are in our current budget and what we are proposing in our budget for next year the next two are the capital reserve and again the numbers that we're putting in as far as what we put in this year is is the same however the number we're putting in next year is a little bit less than the amount we have available so we have available 356 thousand we're putting in 215 000 so we'll approximately have 142 000 left in our capital reserve account the next line it's not highlighted in any color it's 192 000 and that is money that's set aside to cover purchases that were made from
044the previous year that become incorporated into a into our budget and those dollars are accounted for the next line below that is the uh surplus from the that's been designated from the previous year to 1.2 million that number will match up what we had put into the current budget that we're working in then the last line 1.78 1.718 million dollars that is our two percent surplus that we are allowed to have in our budget by law we can hope we can have 200 we can have two percent surplus and that's basically monies that we have available if something goes wrong so to take it from our budget into a different situation so maybe it might be a little bit easier to understand if you had a family and you had two parents and they moved
045made fifty thousand dollars a year you'd make a hundred thousand dollars you would set two percent aside like we do you would spend the rest of your money like we do so we have two percent sitting aside basically called like a rainy day fund and in our situation we're not allowed to have credit cards we're not allowed to go to the bank and borrow money that's all we have so this family has two thousand dollars sitting aside and that's all they have to work with their heater goes what are they going to do they have a roof problem what are they going to do a bigger problem what happens if their employer decides they can't pay them a pay period and they have to wait for their money they still have to feed their family
046what are they going to do well we're no different except we're a lot bigger we're responsible for a thousand employees a thousand people the board of education is responsible for so we need our two percent god forbid that we have a roof issue the heating system breaks the state decides not to pay us our our state aid on time i'm sure all of you wouldn't be happy if we said we can't pay you because our payroll for one pay period is over two million dollars more than our two percent so let's end this nonsense that there's hidden money there's no hidden money it's all right there black and white it's just that some people in this union leadership keep pounding this drum for their own agenda and this information was given to the union two
047years ago after a board meeting in this room when john scavelli the former superintendent sat down with an njea wrap and explained our surplus but everyone chooses to ignore it because it doesn't work for their agenda next slide this is a little bit harder to see but this is a snapshot of the budget software that the state makes us use to prepare our budget again all the numbers are color coded you can match them up with the the slide that shows what we put in our budget you match it up with the slide that's in our audit it's all there black and white this goes to the state state has to approve it the numbers are the numbers if you look at the blue bars that go across horizontal there's our balances that there we
048will have at the end of the of this projected tentative budget cycle the first bar is uh miscellaneous rapidly it's projected we'll have 1.5 million in surplus that's our two percent the next one going across it says legal reserve but it's actually excess surplus none zero the next one doesn't apply to us because it deals with adult schools the next one below that is capital reserve and we'll have 142 000 dollars in capital reserve left which we are allowed to have up to six million dollars in capital reserve set aside we have 142 000 set aside for if there's a if there's a problem with a building to repair something at one point we had up to a million dollars but we continue to use our money to fund the budget so there's there's a
049day we're going to pay the price for that and that's why we need our two percent the next area is the maintenance reserve again zero the next one below that is tuition it doesn't apply to us then the last one is the emergency reserve and that's zero as well so let's let's put an end to all this talk about hidden money and the board has money they don't want to spend it's just all a myth it's all a room is all propaganda and let's just be adults about it and look at the problem for what it really is and face the truth and stop making up stories okay i'll get off my soapbox now so back to the budget this is our our revenue slide you're looking at [Music] what we would generate if we
050had a zero tax increase the first column 76.6 million if we decided to only have a one percent tax levy increase 77.2 million where we're added to two percent tax levy increase is 77.8 million uh the next column is for two percent plus waivers and bank camp there's none of that available to us the number is exactly the same and the third column is our tentative budget which represent the two percent tax levy increase okay the next slide why we went through that slide is now we're going to look at those revenue numbers and compare it to our projected expenses in our budget so if you look at this going from right to left look at the column that has the arrow pointing at it that's our tentative budget the revenues match the appropriations the
051next two columns are actually the same because there's no difference between our budget the two percent waiver and bank cap and just a straight two percent increase the next column over is what would happen to our budget if we just if we only went up one percent on the tax levy we would have to cut an additional six hundred and twenty three thousand dollars from this budget if we decided we only wanted to increase the tax levy by one percent if we decided to increase the budget with a zero percent tax levy we would have to cut 1.2 million dollars from this budget so i'm getting to the end of my slides that this is probably the most important slide to the taxpayers which is going to cost me so our budget is on a
052fiscal year the tax bills are on the calendar year so when we're looking at the 2021 tax increase we look at the first column is half of last year's budget the general fund tax levy did that service half of the amount 31 836 000 the next column we're looking at the tentative budget 2122 tax levy increase of 63 572 which gives you half of that amount is 31 0007 you add the two halves together gives it a 63 six twenty three the row below that is the 2021 tax rateables the readables are up in the township which is good news that the raidables are up that always helps us um so now you now we're going to work down to the next section we look at last year's tax levy increase which is 1.18 percent
053this year's tax elaborate increase which is the 20 20 21 which is 1.2013 the difference is the increase which is 0.0175 so what does that mean so if you're if your average home is assessed at 271 thousand dollars your increase for the year will be 47.50 i'll turn it back over to dr smith at this time thanks mr chinty do you have the little clicker thanks i greatly appreciate all all the uh the work you put into the slides it's very important to have the accurate information that whole the whole presentation so as we did last time so two weeks ago i gave the presentation on thursday on a friday in my email to staff and families i included the powerpoint from the night before as long as well as the live stream recording of
054the board meeting with all of our explanation i will do the same again tomorrow so you know i encourage everyone to take a look the colors are very helpful in terms of guiding us and um we also embedded a link in one of the prior slides that if you click it takes you to the entire um outlay that mr shinty put together all in one view so if you prefer to look at it that way you can and again i encourage all of you to to take a look so we turn the county we turn the attendant budget over to the county office by march 22nd and then on may 6th we're here again to present the final budget in between then we also have a regular board meeting at the end of march and
055in april so there are many opportunities for further discussion and we are very glad to have discussion about any topic anytime and that's been clear all along we had a chance to make that clear again and speaking with the the paraprofessionals who came on monday and tuesday and um so this time any questions from the board yes mr megan i just just want a quick summary on what you just presented so revenue is down expenses are up to handle it you we have removed 45 positions from the ranks wasn't enough to cover the differential you lose revenue you increase expenses and the biggest expense increase was the salary increases per the contract correct correct okay so you and your team went through you cut as much in the operating expenses as possible no stone left
056unturned you found as we saw hundreds of thousands of dollars focused your initiatives were focused on the children what would have the least amount of impact on the children correct correct okay transportation options courtesy transportation was examined recently the township has come in with some temporary solution and i want to emphasize that part that's a temporary solution the land sale etc um the sro issue is a temporary solution right now and the idea of taking it off of the ballot was a short-term relief but may not be a permanent solution so i again i i just want to make sure we're clear about that okay as far as other expense reductions outside of your team i'm assuming you did go to the you know you met with the with the folks the union reps and
057i'm assuming they came to you with ideas to help alleviate the differential which is millions of dollars and i'm assuming you digested those and acted upon them as best as you could is that a fair statement um that's so we did meet with them twice with the uni with the union leadership uh explained our financial situation both times um so and mr ishinti addressed this in this presentation but you know that they believe they have they have different numbers simply put about the budget and that the steps we're taking that we're presenting is incorrect and unnecessary and on that basis said to us they are not willing to meet us even one percent of the way okay all right that's that's what i believed was the situation so as far as the accuracy of the
058numbers and you you you are not allowed to move i we want you to relax and breathe turn your microphone off i wear i was worried about you so the actor shared her number so john and his team put the numbers together in conjunction with all of administration it's presented to the finance committee which i've been a member on for four years and i my my resume i'm a cpa certified fraud a lot of books i've done school audits and everything so when i hear that were quote and that i haven't heard it directly except a couple times at these meetings where they thought there was a mistake that there's five million dollars i find it insulting on behalf of the board and that so then you have us internally so let's go to the
059external people who validate our numbers bowman and company is our outside cpa firms maybe 125 cpas one of the most reputable cpa firms in new jersey specializing in municipal audits they give us this book every year i study it boy am i boring i look at it in depth and i know how much the reserves are so they didn't come to us when they met with us two months ago and said you got five million dollars right they agreed they confirmed they audited and they approved the numbers correct okay then those numbers get shipped to the county superintendent in the state put into their program digested and you know looked at and then they also validate those numbers right correct okay all right i just again wanted to summarize what i thought was being presented
060the facts and maybe a little bit more information for people so okay thank you mr megan i appreciate it miss fleming thank you i just wanted to ask um about when you met with the staff and the paraprofessionals at those meetings were they able to offer any ideas of ways to perhaps you know increase our are the monies that we could get from somewhere did they offer ideas um one thing that was consistent between both meetings okay was a desire on their part to um try to work towards some kind of agreement okay some middle ground um and we and i you know i i i um attempts were made you know we had two meetings with the within leadership on that we've remained open at every point along the way to continue conversation um
061you know so it so the monday and tuesday did give us a nice chance to express that to the paraprofessionals who were there um you know i didn't see any union leadership at those meetings okay so um you know i may have missed them but i did not see them okay and so are the paraprofessionals told at that time that um their suggestions would have to go through their team leadership is that correct correct correct so we wouldn't be able to negotiate directly with them correct sorry okay and so since those meetings have have you met with has the team leadership been willing to meet with you uh we have not received any uh reach out thank you dr smith other board members questions comments can i just say this filming absolutely i'm sorry thank
062you uh mr richenty and thank you dr smith for putting together the presentation i appreciate again the level of numbers i love the color coding that makes it nice and simple uh and so thank you very much for putting together the presentation i just would like to say also as a board member having to make these decisions are heart-wrenching no one wants to be elected to a board to say hey how can we cut salaries benefits so you know all it will take all of us and it will take everybody coming with ideas your team members your team leadership and and so that we can do the best that we can by our children thank you other questions from the board miss no i have a question dr smith i feel like can you hear
063me on the slide where you have the professional staff restructuring i'm looking at it in front of me i was hoping that you could walk through these bullet points at the bottom so i can better understand what's changing here and how it will impact students so the um we'll start with the first one the elementary teacher positions so there are eight reductions there positional reductions which will increase class size but just bring us on par with other districts um um can can you clarify on par with other districts please yes i'm sorry to to ask these questions but i know because i have kids in elementary and um we i spoke about this with you my my first grader last year had 16 kids in his class and his was the largest first grade in
064that school the other ones were like about 13 14 and i know in other districts in those lower grades they can have as much as 25. so when you say on par with other districts can you please put that put a number on that yeah gladly thank you um so uh for full for full day kindergarten this would be 20 students in a class um for first grade 22. okay for second grade 24 for third grade 24 i'm sorry the first grade was 22 22 okay second grade 24 third grade 24. fourth grade 25 and fifth grade 25 okay what is our fifth grade and fourth grade now average well it varies a bit school to school but it's lower than that i mean um and each each of those thresholds is higher than what
065we currently are um i would say if i could have ever wished for a year for our class size to be lower it was this year with because it has enabled us to have more social distancing um for example yeah okay i understand so then the related arts can you explain this to me please so um we we we are going to find um scheduling efficiencies we have found scheduling efficiencies within related arts where we can have um people um you know it's with eight schools like we do um sometimes we bump up against inefficiencies so for example in class size we can say class size is 24 but if you have 60 students in a grade and you it's going to be three classes of 20 we wouldn't make two classes of 30 out
066of that and with related arts it can be similar um where we have a certain number of related arts teachers and how their schedule is writ is written you know how they may travel which which uh schools they're in determines the number of students that they can teach so if we're able to kind of like redesign how they move and where they're located then it lets us um you know use their use them as a resource to a greater extent if that makes sense it does and can you explain to me the instrumental music position due to retirement and and what that means certainly so um that was uh mr schaefel who retired this year and um you know he uh he is um fantastic music teacher he's actually my children's music teacher um so
067and his wife teaches actually elementary school and kingston elementary school in cherry hill so they are a dynamic duo of teaching but um so we're very sorry to lose his talents um to retirement but what will happen there is we will have conversations with our uh music teachers and our curriculum department to figure out the best way to um assimilate that loss while keeping our services for children in instrumental music as much as we can okay and then of course the other two bullets math positions i don't know what msd tracking means so that's sorry no thank you thank you so that's middle school i know middle school so that basically um you know there are we have multiple levels of math within middle school just like a high school has multiple levels of math
068and um so there is a uh a small level in middle school that we could eliminate and save those two positions and then um what it will do is uh and i experience this directly at the high school level which also went through a d a strategically tracking process so i've been a part of it lived it and helped it happen is as the research for detracting shows is actually students you know with proper supports in classes you can help students rise to the level of the class that they're in and a lot of times tracking can it can create mindsets in students sometimes negative mindsets you know depending on how many levels there are so this will eliminate a level help those students raise up we'll be able to give them individualized supports to
069help them succeed and save two positions along the way other questions or comments from i'm sorry and then uh i apologize for the special special education bullet there so we are looking at um for example our uh we have a learning and languages differences program that's currently housed in multiple elementary schools and in both middle schools and we are going to merge that program to one elementary school and one middle school and so what that does is among other things we can have more single grade classes whereas currently like in an elementary school you might have a multi-grade class because there aren't enough students to support single grade classes so the for the teaching the kids are going to the teachers able to differentiate better because the age range is smaller in the room and
070the grade range is smaller um plus it creates consistency for the staff because all the staff teaching within that program are in the same building and the same in middle school level as well so and we will help the students who may be transitioning between schools due to that merging of programs um we have already been talking as a central administration with our special education department about um you know ways we can make that transition successful so for example through our esy summer program and um our child study team which is remaining consistent and we'll um move you know keep the same work with the same children and help them transition so it'll go well okay so um i do have a friend whose child is at marlton middle and was informed that we're now
071bussing these kids over to demacy to combine them here with demacy correct that that's that doesn't sound like that's best for the kids that's my opinion so you know they could live in my neighborhood and they're going to be bused to demacy yeah so that's my neighborhood being marlton lakes the southern end so that's what i'm questioning and i would hope that we can talk about it a little bit more i think that's a great idea getting meetings moving forward because i'm not sure i'm just concerned you know the kids are the most important and we can find efficiencies possibly somewhere else i said um i do want to make a statement though um a quick statement because i want to thank those were the only other questions i had on the presentation and i
072want to make a statement at as the chair of the finance committee um i think all the board members know by now that the finance committee met last night emergency meeting since there were the last minute changes that came through the township to dr smith so i'm not used to wearing masking glasses they're fogging up so let me just so i did want to um inform the board members in case they were not aware that we did meet last night and um we met late into the night and i want to thank all of the finance committee members for being flexible and willing to come out last night and to dr smith mr rashin d miss magulok and mr dante who sat with us and and walked us through the the changes to this budget
073so that we would better understand uh what the what the town council had proposed and how that would affect our draft budget so um you know it was so important that we understood that before tonight's meeting um i wanted to also thank the mayor and the town council township manager for working with dr smith so that we could bridge the gap for a balanced budget for next school year um but as dennis said it's just for this school year and i have major concerns about next year next two years budget and concern that if we don't take the steps that we had initially proposed and reduced costs now we're going to be up against you know significant additional cuts coming as we know totally more than 3 million through 2024 2025. it's an uphill battle
074and um we need to make smart choices now to reduce costs um [Music] i am specifically talking about the transportation changes that we discussed at our february finance committee meeting most residents should know that the state regulations say that a school district must provide transportation to students that live further than two miles from their school many people in the town don't know that currently if i understand correctly ets etsd buses everyone except for those that live within a half a mile of the school and that comes at a significant cost and it keeps increasing every year we've been at board meetings many of you have been here we've talked about hillman's contract unfortunately we cannot control how much killman's increases their contract every year they are the only bidder so it's not competitive we had
075seen 25 percent last year 10 percent the year before so every time we try to save money what happens we spend more money so we talked about as a board a goal would be to let's try to minimize our reliance on humans so in my mind this would be you know this would be advantageous for us to offer subscription busing because busing every kid is not sustainable and it's not required by law and many other towns do not offer this kind of courtesy busing it's unheard of anymore there's just no money and now we're being hit with it because our state aid is being reduced we were you know we were able to because we were living high but now steve sweeney says you don't need this money anymore your residents make more money now
076so we have to get creative and this was a wonderful in my opinion creative solution unfortunately we're walking back for now but you know um i think giving the families options if the roads are safe give them the option walk their kids drive your kid or pay for busing but only after the the township and the police they go out and they assess the safety of the roadways so i would like to see town council work with us in determining what are the safe routes that we could really confidently say yes let's take away busing not going to take away busing if it's not safe for a kid to walk use across eastbourne medford road in my opinion it's not but you know i'm not a safety traffic engineer however where we can do that
077how the township look at adding sidewalks there are kids that are walking without liv i mean that are bus that live right next to rice because there are no sidewalks it's not sustainable have the town invest in the sidewalks you know and then long-term i'm thinking 10 years down the road 20 years down the road so i'd like to see the township continue with the police chief to evaluate the roadways and help us determine how we can reduce our transportation costs we all know that's step one there's a whole other list of things that will have to come next year and the year after so having said all that um i'm going to vote yes to the preliminary budget tonight so that we can send it to the county next week or i'm sorry i
078think it's the 22nd two mondays from now however i i fully expect that the finance committee will take the next two months of meetings and with the administration and re-evaluate these options i don't like kicking the can down the road i think we need to start really seriously looking at this now otherwise i asked the parents what else are they willing to give up clubs are they willing to give up sports in middle school other towns they don't have clubs i'm sorry to tell you but they don't and if they do they certainly don't bust your kids home so i'm asking parents to think about this what are they willing to give up because i won't give up things that are important that we need like reading recovery i just won't do it so i
079said my piece one last thing when i was first elected i sat down with mr roshinti in his office i asked him please help me to understand the budget the audit report your the board secretary's cash summary report and he showed me we have um maintenance reserves capital reserves emergency reserves each of them had more than a million i thought myself this is wonderful he said well we got to replace the boiler what was it jagger i don't remember exactly that year but that's going to be 500 000 and that was all wonderful now now this year these reserves are almost empty so kicking the can down the road trying not to save this year is extremely important to me i don't like reserves that are empty thank you thank you miss noel other questions
080or comments i got miss filming anybody else just to get around this i just wanted to know dr smith um in terms of uh president biden passing the 1.9 his relief package when could we possibly expect to have any numbers from the state about how much that might help you know add add revenue to the budget thank you miss filming time timely question um as that is like heartbreaking news right now yeah 1.9 trillion um with an and of that about 170 billion which is set aside for k-12 schools so i reached out to congressman kim's office this week just to get like some try to get some insider info on that and um we are going to get just over 900 projected from that stimulus package and it does come with parameters about how
081it might be used as they as always happens so you know we'll be looking at um sort of the the bulleted list of ways that that money can be spent and and i um anticipate that you know well number one we'll be putting it to good use for kids and but it will need some time to look at that in light of the budget i i do anticipate um as ms knoll said about our finance committee taking advantage of the next uh couple months to take a look and we'll be talking about that uh chronovirus relief that we're getting as well so if i could add on to just uh one comment mrs nolmade i really appreciate that all the parents and the staff have sent emails i am sorry that i haven't not replied
082to all of them that's great to get that feedback i did notice one was a petition uh for that community and the development over there so i'm just i'm just offering in in terms of brainstorming quickly if we're able to organize to start the petition can we look at and the parents look at doing some organization to bring forth those ideas send them to all of us about ways you think it's that we could possibly raise some revenue i know all of us would welcome that thank you dr smith miss fleming i i would piggyback on that that if we're spending time as as citizens of this of this township putting together a fight for for busing we all knew this was happening four years ago no one took us seriously not a single damn
083soul took us seriously four years ago and the second that that we started making cuts to particular to particular groups that's when everybody looked at like what are you doing and i would hope those who are listening live stream because right now i i see a sea of red so i'm not assuming anybody of that group is here all right but i would hope that they're taking us seriously now and as i said four years ago and i'll reiterate it now this this isn't of our volition this is not something that this board of ed or the board of ed three years ago or four years ago this is not something we sought out but i have felt that we are being punished for succeeding that's how i felt and as i said before they're
084going to make the reductions up on the state level and then have us all duke it out and just watch in what i feel like is going to be elated glee but the reality is is that if we are that organized to create petitions for for things like like bus routes we need to get even deeper organized to make these kind of petitions in these fights to go to the state level and say what are you doing to us or for people in the audience what are you doing to us to take that that is forcing us to lose our benefits forcing me to lose my job for the people out there for me to force uh to force me to lose uh my my child's safety with an sro or or my child safety
085crossing a county road all right or for those who are not involved in the school district but are still citizens of yves sham what are you doing that you're taking away the state aid and forcibly raising my taxes the problem is is that we as a whole of the 45 000 people in eve sham we need to wake up because the devil's at the doorstep and it's demanding its retribution so i would advocate strongly that we all finally get organized like we believe we can and go after the people who truly are doing this to us because all we're doing right now is we're fighting each other and none of us can do a damn thing about it i said that four years ago i'll reiterate that then today um who else has questions just
086a good time uh as the only member of finance i wasn't spoken i feel obligated to talk um i look forward to the next two months of meetings i think it's important to reiterate that this is a tentative budget we have two more public board meetings we have two more executive sessions and we have two more finance committee meetings that i look forward to further scrutinizing our numbers and seeing where else we can we can work best for our kids um the other thing is i think it's uh both enlightening and encouraging to see the petition for for culture on right there were 200 residents who signed on and not all of them lived in coulter and i think that's important to note um so i encourage them to to reach out to us right
087so we have a community outreach committee right that mr lancelata chairs we also have our save our schools initiative which mrs everhart and myself are assigned to there are opportunities to advocate outside of petitions and i look forward to more community members reaching out to us so we can collaboratively advocate at the state level any other questions or comments ms everhart i just wanted to say thank you to um the council and the mayor and the deputy mayor and to our leadership who sat down to broker a deal here to help us bridge the gap of this financial fiscal challenge that we have looming now and forward i also implore and i know the finance committee will do this as well as the ancillary board members but i would hope that we not only do
088this this evening which is going to be very difficult decision for all nine of us but i think we need to continue to roll up our sleeves we need to continue to work sharpen our pencils talk amongst ourselves our leadership has to talk to the union leadership we need to continue to communicate so that we can make changes for the budget that we're presenting in may and for the 1.6 million dollar deficit budget that we have facing us next year we have to continue to continue to talk to one another and it is important that our leadership speak with the union leadership to get that going it's very important that we keep the communication going it's tough but we need to keep speaking thank you scandal for all the community members um who are who
089are interested in advocating we even have a template uh that is pre-written for you you just have to put your name on it um i'm sure we can have it on the community activities page on the website or you can email any board member and they'll be able to share it with you and then you can just send that email out to our legislators and the more of us that do that hopefully the better results we see i'm gonna i'm gonna ask a couple questions real quick i i i just wanted to allow allow the board members i took up a lot of time last time so i wanted to give you guys as much of a chance as possible um our special ed costs uh have have gone up i saw a 5.5 percent
090roughly but you said with that language the i i missed the what it was but you said it um we are able to reduce it so this is actually reduced special ed a reduced special ed from what it previously was so um the in the appropriations that special education that's right that's um a lot of that is out of district costs which we actually our out of district percentage is um lower than a lot of districts but it can increase from one year to the next depending on the particular children and and needs that that you know that that that money is spent to support their uh their education in ways that we try to provide in-house but we're not always able to that's yeah because that's a when you look at those numbers and
091you look at them by themselves that's the one that's like striking everything else looks like it's a reduction but that is but this your administration and this board has been working to cut special ed costs it just doesn't look like it in that number and i wanted to make that clear because the the number can be very misleading but i i know that seems to be and it honestly seems to be it is a mission um to to seem to want to do that well yes and so so the you can in this in the salaries and benefits the professional staff part you can see some that there's some uh special education positional reductions there um as relates to the the appropriations here for special education i'm thinking back to um at one of our
092finance committee meetings recently um mrs espenberg our director of services came and gave a presentation on um kind of how out of district costs work and and that you know the needs that exist the very important needs that exist for our children um in those situations um so the uh you know we're always doing what we what what is necessary and appropriate to help those to help those children yep thank you i i appreciate that um now we have about roughly uh one i think is a 1.15 million miscellaneous revenue loss i believe that's what what it said there all right and that's teddy bear academy that's full day kindergarten that's that's our ecc obviously those things have gone down there's there's no way during this pandemic that they could maintain their levels however we
093are now approaching that that that threshold for next year if i recall and i i'm two years off having a kindergartener and about three years off from having one again um we should be hitting that level where people should be accepting applications or asking for applications for full-day kindergarten right are we seeing anything there in terms of how that's looking or much much better enrollment okay how about how about teddy bear academy teddy bear is um teddy bear actually weathered the coved storm better than some of the programs um the uh we we anticipate our goal you know for um september and we we are advocating with the uh department of ed for guidance on what september needs to look like as soon as possible because as you can see we're we are discussing next
094year's budget now so next year start has already started and it is in going full bore right now um but our goal here in eastern township is to be able to provide five full days of school for as many parents as would like it you know and and and that sort of um you know we'll call it like new normal um will also that rising water will lift all the boats and including the military's revenue boats now i'm going to ask this question because my math is never good my my lovely wife is the math teacher she's the one who handles this stuff in our house much better than i do so we have a 1.15 million revenue loss but we're expecting those numbers to go up for teddy bear academy uh kindergarten uh possibly
095ecc will that cut into this revenue loss or is that something that's separated differently um and i'll let mr version explain how one carries over from one year to the next i was just a little confused by that and i just wanted to make sure well um as far as the um kindergarten um well they the revenue loss there is just absorbed into the budget um as far as the teddy bear and ecc they're separate programs from our budget so those those losses have to be paid back to the school district before we can even realize additional miscellaneous revenue so that's why the miscellaneous revenue in the tentative budget next year is down because we'll be working to recover the monies that we lost from those programs before we can actually start to see additional
096monies coming back to uh help with our budget awesome thank you mr roshinti i just i for my own edifice i wanted to make sure that was that was clear um to go upon what we were discussing and i want to thank first of all i want to thank the finance committee all right you the the group of you that that were there and there were four of you there um mr shinty dr smith and anybody else who was sitting in that room uh multiple times uh you have really done everything that you humanly can to to make this work um miss noel in particular uh with your statement i i i appreciate your honesty i i wholeheartedly appreciate your honesty some people don't so thank you honesty is a hard thing to accept sometimes
097um a couple couple things a couple of things about that uh i i have a tendency to agree with you on what you say about kicking the can down the road and all of that um the the other side of that that i see was that uh the township didn't have to do that they they didn't have to do it and all the years that that i have been been sitting at this table township never did that they they never did that in fact i i i can't even recall a moment where that could have happened uh so i am i am incredibly grateful for for them even thinking about it but there's a couple things that i think we need to be reminded here um one the the land sale right the land sale
098they there's an indication for a land sale but nothing there's final all right i mean so we we don't want to go into anything thinking that that's that's it that's a definitive and i said this last meeting and i'll repeat it again i i don't like counting money i don't have in my hand right that's a that's a very big deal all right that is a gracious offer from them i want to see how that plays out uh it's a twofold offer number one we've been trying to get that property off our hands for forever all right both those properties number two the people those of those of cambridge and country farms the the people of both of those neighborhoods have been fearful that the second we get those off of our hands they're going
099to become developed land and they're going to become something that's a monstrosity people country farmers in particular were worried that that land was going to get sold and built into like apartment complexes that was something that was a threat about a couple years ago or was perceived to be that anyway um the fact that they're doing that and with the with the indication that it's going to be park land uh and and it would hopeful this that they're they're gonna build upon that i think that is that's a win for for all of us now we should take into account we should take into account and i could be wrong correct me if i'm wrong here is that even though that's a one-shot sale we do have expenditures on that every year so i mean
100there's there's expenditures that we use on that every single year that that if that sale property is is it take it goes through um that's something that will go in the budget now i know it's not going to be big enough to solve the issues that are straight in front of us but it's something i i assume is that correct correct correct so each of those especially those two require some amount of maintenance they have trees on them and and trees fall for example so um some of trees fall on fences and uh yeah okay um the other thing i want to i want to say and i want to clarify this we talk about and i know you it was thrown out into the into the ether sphere here but when we talk about
101cutting clubs and activities when other districts do that i know from from where i'm at as a club and activity the majority of that cost of club activity and again please correct me if i'm wrong that usually is a that is usually the cost of that is stipend i i would imagine a majority of the cost of that is stipend all right and i i am of the belief and i will i will stand fairly fairly firm on this one that there's a there's a twofold monster there number one we're we're we're taking away we're taking away stipends from from our teachers number two i i've always been of the belief and and i i am i'm evidence of this being from van zandt de mesa marlton middle uh that our our activities and our
102our our clubs define who our students become all right our students become who they are uh by by playing soccer by wrestling through theater through through finding that instrument that they love through through concert band whatever it is orchestra all right they begin to develop and find who they are i i personally consider that a a program cut in my mind that's how i see that and i just want to be very careful about that i i am not going to say to the finance committee don't talk about it i mean obviously you you just everything's always on the table all right but i i'm telling you my my personal belief here is that i see a two-fold problem with that and i i am i'll you'll have a hard time convincing me that that's
103a that's a good idea and i am not in any way miss no please i am not in any way trying to to reject what you're i i i commend you for bringing everything onto the table um that's to me that's courageous all right but again we're on that in the position i am i i just i don't see i i just don't see the benefits of it i would be very hard very hard to convince me that there that there would be and i don't think those costs are very high it's not the difference between the uh expenses and the revenue we generate through activity it's not it's not given the benefit to students yeah yeah okay uh lastly and i apologize i i'm sure you guys are tired of me at this point
104and i'm really sorry i had a nice conversation before i walked in here with some some very lovely people um and this this whole situation here is deplorable this is an awful awful event that we are all a part of now in even though i i said four years ago i warned of this to happen and and i stand i stand by that it doesn't make this any easier the hardest part about this and and i say this because i look at this board and i i can't say this every year that i've worked with with my board with with the board of education that i've worked with that i i really respect this board and the reason why i respect this particular board is because you really have a heart and you really care
105and i know that everything that's going on here hits you extraordinarily hard now i ask for zero sympathy i ask for none of that we're elected officials we are not afforded that but i think it should be told that no one has taken anything here lightly and of all the decisions look i've made some decisions that people probably still hate me for all right whether whether it was you know whether it was uh a decision on a bus depot years ago or a decision on on on that's a family years ago or or the decision on on evans all right those decisions that were made were choices we made choices we had a legitimate choice of which way to go we measured what we thought was the right course of action versus the wrong course
106of action school choice being another one remember that one all right we had the ability to choose the course of action in which this district was going to go we had that ability what absolutely devastates me here and really questions what the hell i'm doing here is that i've lost that power i have lost the power of choice the only choice i get to i get to make here is how the execution is going to take place the judgment was sent off long ago not having the choice to save people is a horrible horrible thing it deadens you inside and i i just you know we're we're in a tentative budget and i hope and pray that relief comes but we we have to understand as we are tearing each other apart that we need
107to look at each other and and realize that that's the situation in front of us that gets lost all right that gets lost and i'm terribly sorry to physically everyone who's in this room i am terribly sorry to everyone who's live streaming at home because personally no matter what you may say i feel like personally i have i failed you there's there's it's just it's a horrible wretched feeling and the feeling i have cannot even be measured by what you're feeling because yours irreparably is worse than mine and that ladies and gentlemen is the awful terrible situation that has befallen upon all of us all of us and i just wanted to make that point heard thank you any other questions or comments before we move on seeing none all right let me move out
108of this i gotta get back to board docs all right first of all thank you for the presentation dr smith mr rashenti um your um your hard work does not reflect what's happening here but what you're trying to do to save what we can at this point in time we're moving into public comment and this is for agenda items only so this is specifically for anything that would be inside the budget this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however if your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personal 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 again as i said earlier a couple things here
109state your name state your address make sure that's nice and clear so we can hear it uh and also uh i'm not gonna i'm gonna try not to be totally strict but if you start going into the into the uh the realm way past what we need to go i'm going to politely say please wrap it up again i emphasize this because i understand how personal this is for all of us um everything that i if i ask you to wrap it up it is not in any way shape or form me disrespect to you i i i and many people in this board all people on this board respect what you have to say all right so please please do not do not take anything i i do or say in that matter floor
110is open hi um my name is joanna inglassis i live at 401 cedric lane thank you i'm actually a parent not a teacher like or something like everybody else it's actually quite intimidating there's a lot of red shirts in here i have two boys that go to demacy i think it's a wonderful school the teachers do a great job here i actually wanted to come to the school board meeting for a while um because i've wanted to get more information about when the kids are going to be going back full time uh it's been hard to find time to come and i finally found time to come and you guys were having a budget meeting so i feel like i picked a heck of a meeting to come to for my first school board meeting
111so so um anyway i work in the insurance industry um and our industry has been trending towards a remote school towards remote work um and we've been doing that in order to save money and my question to the school board is what money have you been saving in the budget by having the kids being remote my review from what i saw on the board up here was about 400 000 i mean it was quick and i honestly i didn't have time to review it that much before i came but it looked about 400 000 between maintenance and media in savings but i didn't know if there were any utility savings or any other savings but i know in the business community a lot of businesses have been trending towards remote and i didn't know if
112there was any savings that were made that were not reflected in the budget that were shown to us that you could expound upon and i also didn't know if there was any requests that had been made to the council in terms of grants from the council's recent program that they installed to get reimbursements in terms of the money lost from the teddy bear academy and the full day kindergarten it wasn't my understanding that the full day kindergarten was a revenue raiser but from what you're saying here today it looks like it is but i didn't know if that had been a discussion with the town council so i didn't know if that had been a discussion that you had had with the town council to get reimbursement for that that had been lost and i
113just hope that everyone here today we'll keep in mind that the kids have been through a lot this year my own kids pretty happy kids they really have been having a lot of psychological issues you know and a lot of issues because of the remote schooling you know and it's been tough on these kids they need to go back to school full-time um so i hope you guys can resolve your distance at differences and work this out um i'm i'm happy to pay my 45 of taxes uh for this uh further education because i think they get a good education uh for in-person education that's why my husband and i moved here uh because marlton had a good reputation they have low taxes and they had a good reputation for education when we moved here
11413 years ago and i still feel like we were getting our money's worth for in-person schooling but this remote schooling is going to end i really hope you guys resolve your differences and everybody works things out i'm sorry for the people that that might have to lose their jobs i really am but it's been tough for everybody all around especially on the kids that i've seen um so that's all i have to say thank you thank you do you want to answer yeah yeah uh first first uh welcome if that's your first board meeting uh and uh and it may not maybe a little it's this is a more attended one than usual but i'm glad you picked this one in in in the sense of uh there's so much to see and learn just
115by um getting to you know the budget but how like a great discussion among board members and how communication works um mrs romanelli the principal of macy's sitting right in front of you um so i'm glad she was here to hear that um shout out to demacy mr hoffman sitting right next to her as well um and uh glad they could be here for that um the uh so a couple couple raised a couple great questions which i want to touch on um first working backwards your question about conversations uh between us and the township as far as um needs we've incurred you know financial impact that we've incurred this year um and so we have um you know we have had we have great communication with the township um they they've understood our plate
116um throughout the year um both due to you know that miscellaneous revenue piece but but there's which i'll because your questions are kind of connected actually because um the other question was about how you know essentially the financial impact of this year have there been any savings have there been additional costs and um so uh while the the financial plate that we're in has been years in the making this year did bring additional costs um which we were communicating to the township and um and they they uh you know it's it's so clear to me how uh much care they have for our district as essentially um you know that our district is our town and our town is our district in a lot of ways um the uh and that's i think what part
117of what um you know their understanding of our situation is is was a catalyst for their financial support that we were able to talk about tonight that the 250 000 for the sros which um and then the the purchase of the properties so that's a great um example of uh you know evidence of their understanding of our situation um and uh you know it since all that the money in the budget in the sense goes to all these different things that 250 000 for the sros is 200 000 more that helps us you know as far as the general budget and um remedying the losses due to the uh our programs like pulled a k the cost this year though and it's and it's interesting because so this year has actually been more expensive for
118for districts than a typical year um we've had to maintain essentially two different loads modes of learning right we've got an in-person mode and we've got all remote load and that has meant um additional personnel costs uh like for example a teacher who is out sick might be teaching from home but we still need to substitute in the room with the children at school um the uh if you have a um you know someone who's uh out let's say um due to and and you know there's been a lot of transition within staff staffing costs you saw in the um powerpoint so um the um you know we might need to bring in someone uh hire additional person uh contract out for additional services to kind of plug a gap that's emerged along the way
119due to something related to covid um the the p we've gotten some grant money along the way which we've burned our way through um you know the the when you came in the thermometers we've got um you know uh thermal scanners that take like groups of people's temperatures quickly as they enter a building increasing our number of chromebooks so that kids could have a one-to-one chromebooks ppe costs it's been it's been an expensive year and um ionizers yes thank you thank you the ionizers chapter 44 chapter 44 yes 800 000. yeah yeah thank you mr megan so we had um and that was due to the educator healthcare plan that the state of new jersey offered this year um so that was another we'll call another um part of the perfect storm of the year
120essentially and then to your last point about kids being in school um you know which i'm glad that um i'm talking about last because it is the absolute most important thing of all um is is what we do for our children and um we are working you know on um classroom level school level to help more kids come in trying to stay within that six you know that there's a six foot social distancing guideline that the um you know uh is part of the road back guidelines from the department of education based on the cdc um there are some districts that are starting to go below that that six foot distancing um and uh so that's a that's a growing conversation it's one we are talking about here a bit but we haven't embarked on
121going below that six foot yet um but but if you know that that certainly has contributed to the larger conversation across the state um we've asked for we had a meeting uh some superintendents from the county and i recently with the deputy chief of staff from governor murphy's office basically saying can you could they you know help the collection of communities that is new jersey achieve some consistency by providing clear alternatives to that six foot guidance since districts are coming up and townships are coming up with their own methods and it was very we found a very receptive audience um and what we heard back was essentially we were berlin and county superintendents we heard back was this that scene is playing out in every county across the state um and uh i think you
122know though you know as it stands here we're having conversations about that but um we're also hoping that the state of new jersey will come out and uh provide some overarching guidance in that way thank you dr smith and thank you very much for coming your first meeting i'm sorry i know you were come forward come forward uh please state your name and address please uh my name is janet kimmenauer i am an eighth grade language arts teacher here at demacy um i just wanted to say a few things um as being the former president i see a lot of new faces but i also see some faces that i've worked with before and i think the most important word there is that i worked with you before um i want to let you know
123that when you talk about the union and the union leadership you're talking about all of us all 700 members it's just not some group at the top and my understanding was there was representation at that meeting that you so talked about um i'm not sure mr riccenti i looked through all my emails when you were talking i didn't find one email that said anything about hiding money so i do believe that that is a misrepresentation uh that's not a misrepresentation because it's been set at board meetings by your membership okay well then i apologize for that um but i would do one of this is the most important thing um when i was the union president um we all worked together mr scala valley and i very very closely and solved a lot of problems
124and this is not the first time that any of us i've been here for 20 years we're always reduced to digits we're just digits but we've always managed to find a way to find the humanity and i'm seeing that there's not that same i don't i i know there's two sides but it has to stop and i also need to remind this board and you are still the board even though there's new members that this association the one i represented the one that i continue to represent even though i'm not the president made a deal that perez with benefits would keep their benefits until they're retired and you that board made that that gentleman's agreement and i hate that term but that gentleman's agreement was made between you the board and us the association and
125i cannot in good consciousness not leave here without reminding the board of that agreement that was made when we had a fight about the paris before i need you to look back remember we did have an agreement not on paper i know those change but you at one time did find the humanity to figure it out i hope you find it again thank you debbie van curan etea president first of all i would like to thank the board for exploring the sale of district properties to eavessham township for green space as recommended by the etea we couldn't be happier that it worked out and also we would like to thank the mayor and the council for purchasing these properties i hope the sale goes through smoothly as far as the powers meeting our vice president
126for our support staff was there on monday on monday and tuesday we had many association reps there as well and they constitute our executive board also john i have a few things to say about the way you talk to me every meeting that we went to five million dollars five million dollars five million dollars we asked you to meet with greg jordy from njea greg is the numbers guy i teach first grade my numbers are not like greg's we called on greg we sat down with all of you at that day by the time we left there you were saying well it might be 4 million but you weren't even sure you never disputed the numbers with greg you just sat there you turned around at your computer you tried to print something out you
127did not seem very prepared you got very heated and defensive today in a public place with me not once was it brought up about hey we might get 959 000 from the stimulus package until we had a board member bring that up nowhere in the budget do i ever see that there's over 2 million dollars in breakage that you have to work with 2 million over 2 million dollars and anyone who doesn't understand breakage if i retire and you hire a fifty thousand dollar teacher you're saving the difference between my salary at the top of the scale and that teacher that's a first-time teacher there's over two million dollars in breakage and who knows what that number will be by september first i didn't even plan to get up here and talk about all that
128until after some of the comments that were made you can tell i'm not backing down i still don't believe the numbers are as bad as you're making it sound and i would propose that the finance committee because i heard you say that you you know you there were questions asked i would like the finance committee to sit down with greg and greg can go over the numbers that were submitted to the state i can't explain them like i said i teach first grade math but we could get a meeting with njea and they would be able to go over those numbers and then maybe we could finally put this to rest the reason i was getting up here tonight was just to talk about our paris my heart breaks for them it's one thing mister
129or dr smith that you want to put 22 kids in my first grade class i know that that's going to be hard mr scavelli always made it a point to try to keep the grades and the primary grades smaller and i know you have to do it will it be the same no that's way different than taking their benefits away i don't know if some of you know this that if you take their benefits away in this budget and they don't have them when they retire they don't have them for the rest of their life there are some of our lowest paid employees they get hit they get bit they get scratched and you're gonna take their benefits they work so hard i was talking to my husband tonight who teaches in a neighboring district
130he said they can't even get paris what are we gonna do when all of our powers leave i've already had one ask me would i give a letter of recommendation because that paris going to have to go to another school district we're going to lose people because you're going to cut their hours and take their benefits board members do not let the president administration shorten the hours of our paris because it's not really we're taking their benefits we're shortening their hours we're lowering their hours so that they lose the ability to be eligible for the benefits don't let that happen as you heard janet say the past administration made an agreement that our current paras would have their benefits with them until they retire will you be able to sleep at night knowing that you
131were part of the decision that took health care from these folks you're right joe this is a deplorable situation tonight i ask all of you to do the right thing this budget cannot move forward having our powers lose their benefits you need to work and figure it out if you have to make the class sizes 25 you're going to have to do it but taking benefits from people is deplorable thank you name and address please my name is lucia millington eight bancroft road i'm a para at marlton middle school um i know most of you i've probably voted for most if not all of you so i know you're good people i know this is a difficult situation but when i was hired the package was with benefits 22 years into it and it's being
132taken away i'm three years from retirement i will never have that security that i've been working for for 22 years and it's not just me i'm better off than some people that that you taking you're taking the most from the least of us not only are my benefits being taken which is half my salary not a salary i don't make a salary if i did i wouldn't be here half my pay but by being cut in hours this i have been i have substituted for gary any time you needed me in like the last 22 years 20 years i sub on a regular basis that's part of my income i do clubs that's part of my income i do basketball games wrestling matches that's part of my income so you're not only taking away the
133security of having health insurance which by the way i can't afford to get if you take it away because on my salary i can't afford what i've got so i'm going to go into retirement without benefits without making extra money and it you know it it's we're the we are the the core we might we might be at the bottom but we're the core of the education system we do a lot it's it's just not fair to take this away from us at this point name and address please hi my name is janelle zakotis i live in eight spring mill court washington township new jersey i teach the kindergarten first grade multiple disabilities at jaggard elementary this is my 20th year teaching 17th year in eve sham one of the reasons i have had such
134success in the classroom is due to the support of our paraprofessionals i am extremely saddened and disheartened of the discussion of the possible loss of benefits to our most senior talented and expert paraprofessionals i was lucky enough to be on the re-entry committee over the summer and was happy to see the thought care and time that was put into the social emotional health of staff the possible loss of benefits does nothing but destroy the social and mental well-being of our paraprofessionals and students in whom they support my focus here is twofold one to stress the importance of maintaining benefits for our powers and two to paint a picture of what the powers do on a daily basis as teachers we spend a lot of time working off the clock especially during the summer this is
135a choice that we make to plan and prepare for successful school year since i have started in eve sham i've had paraprofessionals that volunteer their time assisting me in this once the school year begins the paraprofessionals have to quickly adapt and take direction from teachers and staff to meet the needs of students as soon as student arrival begins the powers assist students at times physically aggressive behaviors are occurring at the door of the classroom our powers walk students through their morning routines my routine morning routine our morning routine include includes changing diapers feeding implementing behavior plan schedules assisting in sensory diets and supporting small group academic instruction as the day goes on our powers continue to support our students in all areas of school they are trained by the therapists and teachers to properly implement
136needed plans the success of this implementation comes from their expertise and professionalism as well as their dedication to excellence on many occasions our powers have been verbally and physically assaulted we answer these concerns by providing proper cpi training and monthly paraprofessional meetings the powers know that their job description is broad and can range from changing diapers to supporting a child in a resource room setting this is expecting of them to do their job i am speaking from my own experience that i would not be able to run my classroom in the same successful manner that i've been doing for the past 17 years without my power support having said this the repercussions of losing this effective support tremendous we know how expensive it is to send a child out of district my record shows that
137i've only sent one child out over the 17 years to best serve their needs that cannot be accomplished in a public school there have been others that were on the brink of being sent out and it was the support of the paraprofessionals that these students were able to remain in district i am pleading with you the board do not take the benefits from our powers as you said dr smith point of light the paraprofessionals are the point of light for our students and the teachers they serve good evening dr smith the members of the board my name is susan beck i live at 548 justice drive and i'm just here to say that if you take the benefits away from the paris it's a crushing blow to all of us we work so very hard
138every single day i am a paraprofessional in the preschool autism room i've been there for 15 years and yes i've been one of those people who have been bitten spit at kicked and i come back every day because i love the children and i have passion for my job and i'm begging you please do not take my benefits because if you do i'm not sure i can return and i know there are many others like me and i love the children and as i said i really love what i do thank you [Applause] good evening nicole puglia six lakefield drive in marlton i'm here tonight as a voice for a population near and dear to my heart and that is our ld program the ld program that could not run without our wonderful paris as
139you may or may not be aware it is the intention of the district to move our ld students from bieler to van zant this raises many concerns among them concerns for class size combining these two schools will result in a larger class size potentially replicating a regular edge situation to whose benefit is that not those children this move will split families from siblings and cause extra stress at home to juggle at all some of our district's neediest learners will shift and transition from three schools in just three years that's a lot couple that with our county our excuse me our country and our world's current state of affairs and that's just an overload for already sensitive people we strive for students to be in a program to not be in a program for the duration
140of their school career and making the program all at one school prohibits fluidity it seems the negatives outweigh the positives as this will cause the children of bieler to be tracked as ld making the transition into a less restrictive environment more challenging and that they will no longer be with their siblings and neighborhood friends the ultimate goal and great source of pride for eve sham township schools has always been putting our children first please do that tonight keep feeler ld students at beheller school and put these children of esham first thank you good evening merrill schindler nine dominion drive i am an eve sham township taxpayer and for the past 21 years i've worked as a paraprofessional with jagger at the time of the proposed elimination of benefits i will be in my 22nd year
141when i was fired to work in youth sham i accepted a full-time paraprofessional position with medical benefits and a pension i accepted the position for little pay but with excellent benefits that upon 25 years of service was best for life over the past 21 years i have poured my heart and soul into helping the children i have been extremely i've been extensively trained in every facet of my job cpr nci trainings trainings for specific disabilities such as autism down syndrome seizure disorders adhd ocd to name a few i work summer programs and after school programs as well with the children my job also entails feeding toileting implementing ptot and speech therapy programs small group instruction and remote teaching that has been signed for the children's success as well as keeping the children safety and welfare
142has been number one priority sorry i'm nervous dr smith's proposed plan targets the lowest wage earners in the district who max out after many years at twenty five thousand dollars his budget presentation claims that it cost the district twenty five thousand dollars for benefit in order for us to be ineligible for benefits he would also cut our work hours which would lower those wages so to be clear you're asking us to work for nothing after we seek benefits elsewhere when it would be less of a hardship to ask the higher wage earners to pay for their benefits for me this is especially troubling as my lifetime health care is in jeopardy you see i've had to rely on the medical benefits to save my life i had breast cancer and a genetic predisposition that makes
143the likelihood of it returning at some point pretty high you're asking paraprofessionals like myself to take the same risks without the safety coverage of sound medical benefits esham township has an excellent reputation for their special education department people move into this town for that reason we're the people that spend the most time with our kids and help to keep the consistency that our children need i understand that you're looking at the budget but if you truly care about the health and welfare of the students then surely you can find another way then cutting the medical benefits of devoted employees like myself therefore putting my lifetime healthcare in jeopardy i ask you to please reconsider eliminating the benefits that were promised to us for many of us it's a matter of life and death my name
144is melissa mercer i live at five darien drive in cherry hill and i've been a speech pathologist at jaggard elementary school for 20 years i have never spoke in front of the board although i've attended a lot of board meetings and i haven't been in a room with this many people in a year so i'm extremely nervous but i felt compelled to talk tonight there's so many things that came up during the board meeting line after line of cuts that are like arrows to the heart for our district um you know many things that i could speak about in terms of class sizes and program cuts and moving the children across the schools and collapsing um programs but i really wanted to focus on the paris jaggerd will be disproportionately affected by your decision to
145cut their benefits we have a great number of very well trained parents at our school that have been there for years and years and years and have benefited from all of the training that the district has provided and these women give their heart and soul to this job you know merrill is a fine example of that she is one of the many wonderful women who took this job knowing that if they put in the work that when they came out of it they would have lifetime health benefits there are so many of them that are struggling with health conditions with families that have health conditions and it might seem like an easy fix i know nothing is easy in this but to take away oh 20 people 30 people and we'll just hire people with
146no benefits um but you're also losing all of their years of experience and training if those people walk out of jagger jaggard will collapse upon itself i i can guarantee that because they are the blue that hold that school together um i also wanted to bring up s 3488 i'm not sure why the district is not discussing this further you know there is a lot of legislation that is trying to be passed right now and they're looking at consolidation of school districts to make districts k-12 i'm not saying that that is a solution for us but just being part of the pilot study would have our expenses that we have taken on from the state moved from a four-year period to an eight-year period so that we would not owe the state of new jersey
147as much money over a four-year period they're they're offering huge incentives for us just to be part of that pilot study so i'm not sure why that isn't being considered we don't have to agree to that we just need to become part of the pilot um and i think that you know i was hoping that we came here today and between the the recovery act money and the news articles that have been you know floating around about this legislation that we would be getting some better news and you know not that the arrows that that keep on coming thank you [Music] i'm sorry just just real quick i just want to comment on what what you what you just uh which what you just asked or proposed um this this isn't new in terms of
148consolidation of districts uh it's been around i want to say since 2007 was governor corzine who really started making that push for it and regionalizing and kind of doing these county districts i saw the article that was listed that listed esham township as a part of like all these options that could be consolidated that list looked like they were just naming every every district in south jersey um when we have looked at that in the past uh when it's been brought up in in the past this is like not the first time it's happened although they are kind of throwing a carrot with that you know kind of broadening out that money for eight years instead of poor it's one of those things we just have to be very careful for districts of our size
149and consolidate with other districts of our size it the costs usually go up far more in some instances that i've seen and what we've talked about in the past so i just you know it's one of those things that obviously it's it's coming out we don't know what those what that that law is going to be yet or how they're determining it but if i'm going to dictate from what i've seen prior about 13 14 15 years ago uh usually it was for us and districts around us it never seemed to be good usually they were they were targeting what smaller districts have like you know like one this one building district or something along those lines i just wanted to throw that out there just to just give you kind of an understanding of
150that sorry thank you um please please go ahead i apologize i mean interrupt you hi good evening my name is cecilia giggin i live at 15 mini sing trail in chama i am in my 24th year as a paraprofessional at rice school i work in the in pre-school inclusion program which was not brought up but it is a money maker for this district the only children that do not pay are the iep students that are in the class i am very sad mad and very disheartened that you again are proposing to cut our our benefits we work very hard all our my colleagues work very hard with very young children with all different skills with all different abilities we potty train children we change their diapers and we try to keep them academically on their
151levels i've had children from your families or in my class i've had families of siblings that have paid for their children to come to our class this year has been beyond stressful ask all our colleagues if we were if we could get money for all the hats we have worn in our school we would be very wealthy we have been in classes upon classes trying to help all the colleagues that have been out what has that happened that's caused a lot of us to also have been exposed guess what we all got those dreaded calls from our principal yeah you've been exposed you've been exposed we've all had to go get tests and guess what they were all right before holidays holidays that we all hoped we could have stayed maybe be remote try to
152be safe that didn't happen uh i i don't understand where you think that we aren't the glue that works i'm in a class right now there's three permanent staff members i'm one my other two are out of medical leave i have a sub teacher who is very new i'm helping her every day and a sub possibly maybe might come in we have all day classes preschool has not changed we go morning and afternoon four days a week we had no shortened day we have 14 15 children in each class there is no six feet apart i don't understand how you can feel that taking our benefits is no big deal it's half our salaries if you lost your benefits if someone told you guys your family will have new benefits we are holding our benefits
153for the reason that maybe someone in our family can how would you be it feel we are all family here at eastern i urge you please do not pass this do not let our benefits of all my colleagues go truthfully seeing this this board now i am i will be a lucky one but not all my colleagues are and they work so hard please reconsider they need their benefits just like everyone here we're going through it terrible pandemic that hasn't stopped if i didn't have my benefits all the kova tests i had to have to secure from all the times we were all exposed who would have paid for those please reconsider thank you thank you good evening corinne halibura 13 olympia drive i've been a paraprofessional here at rice preschool for the past 20
154years i want to tell you that my both my children went through the eshim township school district eastern is an excellent school district and right here your paraprofessionals are your frontline workers we came in in the middle of a pandemic we went right to work we were nervous we were scared for the kids safety was our main concern safety for the kids safety for ourselves and safety for our families and we did it new jersey is the number one state in the country with the most coveted deaths to say anxiety isn't at its highest level i can't even begin to explain to you i can't even begin to explain to you what our day is like i feel like you're dismantling our district brick by brick we need our benefits we are the lowest paid
155employees no one's asked anybody in the upper echelon to take a pay cut or pay freeze or give something back or to lose their benefits it's always us september 29th we get the letter you're cutting our benefits then you gave them back to us now you're taking them back again it's been a yo-yo it's not fair you need to do the right thing and as far as janice your comment about doing away with clubs and activities these kids need clubs and activities more now than ever for socialization some of those kids go home to no parents being at home it keeps them off the streets maybe it keeps them off the phone and off the internet it builds great character skills and it helps them socialize and make friends so i would hate to see
156that happen but i implore you there's members that were in that meeting when we were grandfathered with john scafelli we were grandfathered in to have our benefits as long as we completed 25 years i ask you to find another way and to not take our benefits away and i have another question on the other budget this is a budget question on the ballot i recall seeing you were asking for 437 000 roughly for a separate ballot question for the sros and that's been taken away since there were no clubs and activities you said it was an estimated 454 268 cost i want to know what happens to that money since we didn't have any clubs and activities this year what amount are you getting for the properties that you're selling in country farms and what
157about the stimulus money where does that come into play and can there be a tax a budget question on a question on the ballot for additional monies in order to pay your your power professionals because the special education students need that extra support that's what makes esham so great these people behind me are very hard working and we've worked harder than we've ever worked in our lives and i ask you to reconsider thank you miss halibur i'll i'll uh address and you had a bunch of questions there at the end so i'll try to go through them um property value property sale still in discussion it will definitely be more than what we would have saved through transportation um clubs and activities that number that 400 000 number that you were referencing um that that
158doesn't relate to clubs and activities that was the number from the preliminary budget hearing presentation the ballot question the number there was as if about had been for the full year that 400 000 so the cost of seven sros for the year is 437 thousand 500 that was the number that was in the ballot question but the we already were budgeting for the first part of the year for the sros because the ballot isn't until november so the um essentially you know where that to be taxpayer approved the savings from that wouldn't commence until january 1st so the pro-rated amount that we needed in order to sustain the sros for the rest of the year was in the in the neighborhood of 250 000 which is why the township provided that money for us clubs
159and activities the difference is actually much much less between the um the cost for stipends and the activity fee amount that we generate so and i i'm trying to think uh the the uh the the chronovirus relief money you asked about what you know what will happen with that and you know that came up earlier tonight but certainly we'll be taking a look at um you know what are the parameters with which we can apply that money towards our district mission so we look forward to looking at that and um i'm sorry if i forgot one there but today is that no no so that that for that number you mentioned about the 400 something thousand that was you said that was in the last presentation that was the uh um correct okay so so
160the difference between the the expenditures for clubs and activity stipends versus what we raise an activity fee isn't isn't really that much so i want to say it's about a hundred thousand we haven't done clubs and activities this year so a very small savings there yeah however we never collected any fees to offset the clubs and activities so we we may have uh not spent the 454 but we didn't collect the 250 000 we usually collect to offset that so really the difference isn't 454 it's about 200 000. yeah thank you any other questions or comments all right saying none we're going to close this portion of the board close uh public comment at this point in time we're gonna move to item four which is uh adoption of the 2021-2022 tentative budget uh i
161need a motion to prove item 4.1 do i have a motion i'll make the motion motion by mr megan do i have a second second most polo all right questions or comments um real quick i have just a couple things again i apologize mr physical i'm sorry could i just say one thing you may say one thing absolutely i really appreciate all of you coming and giving the feedback um i don't want any of you to feel that you are not valued and and considered a great source of the kids knowledge that they do get i'm very sorry that we're in the position to have to make such a hard terrible decision uh for any of our kids for any of your families but thank you for speaking up okay a couple anybody else a
162couple small points here um dr smith thank you about the 900 000 from from the federal government that bill was literally signed today knowing what those parameters are right now or just there's a reason why we weren't trying to tell you what that was it's just we just don't know yet uh that we should be getting that information sooner i mean everything we got was just from congressman kim's office and that was just a here let us help you out with a couple things it wasn't we didn't get any real serious look at what that's going to be so we're still taking a look at that joe can i interject very quickly and i just want to say that that cares money i'll call it cares money i don't know what they're calling it now
163but it comes with stipulation oh yes you can only spend it on certain things this is not a slush fund like danny remember a year ago we got that first um chance of money and it was only for certain things and it had to be documented i just want to add that yes and thank you because we don't even know what those things are yet correct that's and that's that's the thing that was the point i wanted to make and i appreciate that ms know because that's that's the issue again it's money that we don't have yet and there's it's money that we don't know what the parameters are so it might feel like someone's coming in to rescue us and then that money could be used for things that don't apply to anything that
164we're having a conversation about so we the reason why again why we didn't want to really talk about that is we didn't want to talk about something we just quite frankly didn't know i just want to put that out there um increasing class sizes that involves losing staff members correct correct that's how we uh achieve some of those position eliminations yeah okay um all right finally less less tiny thought this is a preliminary budget approval tentative budget approval final budget gets proved in may i'm not going to tell you that this is the worst relationship the board and the union has ever had i've heard nightmare stories from my father when he served on this board in the 80s and the kind of fights they used to have i've witnessed things on this board when
165i've been here between members of the board and and staff and it's it's not pretty all right it's not pretty and the reason why it is a simple we're incredibly passionate about what we all do we're incredibly passionate about what we all do um but one thing that that does bother me and i will say this about all of us um we are not doing a great job of coming together at a time when we need to be and this is a tentative budget and if we are and i'll go back to to a phrase that was used about being numbers and not people i don't ever see you as a number and if you know me and you've spent time talking to me you know that you're not a number to me never have
166been all right no matter what's happening here it's never been the case i won't speak for everybody because that's not fair but you know me okay the tentative budget has to go in but we have two months which means that paraprofessionals have indicated in some way that they're willing to find a solution to bring back their benefits and if the two sides are willing to meet together to come up with some type of solution you have relatively two months to do that right now's your chance all of you now's the chance we approve this tentative budget tonight because we're not going anywhere else with that right now but you've been you've bought some time to come together and figure this out i i don't want to hear hear say or i don't want to hear
167so and so said this about me or so i don't i don't care i quite frankly don't care about that stuff that's nonsense to me i don't care about who is upset at who and who said i don't care about that all right i don't care about that in my class i don't care about that here all right i care about getting this done and if we're all serious about that and we're beyond talk about that then let's do it got two months you got two months to do it all right so that's my two cents on this anybody else have any other comments or questions yes ms ryan so i'm sitting up here and there's like a war between my head and my heart about what's going on with the budget crisis and we
168care we really truly care um it was said when was how are you going to go home tonight and sleep well i haven't had a decent night's sleep since um the last time the power question came up and you all came out in force so sitting here hearing you i get it i feel it and it's devastating and the only thing that's probably going to make me sleep tonight is knowing that this is tentative that this isn't final so we hear you we feel you you're important and you're valued just know that anybody else oh okay i i didn't know what that was i was trying to make sure okay but with that being said let's go to a roll call please this is capello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzicaro yes miss fleming
169no mr canton yes mrs noll yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion passes at this point in time the meeting is now open to open public comment which is for any any item of interest 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 to see the superintendent after the meeting since we don't discuss these matters in public same parameters apply as before anybody wish to speak about anything joe before you start timing me i know i'm over four minutes but i have somebody that's willing to read mine my what i have to say but i'd rather read it myself so if you want to cut me off just give
170me a heads up and i'll get somebody to read it i appreciate that miss vancuren thank you all right so again my name is debbie van curan but this time my address is room 129 and my title is first grade teacher at demacy elementary school where i've been a first grade teacher in the district for the last 34 years and i've taught hundreds and hundreds of students here in eve sham this is the part of the meeting where we get to speak about things that are not on the agenda well morale is not on the agenda board members i respectfully ask you to listen this evening because i feel often you only hear see and believe the one-sided things that are presented to you i know that asking my colleagues to write hundreds of letters
171to you is a burdensome task for you to receive and a frustration for the authors of those emails who send them i implore you to really hear what i have to say now i am sad this evening i am sad for my colleagues my bosses my students and myself we have never been where we are this evening over the last 34 years i have worked alongside many administrators and we haven't always seen eye to eye i've carried a picket sign during a strike and i've walked with my fellow e-t-e-a members in support for many different reasons but i have never felt so low as an educator as i do this evening no matter what was going on i always felt that all parties respected each other and were fighting though passionately at times for the
172good of the group we always had the best interest of the students in eve shim at the forefront of our conversations i believe i speak tonight from my colleagues from all over the district we feel disrespected disposable defeated manipulated unimportant etcetera the list goes on and on we feel as though we are constantly being pitted against each other our voice doesn't matter with this current administration here's a ridiculous example of what i'm talking about a decision was made to survey the children in ysham township about how to make up snow days the staff was not asked to participate in that survey as educators we know that we have mastered remote learning and that we can present more meaningful instruction remotely in january on a snow day than on a hot half day in june when
173students are thinking about being outside with their friends swimming we are still trying to muddle through a pandemic catch up from last year's school closures of in-person learning and complete as much of the curriculum as we can in spite of the many curveballs that we have been thrown this school year from the beginning of this pandemic you have compared us to other surrounding districts and i think you will find that we have accomplished more academic success from last march until today when i read this to my husband he said thanks you just bashed my district and more in-person learning with more full days than most of our surrounding districts we are already light years ahead everyone has stepped up to the plate and worked harder than ever i know that in 34 years i've never
174worked as hard as i have the last 12 months colleagues all over the district share that morale is bad and i even asked some friends i said is it really as bad as i think it is i said is it in the toilet and one person said it's lower than the toilet morale is low because we never know what is coming next from the current administration the staff has lost faith in the direction that we are being led this the decisions that are being made often don't even make sense communication is poor and honestly a friday afternoon or evening email with songs poems and hyperboles just isn't cutting it i'm sure most of the staff members are not even reading them friday is a time when we're supposed to be trying to decompress rejuvenate and
175spend time with family the staff from the top to the bottom often feel blindsided we were asked to join the current administration several weeks ago to get information about the upcoming budget in the past information and charts would have been presented this meeting seemed to be an unprepared powwow members actually left the meeting saying why did i bother attending with the past administration we knew that we might not always hear things that we were going to like like hey i have to close evidence but we always respected the time that was put into the presentation we also knew that our input was valued our questions would have received answers today it seems as though our time input and questions are not valued we used to be a family if you do the math i have
176worked under dr mayland and everyone since then i remember john bigley starting our school year with a motivational speaker or some kind of entertainment in this very cafeteria i would come to school in september excited to see my colleagues excited for another school year board of education members i ask you tonight how do we get some of that back how do we build the tree build the trust how do we get morale out of the toilet how do we attract the best of the best to come here and to work with students in eve jam where the students that are coming in the future it must start at the top what are you going to do to help make it better you can tell i'm very passionate and very upset i'm here for a different
177reason at this microphone right now but i thank you for listening and i look forward to hearing how we can steer our district in the direction that it needs to go in remember it starts at the top anybody else okay i'm going to close this portion of the meeting all right and that's going to hit us to a motion of a german i need a motion uh motion to adjourn motion by miss ryan seconded by miss null all in favor [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you