001hey welcome to uh this edition of the issue Township Board of Education um pursuant to the public meetings act out of the public notice of this meeting has been given by the Secretary of 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 at the Burlington County Times and Courier Post and filing written notice with the municipal clerk of Evesham Township may I have a roll call please this is Barbara Giovanni here Mrs Everhart here Mr physicaro here Miss Fleming Mr kampfan here Mrs null here Mr lancelotta Mr Meegan here Mrs Ryan yeah we have a quorum okay if we could all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
002America and to this Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all of them a couple notes here real quick for anybody who is in the audience I am going to put us um all on uh mute obviously in a moment Dr blachford and uh um Mr rashindi is going to present the budget uh you're also going to see um a screen share by uh by myself of the budget which we're going to go over so I will do my absolute best to keep in Pace uh with with Dr blachford and uh and Mr rashindi so uh you have patience with me as I as I try to make sure you're recording all right what's that make sure you're recording I am recording I'm recording as well Frank
003I've I got I got that one down already that one that part I figured out and the right laptop too right okay at this point I'm going to uh share my screen and show the budget presentation and then at that point give the floor to Dr blatchford Who I believe is first on here so let me do that and here we are ready to go I'm ready when you are thank you Mr physicaro I started a neat sham on February 3rd 2020. before that on January 23rd Mr scavali and Mr ranchetti presented the preliminary Budget on March 10th Mr Ashanti presented the tentative budget and today Mr rashanti will present the budget for 2020 2021. thanks to his diligence and attention to detail the tax rate has not changed since the January 23rd meeting this
004maintains our small class sizes we are able to protect our programs and class size despite a 1.4 million dollar decrease in state aid budgeting is curriculum no curriculum initiatives happen without money budgets are also based on what's happening right now in normal years this is difficult and this year there are even more things that could change very quickly assembly bill a3902 would allow the delay of property tax to the school districts property tax revenues make up about 78 percent of the Evesham School District revenues which is approximately 5 million dollars per month if property taxes are not paid it would affect our ability to pay our employees there is also assembly bill a3904 which requires a school district to pay all employees Monies to them whether or not they are working the state has also
005moved the fiscal year from June 30th to September 30th which means that state aid payments which we would receive in July will not be received until October we do not get our budget for federal funding until June these are the title programs if we could have a reduction and then that would have to be made up with local funds the analysis of our budget does provide some good news and that is not just my opinion could I have the next slide please absolutely the New Jersey Department of Ed has a taxpayer's guide to educational spending for 2019. Evesham is in a group of 74 districts that a k to eight with 751 students or more the budgeted cost for 2018-19 that's the most recent year available we are number 30 of 74 that's budgetary costs
006per pupil we're right in the middle of our group that means we're not spending too much money or too little money on our students indicator number eight is very impressive total Administration per pupil ranking within the group we are the number one lowest spending District of 74 districts indicator 9 administrative salaries and benefits we're number eight of 74. again very near the bottom of the um 74 group indicator 13 extracurricular clubs are pure per pupil ranking is number 36 of 74. this is good because it indicates we're spending not too much money or too little money on clubs and activities indicator 19 is the ratio of Faculty to administrative personnel and we are number four of the group 74. number four from Nevada those are very impressive figures one of uh very impressive another figure
007is that our miscellaneous local revenue is almost 3 million dollars it's two million 913 447 it's one of the highest in the whole state even though we are in turbulent times Eve sham is in excellent shape one of the best predictors of success is past performance and we have many highly trained employees our curriculum is academically rigorous and dedicated to the students social and emotional needs all of our departments are exceptionally efficient and effective Personnel special education Transportation custodial maintenance and business Mr Ashanti and I congratulate the board for your steadfast dedication to the Evesham students Mr Shanti watches every penny and is a student-first business administrator with that I'll turn the program over to him hello can you hear me yep okay for some reason I was muted uh thank you Dr LeBron for
008uh good evening everybody and I'm going to start the budget presentation uh if you're going to advance to the next slide please okay so the presentation will be similar to the um public hearing presentations that we've done in the past so the format is basically the same as previous years so this slide here shows you the changes to our budget since the tentative budget that was approved back on March 11th by the board um as far as revenues go we've had to increase our budgeted fund balance by a little over a little over eight thousand dollars seven seven thousand nine hundred ninety four dollars and the reason for that is when you look at the Appropriations we were able to um create some additional savings through um decreases in staff uh and salaries for retirement
009and other brokerage of 84 however we had an additional uh special ed placement that we had to put into the budget um at a cost of 92 812 dollars um so we needed to increase our budget to balance the um increased rub uh the increase of preparation so that's why we had to adjust our fund balance by uh a small amount these changes had no impact to the uh tax levy that was presented at the tentative budget next slide please because okay someone um again like we've looked at in the past when you look at the 2020-21 operating budget the revenue side um the first two columns are the uh 2019 uh 2020 budget that um we're currently working with right now and then the next two columns are the 2021 proposed uh budget and
010then the last two columns gives you to you the uh difference in amounts and the percentage of differences so as you go across the um we look at our budget of fund balance uh in the current budget is um eight point I'm sorry 1.894 million um next year we're budgeting 2.6 million which is an increase of 742 000 um which is up by uh 39 um the local tax levy um last year was a little over 60 million this year it'll be a little over 62 million um up a little over uh two million dollars um and the reason for those two numbers being up when we get to um the fourth line down the state aid our state aid this year's uh 12 12.4 million and next year it'll just be a tad over
01111 million down uh one point almost 1.4 million dollars um so um we're having those uh decreases uh in state aid um obviously we have to find other ways to make up uh for what the state's not giving us to uh balance our uh budget for next year further down when you get to the uh federal grants and state grants um this year we're 1.7 uh the proposed budget for next year is 1.5 down but the reason that it's down is we're only allowed the budget 80 of the current year so that way if um the federal grants um get reduced we don't end up with having a deficit in our budget so there's a possibility that it would be higher when we actually get the funding in June however we don't know those numbers
012until after we have an approved budget and we're required to budget at 80 percent uh Debt Service is about basically the same and this will be the last year for Debt Service after this year our debt service completely falls off and we will no longer have any Debt Service so when you get to the bottom line the total revenues um the current budget is uh 81 million and change uh next year's will be uh 83 million and change so it's up the total budget is up 1.88 million dollars which um is a 2.32 increase in our budget uh next slide please so now uh we're gonna look at the other side the actual uh Appropriations uh you know where we're budgeting the monies that where it's going to be spent at on again same format
013First Column is the current budget the 1920 the next column is the proposed 2021 budget next column is the difference between the two and then the last column is the percentage of difference so when we start at the top the salaries uh for the current years a little over 48 million uh next year it'll be about 49 uh almost 49.5 million up 1.3 million or at 2.75 percent increase in salaries um the next line is all the employee benefits that go along with the salaries the the FICO workman's comp medical prescription and dental the current budget is at 15.7 million next year it's 15.69 it's basically flat so we were able to um be able to control the costs in that area as far as our our medical and prescription to not have a increase
014to that budget line and that was done through some of the negotiations that we did with the unions uh over the past um collective bargaining agreements the PRS contribution is for the um non-certified uh staff members all the support staff were required to make a contribution to their pension and that is basically down a little bit um but you know for most part pretty much even but down a little bit other insurances which are General reliability and auto and all those items we've been able to maintain that uh pretty much down a little bit so we've been able to contain those costs as well other District costs again up a tad not not a whole lot but um you know again um for the most part we've been pretty good uh in in that area
015as well then we get into the different areas of the curriculum technology Personnel basically you know flat um special education that's obviously always an area of concern and that's where the big the biggest part of our budget increase one of the biggest Parts um it's up nine percent uh 313 000. Elementary and Middle School budgets uh we we asked the principals to maintain a flat budget from uh the previous year and they were able to accomplish that so there's no increase to their budgets even though they're very small budgets um the um still were able to contain costs there operations of Transportation down a little bit but for the most part flat as well clubs and activities is up a little bit twenty seven thousand however we did if you remember increase the participation um
016fee so really that increase on the um appropriation side is um really been minimized because we've increased the revenue side to offset that so when you look at it we're the additional expenses being covered by the additional Revenue that we're generating on the fees uh then when you get down two more lines down to capital projects um La this current year we didn't have uh any money that we we took out of capital reserve to put towards projects this year we're putting 671 500 dollars uh towards uh some projects that we need to get done in the district which includes the uh Marlton middle school fire alarm system a partial uh roof repair at Jagger and a partial repair at the admin building um so they're the the main uh projects that we're going to
017work on this summer uh again we get to the next line the special uh special revenues um the the grant funding again it's at 80 percent um and then the last line is The Debt Service which is up a tad but that's basically that's what's left on our payment how it worked out and again once uh the 2020 2021 budget is done uh will be debt free next slide please thank you okay so some tax let me facts and um again the uh the general fund tax levy plus all the allowable adjustments for enrollment and health care costs and Bank cap um we we raised our um tax levy uh 3.54 percent which is the allowable amount that we could uh increase our um our tax levy for the 2021 budget as you know in
018the past we've talked about how the um tax rate is calculated and and uh it's calculated on a split year method which means that the taxes are billed on a calendar basis but our budget is on a fiscal basis to uh July 1 to June 30th so the tax bill for the um calendar year contains half of the 1920 budget and then half of the 2021 budget the tax rate is a function of the general fund tax levy Debt Service fund tax levy um the assessed evaluation of the taxable property which is known as rateables in the town and the uh as I stated earlier the general fund tax levy has not changed uh since the tenant of budget presentation in March um writables increase this year um and the average home was assessed at
019271 600 the proposed tax levy increase is .0047 cents which is approximately a half of any the annual increase per the average assessed home uh this year was 12.74 cents for the year next slide please okay the uh tax levy uh calculation so when we're talking about a split year um we're taking the um second half of last year's budget the 20 uh 2019-20 budget and the first half of the 2021 budget which makes up to 20 uh 20 calendar year um so we're looking at the tax levy from the um of last year or 60 million 196. did that service and then the uh tax labview of the 62 through 26 for the current year The Debt Service so we we take half of each of the totals um which gives us the 2020
020portion half so you take that the half the 30 the the 61 gives you the 30.7 uh half of the 63.6 gives you the 31.8 which gives you a total in the last column of 62 million five hundred sixty nine thousand three hundred and six dollars um and then the rateables for the year like I said we're up uh over last year and that number is there 5 billion and uh change so um the current tax rate um the 2020 rate is 1.1838 last year's rate is 1.1791 so the increase is .0047 so then on the assessed uh home of 271 600 the proposed average uh household increase would be 12.74 cents and then just a couple of numbers at the bottom uh one cent uh on the uh for the taxpayer uh would be
02127.16 and one cent on the tax rate in terms of budget dollars is one million fifty Seven dollars or fifty seven thousand one hundred and eight dollars uh next slide please so just I guess is the one of the important slides because everybody is what does all that mean to to me as a taxpayer so if you look at the First Column that's assess the valuations the yellow bar that goes across the slide is the average home assess so if you're on the average then if you go all the way to the right it's 12.74 that your taxes are going to go up if your house is worth less then obviously you would go across the columns uh the rows that match up with that amount or if your house is assessed at a greater
022number than the average then you would find the closest number that matches up to your assessed value and then you will go across the uh row and and see what your uh total tax increase will be for the year next slide please so that's basically the end of my presentation and I'll turn the meeting back over to Mr physicara thank you Mr shunty uh Mr Ashanti before we go any further I want to let you know uh that Miss Fleming arrived at the meeting at 7 10 p.m okay thank you I will note that in the thank you uh thank you anytime miss Fleming um at this point in time um you know we will do board and public comments but we're gonna go with uh with board comments first any questions or comments that
023the board may have uh this you know be a good time to uh ask or or relay those comments when we're finished that then I'm going to open up for uh public I'm gonna open up for a public discussion on this agenda item which is the only agenda item for tonight um so at this at this point in time I uh any I'm gonna stop sharing this I don't think there's a need for me to keep this up any longer uh there you all are okay uh at this point in time does anybody on the board of ed have any questions or comments that they'd like to relax Miss Fleming for putting together and I'm sure working very hard to get the budget where it is and because of all the cuts we've had and
02412.74 cents I think is very nice I think most of our taxpayers would be happy about that and so thank you again uh to everybody I do have one question though um what seems to be since the special education budget seems to be getting a higher is that because of service costs or we have more students um It's a combination of both things um okay you know obviously costs go up every year and right I think those uh increases are are greater than some of the other uh increases in our budget as far as percentage-wise yes um I without actually counting the number of students I I think we may have more out of District placements in next year's budget at the start than what we had in the uh current budget this year thank
025you Miss Fleming thank you anybody else questions comments concerns compliments all right uh seeing none Elaine are you trying to say something you gotta mute yourself Elaine that's what I can do it for my end Elaine you have to unmute yourself thank you Elaine anything okay I'm gonna move on all right I don't know what's up there all right I'm gonna I'm gonna Elaine I apologize I I really don't know what you're saying um I'm gonna move on uh maybe it shouldn't it just me um I'm gonna open up for a public discussion now uh for this agenda item uh before we um before we go into it I'm just going to read the uh the public con uh content uh official statement we always give and then um Mr Summers I will relieve it
026out to you and uh Mr Case let me know when we're ready to go uh for anybody who's who's watching tonight um just mind you when we get to this portion of the meeting uh this is the portion where we leave this we leave basically leave the stage and you'll see the call number up there uh again when you call us uh make sure that you mute uh if you're if you're watching the live stream make sure you mute it is keep it operate at the same as if it were a uh about calling into a talk show radio so this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items of interest um however if your questions pertain to litigation student or Personnel items or negotiations but as you see the superintendent after
027the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person uh Mr Summers Mr Case uh when you are ready we are ready for uh anybody in the public to call in okay thank you Mr Summers the current time is 7 26 just to let you know okay we should probably go till maybe 7 30. sounds good foreign awesome Pizza thank you we have less than a minute Mr Summers Frederick count it down back going in live you're say that one more time Bob Frederick counted down going back to live okay sounds good three two one yeah Joe you're good thank you very much at this point in time um I will need him we're gonna be heading into new business and I'll need a motion
028to approve the resolution uh for the approval of the adoption of the 2020-2021 school budget do I have a motion motion by Miss Everhart do I have a second second abundance Knoll any questions or or comments no I I just want to say something because I was off screen and mute it can you hear me I can hear you perfectly you you're worried right that I want to thank uh Mr Richard and Dr Blanchard for um putting the presentation together and to doing a great job on the budget so I wanted to say that before but you couldn't hear me thank you Miss Barbara Giovanni I appreciate it thanks I I don't want to take all the credit because it's a lot of hard work from a lot of Administrators in the district and a
029lot of the department heads to be able to put the budget together it's not one person's uh uh project it's a a group of uh individuals that all come together and work for the better of the school district to come up with a budget yes and I know that and I thank them all for doing it I know it's hard to keep things flat in this economy but thank you to all any other questions or comments uh I'll I'll make a couple notes here myself real quick um first of all I my my uh my hats off to you uh to everybody who's involved in this this uh you know I wish that we were one of those boards we're sitting there you know one of these districts sitting there going wow we have an
030extra couple million dollars what do we do with this we add more teachers we add more buses instead we're the ones that have to figure out how we're going to manage what we have to manage and uh in in difficult times and this is a credit to the people who work on this budget uh all year round credit to Mr shinty and his team Mr Bullock Dr blachford Mr scavalli who worked on this Budget prior uh Mr dantene everybody who I missed on this um next year is going to be harder and if you are watching this you know realize as Mr Ashanti said the next year our our state funding Gap is going to be larger about over over a million dollars in Supercenter right uh I believe it'll be around 1.7 million uh
031that we will lose in state aid you know that's a that's a good reminder for people um particularly we have been promoting uh this with a lot of districts around us that have suffered from this this SOS program of saving our schools we've talked about it on at board meetings all the time uh there have been there have been public meetings about this um just because covid-19 is here doesn't mean that has gone away uh we still need that help because no matter you know I I'm always reminded of of uh a former superintendent that that I was on the board with uh Mr John bigley and I'm aging myself a little bit here um when when he was on the board of that or he was on the superintendent of the schools and he
032used to at budget presentations he used to say I can only pull so many rabbits out of the Hat referring to he can do only a certain amount of magic to keep taxes low and keep our programs and he would say every once in a while I'm running out of rabbits well we're at that point now we're running out of Rapids and the state just cut the hat so you know just let this be a reminder to people that in the next year or two that SOS program we still have to do that it's still very important uh it's very important that we contact our legislators we contact the State and still fight for that state aid that battle is not lost yet we should keep doing it so I just want to throw that
033out there that we are doing everything we can the the people that have worked so well in this budget have done everything they can to make this as painless as possible for you but it's time for everyone in this community to step up us you everyone I appreciate everyone's hard work here too I just am I unmuted yes you are uh so I just want to piggyback and just take it down One More Level while I'm in agreement with all the compliments that were stated prior I also want to say thank you to you know the building level you know the principles and the people in the transportation department and the operations Department the uh the one step closer to the kids group of people who kept their budgets flat and are still going to
034deliver the quality education that we are known for and that we uh Tau and that we stand by so I want to give them a shout out for being able to do all that uh like a little magic act that they did so good luck uh next year with that but thank you so much for your efforts this year and staying flat but still being able to somehow deliver the same uh goods and services that we we like so much for our children thank you thank you Miss Everhart any more questions or comments all right let's uh let's move to a roll call please this is Barbara Giovanni yes Mrs Everhart yes Mr physicaro yes Miss Fleming yes Mr canthan yes Mrs Knoll yes Mr lancelotta yes Mr Meegan yes Mrs Ryan Yes Mission passes
035thank you well now that we're out of new business we are now going to open uh the meeting up uh for public comment again same rules apply again the screen will change you'll see the number on the screen over your follow the directions lower your um your your volume on again as if you're calling into uh sports radio or or whatever you listen to on your ride to work so I'm going to read this and then Mr Summers and Mr Case are going to switch us into the live stream mode 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 but as you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in
036public please limit your comments in three minutes per person uh Mr Summers Mr Case the floor is yours so we'll give the seven seven forty three we have three minutes thank you I appreciate that [Music] foreign I didn't mean to out you there and my phone's ringing behind me sorry I called are we call you directly yeah thank you exactly yeah one minute thank you Mr Summers if we continue to do this in the next seven years I recommend we have some really bad elevator music can do that I don't mean the good elevator music but the worst possible kind you can find okay Frederick count them back in one and we're back all right at this point in time uh we are going to move to everyone's favorite part of the meeting the adjournment
037I need a motion to adjourn motion by Miss Ryan bye all in favor all in favor ladies and gentlemen our next meeting May 21st correct first correct all right I I've been sitting in this house way too long thank you everyone have a wonderful evening thank you thank you thank you everyone bye-bye bye bye now hi everyone