001I'd like to call this meeting to order. The mission of the Freel Township School District is to honor and support every learner every day on the journey to become curious and engaged members of a diverse global community. A notice listing the time, date, and place of this meeting was posted on the public bulletin board of all Freel township schools on the entrance door to the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website at the office of the Freel Township Clerk and published in the Asbury Park Press on January 11th, 2026. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> I get
002a roll call. Mr. Dvita, >> Mrs. Brand, >> Dr. Casey, >> here. >> Mr. Confory, >> here. >> Miss Crosby here. >> Mr. Arulo here. >> Mrs. Lambert, >> Mrs. Spieler, >> Mrs. O. Sullivan, >> present, >> Mr. Morosu >> here. >> Forum. >> Thank you. Can I get a motion for the approval of the February 10th regular meeting minutes? >> A second. >> I guess uh shall second it. >> Okay, >> we're not second. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstensions? Was everybody here last time that was here? >> I believe so. >> Okay. And can I get a motion for the approval of the February 10th, 2026 executive session minutes? >> Do I have a second? Second. >> All those in favor say I. >> Any
003opposed? No abstensions. >> One obsession. >> Okay. >> Yep. All right. Thank you. Uh, president's remarks. I'm going to be brief because uh we have a lot to get to with our budget presentation, but I want to thank everyone um one of our staff members in Bob's department for all the work he did for the snowstorms. I know it wasn't easy. Um and for everyone that's here and for everyone that's watching on video, um we do want to apologize for having to take that extra day, but there were equipment failures. For those of you that don't know, we have an interlocal agreement where we rely on the town to do heavy lifting, especially when we get that level of snow that our in-house equipment can't handle. And they were overwhelmed and there were some breakdowns
004with equipment and it caused us to have to take an extra day. Um, none of us were happy about it, but I want you to know that in a normal situation that that really doesn't happen. Um, with that, um, I think I'll turn it over to Mr. Dixie. >> Well, I'll do the bullying so I don't forget. There since the last meeting, there were seven reports of harassment, intimidation, and bullying. Out of those seven reports, six were founded, one was unfounded. Um, I believe the board gets newsletters. Yes, school newsletters, copies of school newsletters. So, this month there are several events at the schools. The culminating activities for the one district, one book initiative is occurring at several uh schools on different dates. this month and also some schools are having other events uh reading
005and uh lit literacy and math nights for families. So take a look at those newsletters. There's a lot in those newsletters relative to dates specifically this month with several parent events at our elementary schools. Um I just want to go over uh in the administrative report so everybody understands um the modifications to the calendar. I do have a email ready to go out to staff in the morning explaining and to parents a messenger ready to go out in the morning explaining but to explain the modifications to the calendar um for the 2526 calendar the current school year it ended with makeup days in this order June 9 February 16th which we used and made up um we used the day prior to that and made that day up then all schools had three snow days
006to make up Applegate four emergency closing days to make up the calendar indicated uh in in this order June 19th, April 6th, March 30th and that was the calendar that existed that was board approved this count and that's where it ended. All you're approving this evening is the statement that says any additional days will be added on to the end of the year. We did discuss this with our architect and while it's not ideal, it does balance the needs of our community and the uh and our staff in not attacking all of spring break and adding some to the end of the year. The 2627 calendar revision based on the conversation, you know, we rolled the dice. We had wonderful winters in the past until this year. Um in speaking with our architect, I don't
007want to put us in this position again. She was agreeable that while not ideal adding three days to the calendar as we always have done in the past um she can work with so the 26 27 revision is adding three snow days like we always used to to the calendar. What that allowed me to do was reallocate the emergency closing days from I'm sorry the end of uh originally without snow days the first makeup days were April 22nd and 23rd. Now, with three days built in, the order after those three days are used, that will be taken as off of the end of spring break if necessary. That would be the fourth makeup day. Um, so it puts us in a better position. Um, not ideal with the referendum, but it is what's best for
008our our staff and our families. >> We should remind parents and staff always to look at those contingencies when you're planning vacations. And you know, sometimes these things happen and we get a lot of emails with unpleasant >> um people >> that have planned things and we get it. But that's why these things are published in advance. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody knows when it's going to snow, but we have to try to do our best to predict when these things will happen. >> There's one other change also. The teachers contract requires that the day prior to winter break is an early dismissal day since winter break is starting a day later. March 27th was p previously an early dismissal day. That is now a full day. March 30th is now the early dismissal
009day. >> Spring break. >> What did I say? >> I meant spring break. I'm sorry. >> Um and also why do we have those makeup days? Because there is a a statutory requirement for students to be in school 180 days. Uh regardless of the amount of emergency closings that you have, they must be in school 180 days. And the minimum number of hours they need to be in school is for four hours of instruction. That means without lunch and recess, which we don't give on early dismissal days, which is why we have four dates. Um, that's all I have and we'll go into the budget presentation. >> All right, Carl, I read the phone. I'll put you on the We didn't start talking yet >> playing a game here. >> I think you are >>
010okay. Uh this is our was supposed to be presented during the budget workshop. um that was cancelled because of weather. So this is our initial budget presentation. Um first time the board is seeing it. And just to go over how we prepare the budget, this starts Bob started it every year. He starts it sooner and sooner. When did we start this year? October. Um budget managers draft individual budgets based upon need. There is some guidance that's given. Typically, we ask budget managers uh to keep their budgets flat um when they're generating their budget from the year prior. Then, uh we have meetings with each budget manager to reviews review proposed budgets and justifications. When you enter your budget, you have to enter the justification. So, this account might be $20,000 you put in below that
01120,000 how you're building it. So 5,000 for instructional supplies, 5,000 for whatever you do you you have to justify where you're getting that $20,000 from. Um while that's happening, Bob is communicating with our brokers to determine anticipated increases to insuranceances, which as we go through is a significant impact on this budget this year. I don't think anybody who's listening or a board who's receiving this presentation will be uh it's new not news to anybody that um health insurance specifically is significantly increasing not just in education but everywhere health insurance premiums. Uh then we start I start working collaboratively with building principles. Chris works with child study team members to project staffing needs. And then this year, which proved to be a difficult task, is the central office team determines how to balance revenue and expenditures.
012Bob will give you the details on why that was challenging this year. And here we are today presenting. Our goal is always to effectively allocate resources to achieve the mission and vision of the district district while maintaining fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers. And this year, I think it was um one of the more challenging goals that we had to face um compared to prior years. So the first thing we're looking at is staffing. Um when Bob put in the uh revenue and put into the budget uh our abil our our waiver caps and you know where where we can go with increasing the budget we were at a 2.5 right at that point million dollar deficit. >> Yep. We were at a deficit of over a million dollars. So in uh Bob always explains that
013education is a human resourceheavy occupation where teachers, custodians, that's where a majority of our um budget is allocated towards our salaries and benefits. So we had to start with reductions to the budget. The reductions to the budget reflected uh one instructional coach. We're going to that after one instructional coach that leaves two coaches and two instructional um two coaches and two instructional coordinators. We're going to restructure all of those positions. There will be four instructional coordinators. Two of them will be responsible for language arts grades K4 and grade 58. One will be responsible for ma uh language arts and social studies. one, math and science. Similarly, grades K to 4, grades 5 to 8. The reduction to the budget includes six teachers. Um, at this moment, we have not determined that is headcount, not humans.
014In other, we haven't in we haven't determined the impact to actual people yet. We're not at that point. These are positions. So, it is possible when you look at a reduction in staffing that it's the positions through attrition, meaning retirements and resignations. We have not gotten to the point to determine that yet. Um so this is headcount reduction of six teaching positions. Um we achieved that in um by increasing class size for next year in the elementary schools. Right now our guidelines for elementary school is K to 3 to 5 25. Next year we're proposing each of those grade level bands go up by one. So grades K to 2 will be 24. Grades K uh 3 to 5 will be 26. So that's a maximum a maximum preschool uh because we are tuition based
015postcoid during COVID and postcoid we had to increase the class because we need to make sure that we can accommodate the number of students who are coming into our program identified as preschool disabled. We work closely with early intervention. As children age out of early intervention and into our school district at age three when they're identified, um we need to have enough seats to accommodate their placements since the further we've gotten away from COVID that has valued now. It peaked during COVID, postcoid, and the further we get away less students are coming in. So, we are reducing one preschool class and that's the headcount that goes with one preschool class and then one secretary. I know this sounds counterintuitive when I'm talking about reductions to the budget, but we do have to add nine part-time
016TAs to the budget. Um, and that is due to IEP needs. In this budget, the only discretionary teacher assistants that are left in the budget are two TAs for our bilingual program, ESL program. One in the elementary school and one in the middle school. Um, after that, we have no more discretionary TAs. Every TA is tied to uh statutory requirements for TAs in special education classes andor an individual students IEP. So in order to accomplish that, we actually have to add teacher assistance. Curriculum revisions that are reflected in the 2627 budget include foundations for grade three. If you recall, we did K1 two years ago. We added second grade this school year. Next year we'll be adding foundations to grade three. Um that includes professional development through the first year of the program. And just
017a side note, the grade three foundations also includes cursive which while we've been doing that it this is formal instruction in cursive and reading cursive which will uh meet the new mandate. We've been implementing envision math program. It is currently in grades three, four, five and in grades six and seven for grade level math. Accelerated pathway uses a different program. Uh next year we'll be adding envision to grades one and two and grade level math for grade 8. The accelerated sequence in middle school will continue to be the big ideas math program which we went to the updated edition a couple of years ago. Currently there is a committee of teachers and administrators evaluating reading programs for grades K to two. Next year, we'll be piloting programs for grades K to two, including professional development
018support throughout the pilots for implementation the following school year in grade in school year 2728. Um, and that'll be a new reading program. We'll be implementing district approved AI tools and continued implementation of I Ready and Link in the curriculum budget. So, we're going to read those of you who've been on the board for a while. Some of this will look familiar. Um, I will tell you tonight I am not getting to the appropriations yet. We're just going to speak about revenue and taxes. And then I'm still fine-tuning um some of the appropriations. We've had a couple retirements come in that we were made aware of. Now, uh I've got to tweak a couple tuition lines because I think we're losing a student now from the burrow uh that we're collecting tuition on. So, I'm
019just fine-tuning it. Um, what's different now is that for the foreseeable future until something changes at the state level because of chapter 44 and we're able to collectively bargain our own agreements for health benefits or go back to what we have in the contract and not be superseded by the state. Um, we have to consider and I'll explain to you why in a second that our tax cap is the 2% that we're given plus any adjustments that we qualify for. Um, right now as the budget stands, we qualify for an additional $3.3 million on top of about a $1.5 million increase from the 2%. Um, our budget is only in balance right now because we have in there $3.3 million of extra tax levy increases um due to health care cost. Now, my committee knows
020about this. I may have mentioned this publicly. I can't remember. Um but we are projecting an increase of 20% in healthcare. So that's not good. That is a huge number. Um national average is 27% and the state just renewed and and their plans don't run on a fiscal year. They run on a calendar year. I want to say it was 32 to 34%. Um the state plan was broken. Um, I was reading some reports that, um, I know on the municipal side, if if I'm reading it correctly, they are below 70% of the required reserves. I think they have some committees that have gone out to try to fix it there. I don't I I don't know yet. Um, but it's it's a problem. We're doing better than most people. Um, I will tell you
021though, I was at a county budget meeting last week and one of the BAS in the room said, "You had to be there. The rule is if you don't come to this meeting, you have to present your budget to the county VA in person. Um, and nobody wants to do that. So, everyone's there. And so, the question was asked, how many people this year are taking the healthcare adjustment? All 54 hands went up. So, >> correct. Um, so our number is better than everyone else, but it's still it's a huge budget number. Um I think in my 10 years that I've been here um or been back here this this round that we had one year where we took a 20 or a 24 and that's when we made our move from being in a
022the traditional plan to a self-insured plan. We had to take that year one increase and then we were very fortunate where we had a three a zero. We were single digits up until last year. Last year was the first double digit increase with a 10. Now we're followed up by a 20. Um, I started back here. I've been in this business now for 23 years. And I wish we can go back to the days where the direct 10 plan or whatever it was called was $15,000. It's now a family plan is costing the district almost 60 highs, almost $60,000 per person. So that's buying a souped-up Lexus every year and throwing it out at the end of the year and going back to the dealership and buying a new one for hundreds of people. So,
023it's a it's a huge issue for us. And again, we've talked about this before. Chapter 44 C uh circumvented our existing language and this board had worked very hard on having us pay a percentage of premium. So, people had skin in the game and people here became consumers of health care and we had a lot of people voluntarily migrate from the highest cost plan down to a lowerc cost plan because when they did the research on their own, the plan was still pretty good and they paid less. Now, it's it's just the opposite. Um, and so this is why we're in the spot that we're in. Um, and as I said, our budget is only in balance right now by us taking this $3.3 million in extra tax levy for our general fund, which is
024fund 10. Neil mentioned the staffing cuts. Um, on top of that, we reduced about $450,000 of non-mandated items. The biggest cut was from um we had in the tech budget was Chromebooks for the fourth grade that came out. Originally I was going to lease purchase them. Um and then as we got deeper into the numbers that would have spread the cost out over three years versus over one um I had to take it out. Um curriculum writing PD materials about $168,000 came out and then one district one book trainings and other PD and miscellaneous items another $82,000. So overall, we started off about $1.5 million in the hole. Um, and another thing I I did mention today at my uh finance meeting was that back in coming out of COVID, we'd let 1.1 million of
025bank cap expire. Two years later, we let another one $140,000 expire. So about 1.25 in total. we would have taken that money at the time that we're about 1.5 million on the hole every year right now. I think if you compound that by 2% um based upon that. So, you know, that's why I'm saying that we're in a new normal now where until the state changes the law and we get to go and hopefully fix, you know, or healthc care changes or something else gives um you know, we're looking at at bigger increases going forward. >> I do want to share just one thing. So, and those additional reductions for non-mandated items, there is a consequence to it. So, the Chromebooks usually move down uh to lower grades. We will not be able to do
026that for one year. Um the fifth graders will get their Chromebooks that they use from fifth grade to 8th grade, but we won't have a new batch of Chromebooks in fourth grade to then take the ones that were in fourth grade and move them down to replace other grades. Uh the curriculum writing, PD, and materials. The curriculum office is relinquishing contracts with some of our providers for PD and doing the PD in-house with the supervisors uh building supervisors, district supervisors, and the instructional coordinators. And um our contract with some of our other um consultants has been reduced. So I'll be responsible for uh monitor and myself the imple with us with a team of of teachers um the implementation of response class >> I will say right now this kind of jokingly but uh administration
027don't even ask next year the answer is no you don't have your budget don't ask them it's we we've got we got a managerial surplus we got to really watch where we are until we can come out and it's probably going to take us a two years I'm guessing um based upon when chapter 44 expires unless the state does something because there are is some provisions and I'm not an expert on it um that allows them based upon certain factors to make some changes and how the law reads um but we're relying on them right so right now we're kind of stuck they put us in this spot or they help put us in the spot um and until this law expires or until they come to our rescue we're going to have to manage
028it on our own I mean I run this every year the budget basics so it's the way we run is just like any basic accounting equations. Your revenue plus your fund balance has to equal your appropriations. Again, I'm not going to go over appropriations tonight. We'll add them into the presentation next week. Um, when we do discuss whether it's revenue or the appropriations, the uh current year is always the 2526 budget as it is reflected as of February 1st. That's just the way the state law works. Um, and then when we talk about our budget, we talk about three sections. The first piece is fund 10, which is our general operating fund. um that is the largest portion of our budget. Fund 20 which is our um federal grants. It's idea and our title one
029two three and four grants um it's a very small amount. It's about a million dollars every year. Um we are being told again for the second year to only budget 75% of the current year award in past year was 85%. Um the county BAS um had a discussion about this with the state but they're telling us 75%. We're being told right now from federal government that our grant numbers shouldn't go down. We should get at least what we're getting what we're current year um because we're being forced to budget only 75%. I did have to move three positions. We budget in the IDA grant about 19 teachers assistance because I'm projecting 75% of the current year. I have three right now in the operating fund budget. So that helped add to that $ 1.5 million
030hole. Hopefully, we get the money back and it frees up a little bit of wiggle room in the budget. But when I submit this budget, it's clear as day on the sheet. If this county VA sees that it's at 85%, not 75, she'll send it back, go do it again, and by the way, have a special meeting because the resolution has to read the number that's reflected in the DOE document. Um, and then we'll talk about fund 40. Fun 40 different this year only because of the fact that we just passed the referendum. Um items of note, the governor, every new governor gets a few extra weeks to present his or her budget. Our current governor is presenting next Tuesday. We should get all our state aid figures released to us on the 12th, which
031is Thursday. The tenative budgets are due. It's Friday, the 2, that should be a three, I'm sorry. Uh the 20 the 27th of March. We have our uh second meeting of the month, real meeting of the month on the 24th. So, that'll be when we present the final numbers. Um, if there's any kind of significant cuts or increases, we'll communicate to the board prior to then. Um, but we have to have it done and approved and I have to get it all the extra documents down to the uh county office by Friday. We talked about already the impact of the 20% increase in chapter 44. Um, we're also experiencing people seek out this district, I know Neil has said this before, um, for special education. And so while when we did our ASSA on October
03215th, which is the annual headcount of our students, while our overall population went down by 1%, we had nineups for special ed kids, which typically you should see a slight reduction in that population. Well, we did not. So to share too preliminarily but with our implementation of foundations we have credited to that we've seen a reduction in the number of students referred for special education or primary grades from years previous >> um what that increase is is the um >> the students with who require self-contained um settings. So for next school year, we are already up to six district classes of students with autism. Five at Applegate, one in Eisenhower. Um we are at three three sections across the district of of uh self-contained classes for students with multiple disabilities. Next year we're going from
033four to five sections of LLD self-contained in elementary, maintaining the three at middle school. And we next school year need to add in the middle school and the RI program. So next year we're adding two self-contained pro uh self-contained classes above what we have this. >> Yeah. And so we've discussed it at uh past budget meetings. We're there's a formula that we uh go through for all of our special needs students. And the way it works is that any uh student that costs the district more than $40,000, we're entitled to be reimbursed up to a certain percentage by the state. Um the state is not funding their obligation. They stopped funding their obligation about three years ago. Um coming out of COVID, we had a couple of senators, I believe, who sort of held the
034budget hostage and said, "Listen, if you don't start to fund this 100%, we're not going to vote yes." And so for two or three years, we started to get an increase. Well, it's gone backwards. Now, if you look at what's on the uh bottom bullet, based upon last year's application we submitted, we're entitled to $2.5 million of state aid for our special needs students. We received 1.3, which is roughly the same number as the year before that and the year before that. They just keep on changing that percentage that they're funding from 75 to 60 to 52. So they write the rules, we implement the rules, we do what we're supposed to do, but they don't fund their obligation. So if we have an extra million dollars, you know, we'd still I'm sorry, we still
035probably have to take the waiver, but or maybe not as much as the waiver, but it's, you know, we're doing what we are legally supposed to do, but we're not being supplemented the way we're supposed to in the revenue standpoint. So, um, I know there's some talk about revamping that as well, but until it happens, I don't know. So, and we we are budgeting, and you'll see this in a second, we're budgeting almost the maximum amount that we get. We used to budget $850,000 last year because of the budget issues. We pushed it up to over a million. Um, it hurts us in the back end at the end of the year when we lapse our surplus because of that. We would lapse a little bit more. It's a longer conversation, but you know, the
036state is not doing what they're supposed to do. So, we look at revenue real quick. You see there, that top line number is almost a $5 million increase at 6.3. That is of the the 2% plus the the healthcare waiver in there. Um fund balance we are, and Neil was in the meeting with me with the county, we did our mid review. Um you know, it's not sustainable. We had a discussion about that. the state is really starting to look at districts and their fund balance because uh there are a couple of districts uh I believe in the northern part of the state that have kind of fudged their numbers in their budgets for a number of years and now they're on the verge of bankruptcy. You've got what's going on in Lakewood for different
037reasons and the state's going to take them over if they haven't done so already. Um but like this number for the fund balance is going to start to come down gradually every year here unless we don't lapse what we used to. you know, the COVID years were the glory years because we weren't, you know, not everyone was providing all the services. There wasn't much transportation. People weren't going to the doctor, so our claims were lower. Um, but, you know, this is the numbers coming down $100,000. I'd like to take it down more, but for right now, we we'll work with that. We're hoping for flat state aid. Um, I've seen a couple of clips from the governor. It sounds like there's a three and a half, four to four billion dollar shortfall in the state's
038budget, which I'm not surprised about. Um the BA group had been talking about this for the last year and a half that you know it sounded like that I guess when all the the federal funds came in during COVID the state might have been living beyond their means and now the new administration comes in and kind of has to rightsize things. So I'm not sure what's going to happen what's going to get cut. um they they have to make some changes in their budget and we won't find out until the governor makes her address next Tuesday and then hopefully at a minimum we get flat amount of state aid. Um if they ran the funding formula, we're still entitled to a a few hundred,000 more. Um last year there was a cap on what your
039increase could be. Um which so we I think 500,000 more. So again, flat is good. We're back to those days where we're hoping for flat. If we get a couple uh you know extra dollars, great. We'll figure out what we're going to do with them. It'll probably go to the rainy day fund for contingency in case we get another severely um disabled student that moves in. Um or we have to hire another TA or something, you know, to protect the district should something else happen that we did not project here. Um extraordinary aid we're holding flat. Like I said, prior to the 2526 year, we were budgeting $850,000. We pushed it up last year to help fill some of this budget hole. Um, and again, the state's not funding their obligation uh 100% like they
040should. Tuition fees, we're projecting to go up about $153,000. Um, we have a new student from Analipin, although I will probably move this number down slightly because I think the student from the burrow um will be on the next agenda and moved out. They left the burrow. So, they were coming here. They were sending the student here. Um I have to play with that but so it's slightly up from last year. That's combination of our preschool students uh that we take in for a fee that are regular ed and then it's the four or five special education students we receive from other districts. Transportation fees. We don't make a lot. This is from the uh the prek students that the um for the regular students. If the parents choose to, they pay uh for their
041child to be transported on the vans. Semi, this is federal funds that are for our special education students that also qualify for Medicaid. Um, last year they changed the formula and it went down dramatically. We had been earning about $100,000 a year. We were told this number comes it was from the state. So last year they said because they made some changes to the formula, take it down to 17,000. We have surpassed that already. Um, I want to say the number is around $60,000 we've collected. So this year they've given us the $64,000. Um so it's slightly higher. Miscellaneous revenue is up a little bit about 12%. Most that is because we are still collecting more interest on our bank accounts. Um and we're pushing that forward. In a perfect world, we would have bumped
042up a little bit and let some of it lapse or go into the surplus pool. But again, because of where we are on a budgetary basis, um, based upon what we're trending, I'm going to, uh, suggest that we move that number up $55,000. Maintenance reserve, we're going to use a little bit more. We've got about $3.5 million in that account. We're going to bump it up to $800,000 this year. Um, I usually take some of our surplus of the year that lapses and I put it back into that account because eventually this account will run dry. So, but for now, um, you know, we're going to bump up $300,000. If we get some extra state aid, maybe we talk about taking that down. I'm not sure. Again, it probably be for contingency purposes. Emergency reserve,
043we have about $850,000 for this. It could be used for um we when this became available back in 2006 2007 um the BA at that time filled up the account and then the state wrote the rules and it's very hard to take it out. One of the things you can take it out for is for security equipment or supplies. So in Dian's budget she has about $12,500,000 worth of security supplies and that's what we're going to use that for. we will start to use that money for um additional cameras or other security equipment um at some point in time. We just don't have a plan for it right now, but so we're going to slow but surely use that. Um so they'll offset a small part of the budget. And you'll see there we are
044looking at 94 almost $95 million in revenues, which is a $5.4 million change. The debt service fund. Now again, this number we knew was going up. Um, but I have a little bit more to the story when we come to some of the slides right after this. So, right now, our tax levy is projected to be $9.3 million, which is a $5.2 million increase. Um, we are and that will be based upon that $2.7 million in estimated debt service aid. That is the figure that we received from Phoenix, who's our financial advisor, in the middle of July after we uh started to work on the bond refunding. So these are the figures that we have for them. You know, we did better than projected. So remember when the the financial advisors do their projections, they're
045very conservative. They always assume that the interest rates would come in slightly higher than what the current environment is. And they also don't reflect any changes in the assessed value of the township. So we we'll get to that in a second, but um there is $63,000 left over from the refunding from the surplus. And so we're looking at an overall about $8 million increase there. It's 194%. Now, what does that mean in taxes? So, the tax impact, we already showed the top line before, that $4.9 million change in the general fund. The debt service levy would be 5.2. Um, the township currently receives on our behalf $672,000. They call it the Verizon tax to offset what they have to collect for us. Um, so we're looking at a $10.2 million increase or 12.5%. In terms
046of the tax rate, it is a 7.9% increase on the tax rate. So, our tax rate would go from about 80 cents to uh867. The average home assessed in the new assessed average of $711,000 would see a $270 increase. The assessed value of the township did increase by 4.3% or $436 million. This is a lot lower than what had happened. If you recall the last two cycles, we were getting tens and twelves. Um, it is sort of peaked, but we're still getting an increase. And for right now, just for the conversation, every million dollars of tax revenue is a penny. It's a penny on the tax levy. Now, this is where we're going to talk about what we estimated and what we sold during the referendum versus where we're actually coming in. When we had
047our final estimate from Phoenix again on 720 in 7 July of 25 um they had the debt service side alone increasing 6%. The actual estimated debt service increase and again we're waiting for what the actual number of debt service a that we're going to receive from the state is is only 0.048. So it's a 20% reduction from what we had sold to the public. Um the total tax rate impact fund 10 and fund 40 is 063. So basically fund 10 and fund 40 combined equal the tax increase for what we sold the public on fund 40 alone. So it's still not a good story. It's not one that people want to hear, but the way the math works out for us because the assessed value went up so much. Um it is low. I really
048thought we were going to come in, let's say if we assumed a flat assessed value, we'd come in at 8 cents this year, easy. Um, but it's a little bit lower than that because the assess value did go up. So, when we look at our what we're estimating our assessed value to be versus what was on the uh impact analysis from the advisor, it's up $1.4 billion or 15.5%. So that along with the fact that we've received lower interest rates than anticipated by a few basis points, that all impacted that this analysis that what we're actually seeing from a tax increase is less than what it was projected to be back in March and then again in July. So at this point in time, um we're waiting for a stay next week, hoping that we
049get a few more dollars. Again, flat would be good. I will take flat. Uh if we lose state aid, then we at central office will be prepared to um start coming up with a list of how we make the budget whole again. And then, you know, we'll see, you know, if we have to have do something else with the board's committee meetings or if we're just ready to come back out and we'll let you know the increase or decrease when we get it on uh next Thursday. But, you know, right now hopefully get your lease flat and then we'll have our next two meetings. We'll talk appropriations to the next budget meeting and then we'll have a final presentation for the tenative budget at that last board meeting this month. So, at this point in
050time, I'll take any questions that anybody has. >> Bob, can you go back to the second or third page with the healthc care numbers? >> This one right here. >> Yeah. So, correct me if I'm wrong. You said that the 3.38 million in healthcare adjustment was what we that's we allocated as an increase right and we're expected to increase 20%. What's the real numbers for that 20% increase? Like what 20% equals how much money? >> It is I want I I don't have in front of me. I think it's about five between four and five. What happens is there's a when we do the calculation for the adjustment, they take the current year's number that we gave to the uh the state on the budget, they inflate it by 2%. And then there's a number
051that they have in there that you your maximum amounts you can go up. So I believe I get you that number. I don't have it in friendly right this second. I believe it was between four and $5 million. >> So one or two million more we're going to have to come up with. Well, that's where we we cut 1.5 already, >> right? That's where most of the whole >> correct comes from. >> Yep. If we were getting reasonable rates, we'd still have to cut we'd still have to take some of the healthc care adjustment uh waiver, but it wouldn't be as much. >> And we're we're unable to change providers. Correct. It has not we're self-insured so it doesn't have it's it's all claims based with us but it's actually based upon what the benefits
052that the plans mandate. So it's I'll give you an example. One of the big drivers of cost in the prescription world is the GLP1s yourmpics and things like that. >> You know originally started off as a diabetic drug. Now it's being used for weight loss. Um, my understanding is it's about $1,500 a month for those prescriptions. So, if someone's taking it, they pay whatever their copay is based on what the plan document says and then the district has claims of the rest. So, if it's a $50 co-pay, we're paying $1,450 a month for that. And that's there's a lot of specialty pharma that's gone up. >> Um, it's our our claims have been right in line with what we projected for the year. We're actually doing a little bit better than we anticipated. Um, but
053the problem is I was hoping for when I called the broker in November like, "All right, let's hope we're at 15." And so I started off 15, hope it was high. He goes, "No, Bob, we're at a 20." We sat down, we talked for about 45 minutes. We went through some things and, you know, he was going through some of the national averages and what they're seeing on cross a lot of specialty pharma and just the the rates of inflation that the hospitals were getting and the providers were getting on their own, >> right? >> So, >> no, that's fine. Go. So, we've got like a $ 1.5 million deficit >> which is currently which is currently fixed. >> Right. >> Now, can you go to the uh budget cuts of staff? >> Yep. >>
054This is what we're planning to do. >> That's what's in the budget right now. Yes. >> Um some of this comes from people that are retiring. Some attrition will come through. If we got some retirements, those those issues won't be backfilled. Um, that's I think that's where most of this is coming from where you've got people who are have retired, >> but we haven't looked at the actual impact to the actual teacher. >> Yeah, I only know the names of retirees, >> so couldn't present to you with the hope of 1.5 million. Well, I guess my question is it it seems like all of the cuts are towards teachers, mostly teachers, frontline people, and computers and materials for the students. Was there any consideration for making cuts less cuts there and more towards on the
055administrative side? >> Yes. >> And why >> we are so our curriculum department works with one assistant superintendent and two district supervisors. That is comparatively to our our surrounding district that would be much lower than their standard. Um our buildings we talked about shared supervisors between buildings both administrators in the schools with the current needs of our students are busy all um there's there's no it cutting administrators at this point will impact them while they won't be the necessarily the ones reduced they will be impacted by our inability our students ability to maintain what we >> less impacted than not being there. >> There will be they'll be dealing with the behavioral issues in their classrooms without being support if I don't have administrators in the buildings. We will not be able to maintain a
056curriculum roll out that have that benefits our students and our staff and our instructional programs. So there is well it's not them there is an impact I >> I'll give you an example. My my son substitutes as a TA here in a couple other districts. So he's been in some of our he's some of our rougher classes and he said that when there's a crisis and someone gets him at walkie there are administrators that come there's a principal that comes a supervisor there's a bunch of pe people who come and help. Um when he's in other districts he's like there's no walkie and we have to deal with it. >> So >> I understand that but I mean six teachers is >> just doesn't feel good. So if you look at classroom size, it's >>
057there's a enrollment is slightly down. >> It's down 1%. >> That's increasing the grade levels of elementary as a maximum in class. >> Yeah. I I know from conversations that other districts have had who've lost a lot of money, like $100 million in state aid. The state more or less told them, until you're over 30 kids in a classroom, don't talk to me. So because they again they're having their own budgetary problems. So they're >> years ago >> when we had budgetary issue we went up to 25 in grades K to 2 and 28 in grades three and five and we were able to bring that back down um in future years. >> This Yeah, this is nothing like when when I first started here in 2003. I mean we were overcrowded. We hadn't built
058the K pod yet. We hadn't built the additional wings uh at the middle schools. Neil, how many I mean we had class on the stages all over the place. How many kids did you have? >> When I came to Gina, we had to do preschool in three classroom space. I had three teachers between two classrooms. Music was on the stage during lunch as it was on a part. >> Yeah, I think PTO closet was the instrumental music room. >> Yeah. But your classroom size was higher when >> I got here. >> Yeah. I think Michelle said that her her kids classes were in the high 20s before the referendum went through. >> Um, are there any departments that are up in their budgets year-over-year expense wise? >> Uh, curriculum was up, curriculum, but we took
059a big chunk of money from the curriculum department because they >> we we we evaluated the curriculum budget. Remember curriculum is directly impacts our students and our staff to the delivery of the program. >> We looked at the curriculum budget and you saw in the slide it was reduced. The only way to reduce it further is to pull back on our rollout of new curriculum um programs and that is not a recommendation that I have to maintain or further enhance our levels of student achievement. Um, it'll put us years back in getting the implementation of a new reading program to our middle schools. >> Special just can't afford to move. >> Special education was up, but that's primarily because of um the students going out of district. I think it when I we reviewed all
060this in in our central office meeting back in January, I think it was 100% tied to the increase was to the cost of sending I think it's 13 kids. because we have budget I um to go out of district next year. We have some contingencies built in because we do get every year um one or two students that move in um that have to go out or we get students that are currently here and then we're just no longer the appropriate setting for them and uh through the IEP process the parents and and the school district agrees to send them somewhere. Um, so we always have to build in some contingencies because if we don't, we're stuck, you know, and and once you hire staff back, you can't cut them. >> Mhm. >> So again,
061we are we are the majority of our budget is salary and benefits for our staff. >> Yeah. >> And I guess I I assume this factors in obviously like, you know, more expensive teachers obviously retire and we bring in newer ones at lower salaries, right? That's >> sometimes problem is teacher shortage and and we all know. So if special ed and math and science are is it fair to say are the hardest to hire? >> It's a self-contained special education and the more certifications you need. So self-contained special ed and the appropriateness and skill level of the teacher. Um then child study team members depending on the position there's a shortage school nurses and then the more certificates you need. So to teach middle school content area special education you need two to three certificates.
062So with a shortage, the state certified themselves out of teachers. So um preschool a two, you need a P3 certificate. So you start to um you there's a lack of candidates. So you have to potentially pay more depending on the experience and skill level of the person. >> So we're budgeting one for one essentially like no if someone goes out someone go in at the same amount. I had some breakage in there based upon what >> down to a step one. >> No, we're we're supposed to, but listen, we had a couple special ed teachers retire and I'll let Diane speak, but there's a number of times where she's gone out over the last 12 18 months saying, "Hey, this is the candidate and you know, I need to go to step seven or step
063eight because of their experiences bringing to us." Um, in the past teachers didn't move as much ever since co people I guess for the work life balance or whatever reasons they're more willing to give up their tenure and come to another district. I we I didn't see that in my first 18 years of my career. >> We're not losing, >> right? And and something that to piggyback on what Bob is trying to say, we have always worked very closely with our units, right? Our educators association, our administrators, and we were always very fiscally responsible, right? And we always um made sure that we took care of our own, our staff, but we took care of the taxpayers and the children. And what chapter 44 has done has said for seven years that the law is
064in place, we have to offer the state health benefit plan and we have to do it their way. So I may have a teacher retiring at the top of the guide family benefits. I have to offer the $52,000 family benefit plan to the kid that comes out of college. And so I think what we were talking about is it's no longer about breakage and salary. It actually isn't as impactful as you think. It is that I have to reserve $52,000 for every staff member that we hire to pay for full family benefits. And that is something that we do through negotiated, right? Some other districts don't do that. They offer single benefits. So they may not have the impact that we have. We do. So and it's safe to say we do there should be
065some breakage but unfortunately it's not as much breakage >> because the chapter 44 requires it doesn't give us an option. It doesn't give staff an option. Doesn't give anybody an option. You must go into this benefit plan for the for seven years and that does not sunset until January of 2028. So our hands are tied. Is that accurate, Bob? question. Did you have a question or not? >> If I know the budget obviously lives in finance, but will this become a personnel committee discussion especially once we see retirements or resignations or things like that and we're really looking at >> not typically. >> Okay. >> Unless you can ask questions but not typically. >> Okay. Hey, if we lose 500,000 on state aid, it's it's it might be the whole board conversation about what we're
066doing at that point in time. >> Okay. I had a second question and it left my brain, so I'm going to pass it to Anna and then I I'll come back in. >> Uh about the uh pharmaceuticals. Is there are you seeing any decrease in cost for the pharmaceuticals like the those uh DP uh GPL? >> No. >> I thought there was going to be a decrease. No. No. Okay. I got it back. Um, sorry, long day. Uh, for the nine part-time TAS. Now, I know Mr. Dixon, you had mentioned that there with foundations, we were seeing less referrals into special ed at those levels. Will we see that impact the need for nine part-time TAs moving forward? >> So, because of that, >> so what we saw at this moment is a reduction of
067Um, so I said teachers in general. Um, we do see a reduction right now of it's not going to come to fruition because new IEPs are drafted changing our needs, but right now it's a reduction of four in the area of special education. So that's the typically the TAs are allocated to specific students. So those with more significant needs, not the ones that you are referring to here >> that would not are on the cusp of being referred or not. >> Right. And because what you'll see there is a combination grade level resource rooms potentially in the primary grades which is kind of what we have now. >> Um instead of a one grade being a resource room because of the less kids at those grades we can combine. >> Interesting. >> When we talked
068about AI, right? I know that's kind of a buzzword people throw around a lot, right? It's supposed to kind of like, you know, make things more efficient so we can like spend less in other areas. Like is that are we just investing in AI and then in future budgets we'll see a reduction in other areas? There's no real >> AI can't teach kids AI when I'm can't fix that UV when it's broken. >> Not for staff. >> Yeah. It's not very high. >> Yeah, it's it's not like Yeah, I know where you're getting at and it's replacing certain other things. If we were a call center, sure, we'd be using AI, we'd have to hire less staff because, you know, after you get frustrated for a half hour, you'd hang up and there would be
069no answer for anyone to give you. But, uh, you know, that's, you know, we're not it's it's not going to help us at this point. Um pro process-wise who's involved in making these decisions for the staffing cuts >> central office and it's ultimately comes down to what Neil want you know he may you know we all sit there he goes through we've been doing this now since October November we look at the staffing where it is projections and then based upon what he's seeing um in terms of needs for both regular and special ed this is you know we start to you know make some cuts. What about the like the teachers unions, the other unions? Are they involved in it at all? >> Nope. >> They're not administrators. >> So the administrators are deciding
070that everyone but administrators should >> again, you know, Neil said there's not much to cut. >> You have to have >> administrative team administrative appointed people including central school district of 35 We're under we're actually we had several evaluations of our human resources department. We are under staffing human resources more than she allocates more of her time and should be to human resources to fill that we want every school district in the region director safety um school security. We needed to add to this budget and proposed originally a supervisor of self-contained programming. Uh I couldn't sustain though it wasn't there. We are working at maximum >> well by code supervisor aren't administrators. They fall they act as them. >> They don't have they don't have the certification for it. And so even when you put
071them in the accounting guide they're in a support staff role. I mean, we used to, you know, it's been a long time, it's over what, 15 years now, when we had vice principles at the um elementary level, though. They've been gone since 2007. Almost 20 years now, since the uh the admin cap came out, I think is when they were reduced in 2006, 2007. >> This this is more of a gripe I think than anything else. But with so much talk of freehold being so attractive and all the moves to freehold and the assessments going up, why like why are we in the position that we don't have a director of safety? Like where are we can't afford it? >> So >> even with all the and again more of a gripe than I think
072anything else. >> School safety began when it became prevalent. I was in Dian's position. I was super responsible. Um implementation of school safety plans, implementation of lockdown drills, um evaluation of our facilities, it never changed. So I assumed it when it became more of a responsibility continue >> which is we can't afford. >> Yeah. that is a need. >> Human resources is a need and we don't have additional additional administrative support. >> We're actually we're actually taking away from administration of special education. Jan will always spend more of her percentage of her time in intervention reducing effort from the department >> which will take away attention from specialist >> and but to answer your question I mean this goes back from when I started 23 years ago when CFO was the funding formula um the
073BA who hired me here we would sit there and talk about the fact he goes look he's like look at the regional family while they have more students than we do they had a disproportionately increased amount of state aid than what we got and then everyone it was held frozen for a long time and then when Cororsine was it okay it was Cororsine when he came in um he they they changed the funding formula then this whole the whole whole harmless deal came through and so when I look I looked at Malin's budget their audit about a month ago and even with the reductions they've had they were allowed to take a 12% or 20 I think it was 20% overall of the last year's tax increase because they were S2 losers on the state
074aid side but their budget is still bigger than ours They've always they've had to reduce from where they were. Um so they've always had significantly more revenue. They had more wiggle room on things. I'm going to guess I don't dive into their budget that deeply. Manalopin was the same way. Um you know how the same way. And so you know Neil and I would joke about as a sci-fi reference we were even Steven. One year we lost 75 grand to stay one year we get 75 back. Recently we've gotten more um and we're still not fully funded. And that's even with our um enrollment coming down. Our peak was what 4,800 students Neil I think and we're down to you know the number that you see on the sheet all the time. Um we're down
075over a thousand kids and you know we're still not getting the same amount of state aid. I the total state aid including x a malf is like $9 million. We're almost at seven. So right there they do have more students than we do. How all other factors in the formula, they still have a bigger pot of revenue to work with than what we do. I think there's a lot of catch 22s here where we can't resolve things because we have a set budget from tax revenues, the state, and federal aid. We have a limited pie. It's not like a company that's selling a product A where you could tell the salesforce go out and sell more product and we'll balance. We have a set amount here and there's very little uh wiggle room. Uh and
076I've come to after all these years on the board, it's it's very complicated and there's a lot of catch 22s and prices of things keep going up like insurance. So, um it's tough. It really is. You know, I can't tell many times like I when I go through the budget process um or our facility managers like, "Hey, you know, it would be great if we could turn a couple of these part-time custodians in the full-time to get more hours out." I'm like, I said, "It can't happen. Absolutely can't happen. You know, we're not we're not going to throw money in a non-educational expense, especially in tight years." I said, "It's just not going to work." I said, "I understand, you know, because it's tough to get part-time people." I said, "But we're getting it done.
077We we somehow we bandaid together and we get everything cleaned." um you know, you don't see us proposing like adding to those areas. So, it's it's tough. And you know, what you said, it's just we're dealing with what we're dealing with. And again, if we would have taken that $1.2 million uh four or five years ago, you know, we'd only be dealing with probably the healthcare increase, but we didn't. You know, we were being the board wanted to be fiscally prudent at that point in time and we let that money lapse. And the county gave me a hard time about that. Why are you letting this lapse? Why are you letting this lapse? Well, this is what the will of the board is. So, this what we're doing. So we nobody again thought we're going
078to be two consecutive years of a 10 and a 20% increase for healthcare or that you know the impact of chapter uh 44 would have been as great as it was. So if >> I could add a point, Bob, and maybe answer your question a different way, Todd. We also go into negotiations in good faith with 800 people that have to be paid. And these are the reasons we go to impass sometime because we know that stuff like this can happen. And when stuff like this does happen, doesn't mean you have to fire all your administrators because there there's a time and a place when we set negotiations and we try to forecast things like this that can happen and sometimes these are known issues on both sides of the table and we know healthcare
079is going to go up 20 30% something like this could happen, you know, we are skinny down on the administrative side like they said compared to other districts but that's a two-sided fence because we're in a contract right now. We have to pay out that contract doesn't change stays but our revenue doesn't doesn't state but it's obviously not going in the direction we want right now. So keep that in mind. >> And it's kind of been the model too from the state when you looked at the districts who were the S2 losers and lost a lot of uh funding. They said, "All right, here you go. Raise your taxes. Fix it that way." Right? The state doesn't have the money to come help them fix it. I'm hearing rumblings. Well, actually, I saw this um
080when the preschool grant came out because that was one of the holy grails of the last administration was we're going to have universal prek. You know, I said from the beginning, it's unaffordable. Well, now the last two cycles, anyone who wants to get it now, it used to be 100% funded by the state. Now, it's, oh, we'll fund 40%, the taxpayer fund 60. I'm not sure if anyone's jumping on for that deal now. So, you know, again, the state broke some of this stuff, but they don't have the money to fix it. So, we'll see. Hopefully, we get a good budget. Pratt would be good. Um, you know, a couple extra bucks would be even better, and we're just hoping for no decrease. Well, Bob, can you go to the state aid like the >>
081So, you said that we're we're hoping that state aid is flat. >> Correct. >> Should we do that? Should we What if it isn't? Then we're even in >> Correct. Yep. We'll have to find something else to cut. So is there you know so that we don't get into the same situation where two years three years next year the situation is worse because we were hoping we would get X Y and Z should we not plan or have a contingency at least discussed if we what we would do if we don't get the same amount of state aid >> it will probably come from headcount there and maybe a little bit more on on your discretionary spending, but it will almost 100% cover it. So, it we've gone through this at a number of times
082and I wasn't here in 2010 when there was a 60% loss in state aid. Diane and Neil can speak to that, but I know the district I was, it was draconian cuts. Um, there's probably a couple more levers we can pull. Um, you know, but I'm sure we have two more uh central office meetings or another central office meeting that we can talk about it. Um, but again, we're, you know, there's probably a couple things that we could probably sit in the room and figure off right now, but we'll >> What about energy cost? I mean, with this referendum and all the changes, >> we're still we're still two years away from having all the equipment implemented, um, I think we discussed two or three board meetings ago, once the roofs are done, I can
083engage the architect to begin investigating a a PPA um, for solar. Now, my only concern though is that my understanding is that through some federal legislation, the they might not be as attractive as what they once were. I don't know. Um, but I c we can't we've been talking about this as a board now for five or six years now. I know Mr. Amaros is a big proponent of it. Mrs. Kelina was a huge proponent of it. Um, and the answer was always once we get new roofs, we could have a conversation about that. So, I've already, you know, put in the architects here, as soon as the roofs are done, they should hopefully be done by early next fall, um, we could start to investigate a PPA. >> That wouldn't impact next year though
084anyway, probably. Um, it probably wouldn't impact for two years cuz by the time you get you put the bid together. Um, and it's it's a different it's it's different than a bid where you just I'm buying the solar panels. So, I go out I build a spec. I have a contractor install them for us and I have to pay whatever the price is. We have to we're doing a bid for a financing company. You're the financing company who's going to make money off the SRX or I forget what they're even calling them these days. um they've changed the name so many times that they'll give you a reduced rate of energy and they'll collect all the tax incentives if there are any left and they'll collect um whatever the value of those energy wrecks are.
085But um once we have new equipment, it is more energy efficient. The control systems will all be brand new. Um it when we have control of the operation, it's it's better because when I came here and years ago, one of the first things I looked at was energy because I'd come from a district where we were desperate for money and we had we were one of the first districts to do an EIP and energy savings improvement plan. We'd also hired a third party to come in and help teach one of our employees on a a rather large stipen to become our energies are. And this person would show up and do audits at 3:00 in the morning, 9:00 at night that on the weekends to see what's running. Not only did teachers leave computers on
086were lights left on, but they were trained to walk the building and say, "I hear an exhaust fan going. Why is this fan running?" Um, when I came here, I looked at the numbers because the control system was still working pretty well. And our director, our facility manager at the time, uh, Paul Rowan was on top of it. I mean, he had control of that at home. Our numbers were comparable. There's eight buildings here and we paid slightly less than I was paying for three buildings in Robinsville. So, we have always done a good job with maintaining that. Um, but again, once we get the roofs, we'll take a look at that. Once the equipment's all installed, it's it's a two summer cycle. Um, we will have better control and hopefully then we'll be able
087to reap the benefits of that. And it's really cost avoidance with new equipment. It's not always energy savings because you'll use less energy, but if the rates go up 50%, you're still paying more. So, that's where there was some confusion sometimes. Even you do the EIPS, um, speak to cost avoidance, which is good because if you're running your your old system where if you're not controlling it and then you get an increase on top of it, it's a double whammy. But at least if you are um your units are not using as much electricity or gas then even though you have a a increased cost of the commodity it's not as painful. It doesn't impact your budget as negatively. Anyone else? All right. So next week we'll we'll add on to this the appropriation side.
088Um I don't think it'll be as long. If you have questions, email me. Otherwise, save them for the next meeting. And then hopefully, you know, we'll we'll get some kind of indications of what's going to happen from the governor's address. Um, but thank you. You able to hear that, Camala? Okay. Well, thank you, Bob. Um, and Neil, um, I know the budget time is, uh, is very tough this year with what's going on with insurance. I thought all the questions from the board members, um, are answered with, uh, care, and I appreciate that. Um, never a tough thing. But as we move forward, um I thank you and I I hope that we can get the numbers in with the budget with the governor's address. Hopefully some of these numbers will come in better. That
089would be a good thing. Uh with that, I think we just need a certification and then we can move on to the next thing. >> All right, certification for the month. I, Robert Dvita, the school business administrator secretary, certifies that as of January 31st, 2026, no line item has been overextended in violation of NJC 6A23A-16.10 C3 and that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's financial obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. U, this is the first opportunity for public participation. If anyone wishes to address the board, please write your name and address on the sign-in sheet and state your name for our records. Statements are limited to three minutes and should not be abusive, obscene, or defamatory in nature. And this will be on agenda
090items. Do we have any uh takers? Okay. Seeing none, we will go to personnel policy and communications. Miss Crosby. >> Yes. Um the personnel policy and communications committee did meet this evening. In attendance were um Dr. Brenthower, Mr. Dixine, Ellen Sullivan, and myself. Um we discussed agenda items. Um and specifically the gifted and talented pupils policy. Um I'd like to move the following items. Three, second reading of policies and regulation as listed. Four, position control as listed. Five, new employment as listed. And welcome to our new staff. Six, leaves of absences. Leaves of absence as listed. Seven, PTO honorarium as listed. Eight, unpaid days as listed. Nine, student teacher practicum observation placement as listed. 10, student teacher practicum observation placement update as listed. 11. of funding investigation findings as listed. 12. Curriculum commi committees as
091listed. 13. Termination of substitute employment as listed. 14. Certified substitutes as listed. 15. Non-certified substitutes as listed. 16. 2025 2026 revised school calendar as listed. And number 17, 2026 2027 revised school calendar as listed. >> Excellent. Do we have a second? >> Okay. Any questions for uh our policy committee? >> Okay. Roll call. >> Mrs. Brand Dr. Casey. >> Yes. >> Mr. Yes. >> Miss Crosby. >> Yes. >> Mr. Roger. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Lambert. >> U Mrs. Spieler. >> Yes. >> Miss O. Sullivan. >> Yes. >> Mr. Amaroso. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Uh curriculum. Dr. Casey, >> the curriculum committee did not meet today. Um, and I move that the following items. Number two, home instruction as listed. Number three, course reimbursement as listed. And that's it. >> Okay. Do we have
092a second? Thank you. Um, any questions for curriculum? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. >> Finance, facilities, and transportation. Mr. Garulo. >> Good evening. The Finance, Facilities, and Transportation Committee did meet today. Uh, we discussed a couple of items. Uh, Bob did the budget already. Um, >> I forgot my slide. I'm sorry for the uh referendum, but >> okay. Uh, and then we had uh, you know, construction update of the first bid went out, course assessment by the construction manager and it was fine for ECLC, Apple and Ericson. Uh we also discuss uh the insurance broker E USRFP uh both in the health area uh and the PCNL uh the current uh carriers Gala uh won out and they will go forward as the carriers. It's
093in the um one of the budget items here and then we just uh briefly discuss the agenda items. So, I'd like to move the following thing uh uh items. Um Secretary Treasures report as listed, bills and claims. Thank you, Emily. Uh as listed, it's 7,435,87.88. Uh, travel and related expenses as listed. Travel and related expenses update as listed. Transfers as listed. Disposal of surplus property H cesc as listed. Donation to extend uh PTO honorarium. Number 10. Uh, PTO honoraria. Uh, 11. Um, track officiating fee. 12, nursing services update. 13, adjust tuition contract uh for received student. 14. Certification declaration for an extraordinary uh unidentified service EU health insurance broker as listed. Number 15, approval of extraordinary unidentifiable services EU health insurance broker as listed. 16. certification uh declaration for an extraordinary uh unidentified service EUP
094PC and L insurance broker as listed. 17. Approval of extraordinary unidentified un identified service EU PCNL insurance broker. 18. Uh, referendum approved contract to replace roof the cantina elementary school as listed. Referendum approved contract to replace roof that applicate uh to applicate elementary school as listed. 20. Referendum approved contract to replace roof at uh the Ericson Elementary School. 21. Referendum approved contract to replace roof at the Blo School. 22 referendum approved contract to replace roof at the Eisenhower Middle School. 23 referendum approved contract to repair EIFS uh the Kina school elementary school as listed. 24 referendum approved contract to repair EFS the Appagate Elementary School is listed. 25 referendum approved contract to repair Eiffs. the Eric Ericson Elementary School and 26 approved contract to repair Eiffs the Donafan uh elementary school. Okay, thank you. Do
095we have a second? Thank you. Um any questions for finance or facilities? A lot of roofs on there. >> We're getting new roofs. Yeah, that's that's a section of the code. >> I don't want any leaks by the next time. All right. Any other any questions? >> All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. Thank you. Um old business. Um, the only thing I had on my list was I have to meet with our chairs just to go over our board goals. We have another couple of months until we have to reconvene with how we're doing with those board goals. So, you might see an email from me. Um, and uh we'll just update our chart to see how we're doing with progress. That was the only
096old business that I have. Does anybody else have any old business? No. Okay. New business. uh musicals. >> Uh very excited that uh Barklo and Eisenhower have their musicals coming up. Um my daughter will be in the Eisenhower musical, Lightning Thief. So please, I hope everyone goes. They're amazing. >> Excellent. Thank you. Any other new business announcements? Okay. Um, I really don't have any further remarks, so we can go right into public participation. Um, before I read my statement, is anybody going to Oh, we do. Okay. So, please state your name and address on the sign-in sheet. Okay, seeing none, uh, this board is going to now go into an executive session. So whereas pursuant to NJSA104-12B, the board of education may exclude the public from that portion of a meeting at which the board
097discusses any of the matters described at NJSA 104-12B1-9. Now therefore be it resolved that in accordance with the provisions of the open public meeting act the board of education shall conduct a closed session pursuant to the personnel and legal exceptions prescribed by NJSA104-12 for the purpose of discussing the following matters pending or anticipated contract negotiations. It is anticipated that the length of time of this executive session will be 30 minutes and that action will not be taken in public after the executive session. Be it further resolved that said discussion may be disclosed to the public when reasons for discussing and acting upon it in close session no longer exist. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor say I. I. >> All right. Thanks for coming out, folks. >> Thank you,
098Mr. Spieler.