001e e e impressed I'd like to call this meeting to order the adion of the pr Township School District is to honor and support every learner every day on the journey to become curious and engage 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 free old Township Schools on the entrance door to the administrative offices of the board of education on the district website at the office of the preal Township Clerk published in the Asbury Park Press on January 11th 2025 and sens of the Star Ledger on January 8th 2025 please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance United States of America stands indivisible andice for all thank you can I get a roll call Mr D Mrs
002bran Dr Casey here M Crosby here Mr gulo here Mrs Lambert Mrs spieler here Mr Williams here Mrs o solvan pres Mr amaroso here we have a quarum thank you can I get a motion for approval of the February 11th 2025 regular meeting minutes I get a second all those in favor say I I abstain yes sir I get a motion for the approval of the February 11th 2025 executive session meeting second thank you all those in favor say I I and I abstain Iain thank you thank you okay so president remarks uh first I want to say that we had two successful live workshops one at Riviera and one at Enclave um I attended and Ellen attended and Mr dickstein um talked about the referendum to the community I think it was a really
003really positive experience I want to thank you for doing that first of all because you were really eloquent and he took his time to really spell out the whole budgetary process how school funding works and I was quite impressed with the response that we got I really good church he's a natural I think church was only like 45 he just looked [Laughter] old be a heavy drink Yeah we actually had there was some skeptical people there in the beginning that came up after the presentation and said I'm a definite yes so um really thank you thank you for that um I wanted to remind everyone to make sure they log into the njsba website make sure all your training is up to date and pretty I want that for two reasons one to do that
004and the second is pretty soon we're going to start the superintendent evaluation although Neil needs to get his I ready diagnostic data and that has to be done mid May so it's going to be a little later this year that we do it it's not going to make it in time it's much quicker it's much quicker so it's going to be tight it will it what is your deadline June 30th June 30th to re to have it reviewed and signed I have to have already met with him I think twice before June 30th yes so it's I can't release it in sections I can only release it all at once there might be a workaround that you can look at every well they won't they can't start until everything is in like it doesn't let
005me yeah he does his part first and then when he releases it I give it to the board but I could potentially pull a report for you preliminarily that okay I love that if you can do that there's also another workr I can say in progress to get around it and then you skip the Go part and then you go back I I'll give it to you outside of the platform and then you go back to it however we do it I just need if you can give me a date maybe when you think you could have that I can tell you when our testing window is and um go from there okay you could email me that and then I'll work his schedule based on that so all right thank you um that's all
006I have for now I have some stuff from the second time I'll let we'll go to Administration thank you good evening everybody um I wanted to talk about an item on the agenda this evening it is uh time and I I'm taking time during administrative report report because the state is halfhazard in the manner in which they require the comprehensive Equity plan so um I'll ask Dr bre hour in a moment to explain um what it is but uh for approval on this evening the first step of that comprehensive Equity plan process it's in code it's part of 6A so it's a requirement of all Boards of Education um the affirmative action team is on there for approval that affirmative action Team Works directly um the goal of that team and the only goal of
007that team is to complete the compr comprehensive Equity plan in my 10 years as assistant superintendent I was responsible for two of them because the state extends the ones in progress so they're supposed to be three years the state will say just sign a memorandum of um to extend it another year so I've done two and this is Dr bre our second so it dates back I've been in central office for 17 years it goes back at least 17 years I think Dr Brower did it prior to me so it's something that's been around for a period of time so I'm ask Dr bre hour just to explain what the comprehensive Equity plan so yes we received the department of Ed memo which has been something that has been just annually renewed since my first
008year in this seat um we approved our comprehensive Equity plan in the June 2019 for that 1819 Year and that has been the same plan that's been in effect since then the good news is that this process and you can if you haven't already um it's linked online because it has to be all Boards of Education in the state of New Jersey have to make sure that we have policies and practices that are Equitable and part of being able to say that as a board of education is saying we've reviewed our policies and we're doing everything that we can to have access to from facility ities to curriculum to everything that there is that has to do with schools so if you haven't already if you go to our district website District home comprehensive Equity
009plan you would want to access that and what it is is a a nice fun multi-page document that lists every one of the policies that we had in place at the moment that this was approved so what we have to do is go through the same fund with the affirmative action team and it could be it only needs to be about three people and we built I put a few more people to make sure it was comprehensive and we will go through every policy that has anything to do with the subject that's being asked so all we're asking you to do tonight is to approve a team I am the District of firep action officer um it's one of my hats and as such I have to uh work with a committee this will be
010board um presented for board approval in May and it must be uh submitted to the county office by June 23rd so we have a very tight time frame no surprise they just let us know so um we did have a quick training and uh we'll be working together as a team to show all of the ways that we're doing what we're supposed to do and the good news is that the one I did was exceptional and it allowed us to say yes we do have access right kids do have access and Miss Montgomery does an excellent job every presentation she gives you'll all notice that she provides a slide how are our free and reduced lunch kids doing how are our students who don't speak English as a first language how are they doing how
011our students with special education needs how our students with 504s are doing she doesn't do that just because she likes to talk she does it because we are required to disaggregate our data and say should we be doing something differently to access these children for our subgroups right so we're already doing this work so I know everyone was a little like ah what is this it's what we do and it's what we have done thank you so it's a comp it's basically a team that looks at compliance we go through comp are we compliant are we not compliant in these areas and if we're not to write an action plan um that is also a uh part of qac so if you do not have a comprehensive Equity plan that's been approved by Board of
012Education you lose points on our on our um monitoring um any requirements and who needs to be on no stold groups other than that M who else is on the team it's on the agenda okay bance of Administrators that represent obviously central office because can speak to the administrative pie um I asked us one of our staff members who an internship to join us as well and um it's already too big to be truthful um for the 18 tables that we have to entire it's already a big team so and Elena and I embarked on this journey together when I first sat in the seat that's right so it's like full circle for us exactly we're doing it again seven years later well thank you for that I'm going to move into ssds um so
013I apologize for the last meeting the system is not easy to navigate and incidents were reporting period uh one of last year so I have it currently the 2425 this is from July 1st to December 31st uh uh reporting period one the total incidents are 18 there was one incident of violence seven confirmed hibs outside of those 18 incidents there were nine incidents leading to removal and 14 Hib alleged that were not confirmed repeat offenders schools it's just random it depends it for hi specifically or in general in general acting out yes there are repeat offenders in there not in this in general and behavior not in this data that I gave you this evening in general when we're looking at discipline while there there are there's a component of repeat vendors yeah if there
014are um if there a student in the same school year that is an aggressor confirmed three times we have to have an action plan for that student and we have not yet had that happen since that law was revised thank uh this evening's uh bullying investigation report since our last meeting we had three incidents of harassment intimidation and bullying and all three were unfounded and that's all I have all right uh the month of January certification I Robert Dita the school business administrator slbo secretary certifies that as of January 31st 2025 no line item has been overextended in violation of njac 6A 23610 C3 that sufficient funds are available to meet the district's Financial Obligations for the remainder of the fiscal year that go a budget thank you gonna just move over there so we
015get to the screen [Music] all right good evening everyone um it was when we had finance committee before I I said to Mike amaros I'm like you know this is the 11th budget that we put together so it's uh you know and everyone's different and and um I I do I'm glad I think they do get easier um as we go forward so tonight I'm going to the budget presentation this is our draft budget right now for those you have been in these seats for a while is very similar um one of the key things that I shared with the finance committee is that when we go through our list of things that we're going to do next year that might be new it's not because we have additional funds to take care of it
016it's because we are repurposing funds so and I'll give you an example in the current budget year um in the transportation department we upgraded the transportation runting software and we also upgraded or we added a software where um all of our drivers have to do pre and post run trips and it generates a lot of paper so it's four times a day they have to do this and you have to keep the paper on site for the entire 13 years that you have in the bus we've got this giant storage compartment just stuff with paper so we modernized and so we are so this year we're proposing to do something different in transportation but it's not because we ref we are repurposing those dollars from the prior Year's budget does that make sense all right
017so actually Mr Dix starts this off here so many you have heard many of you have heard this already from year to year it's the same and it's how we draft our budget our preparation for tonight and the priorities so first we start this process uh at the in December um our budget managers draft their individual budgets based upon need um we say based upon need meaning ideally we would start from zero and build but instead we say flat in other words you can't add anything the dollar amount total that you had the year prior needs to be at or below that amount from last year that process starts early on in the fall winter and it is due in draft form by the end of December before we go into break uh in January
018maybe February this year um Bob and I meet with each budget manager so all the principles and then the central office administrators responsible for budgets in their areas and we'll review their budgets and the justification and Bob sometimes asked them to repurpose sometimes we find duplications meaning in the technology budget there's something uh that's duplicative in their building budget and we ask it to be removed so we look for those um some consistency there and then also if we have questions specifically about something that's in there and then typically the last question is anything that your building is a need of or your department is in need of that you are not able to include in this budget because we ask you to keep it flat and those are the conversations that we have as
019that's happening Bob is communicating with the Brokers to determine anticipated increases to insurances and that's not only health insurance that's workman's comp insurance and other insurances that the district cares uh as that is happening starting in January um I work with building principles and directors to project staffing needs so Chris cleffy spends about a month meeting with child study team members from each of the buildings and the building administrators to determine student projections for the next year remember we'll talk about special education the class basically our need is dictated by members in the statute and code it lists each setting for a special education student and the capacity of a class particularly for that program so that's what drives our staff in the special education area in the area of regular education it is the
020guidelines that we use and they are guidelines 23 in the class for K2 25 in a class for 35 um and those are the guidelines that we use and attempt to stay under them in preschool we use the number 18 and typically they reach 18 by the end of the year we don't start the year at 18 uh 10 typical children up to eight up to 10 typical up to eight classified students in each preschool class and that's how we do a staffing point of the budget um Bob puts together a a early draft and we sit as the central Office Team and review he'll come in and say never will he say we have $400,000 to play with um it's typically the other way around we are in the whole this much and we
021need to reevaluate the budgets and determine what needs to come out before we get to the board so we have a balanced budget and then we go into this evening where we present to the board to the public our first draft of the budget our goal is always in this board has always um made it their goal to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayers we also as a board of education and administration have the responsibility to allocate resources to achieve the mission and vision of our district through the responsibility to provide an outstanding education to our students while maintaining fysical responsibility to the taxpayers when we look at next year's budget the addition to the budget include one special education teacher at this point we have a need to expand our ER program emotional regulation
022impairment currently we have a program um you can only have from the youngest student to the oldest student four years from birthday to birthday of students connected to a teacher and a special education program uh we have the need next year to expand Beyond those four years so at CA will be adding a second ER teacher and there'll be a primary class and an inter media class uh K2 and 35 and based upon IEP needs they'll be an additional teacher assistant in the budget for next year and those are additions to the budget this is mon we all talk about curriculum revisions stand up sit down okay I'm gonna stay here um so not a lot of um this time last year I stood here and laid out a list of all the things new
023in the curriculum Department um and our budget this year really reflects um maintenance we are not proposing a ton of new um curriculum because we did a lot this year we will be implementing foundations our um phonics uh foundational reading program moving that up to grade two so this budget includes all of the resources including professional development for teachers throughout um all of the first year of implementation of that program um the budget also includes our second year of I ready remember we are using I ready as both our Benchmark assessment so measuring student growth throughout the year as well as a the personalized learning platform for students so um the cost for that platform includes both of those things along with corresponding professional development the cost for professional development because we are in year
024two of implementation is a little bit less in this upcoming school year so that the cost for I ready went down from this budget year to next um we will be implementing Foundations at the preschool level as well um we are uh so the budget includes both the uh resources curricular resources as well as professional development for all of our prek teachers for that implementation um our budget is looking to include um expanded access for decodable readers in our K2 classrooms and and book rooms at each of the schools we did purchase some out of this year's budget but um obviously we want to make sure we have the quotable readers in the hands of all of our kids and accessible for all of our teachers um we will continue our partnership with linkit we
025use that Resource as our student uh data management not from the Genesis side but um student data around assessment so all of our student assessment data lives in linkit um it is the tool I use for data analysis when I am reporting to you about how our students are performing and uh you know as Diane mentioned relative to that comprehensive Equity plan um we are going to be expanding our use of the linkit platform to include uh resources around online assessment there is a we we currently use it for a limited number of Assessments in the district um it is part of our um our contract that we already pay them for we are going to be expanding that usage at no additional cost because we're already paying for it um and the budget also
026includes the use of our various online uh curricular support tools um again no new additions in that area just m maintaining what we're currently using any questions on curriculum before we move forward all right thank you so we'll start off as we always do budget Basics you know the basic counting equation Revenue plus fund balance equals Appropriations you will see that when we get to the revenue side the fund balance and the revenue um remember that when we compare the current year budget for 2425 it is our data as of February 1st it's not July 1st it's as of February 1st so any trans that we've made any additional funds that we've brought in for capital reserve for um construction projects or for maintenance Reserve to deal with the instent over at Donovan um that
027will have reflected here um our budget that we look at is divided into three funds fund 10 is our general fund this is the majority of 95% of what we discuss this is our operating budget this is where the magical happens um fund 20 or special Revenue fund this is where our two federal grants are the Ida and the title Grant um this year we've been instructed by the state to budget 75% of the current year award uh what it's been over the last 10 15 years has been 85% so I think someone asked this question at a previous board me had a discussion the Ida Grant we don't believe is going to be impacted um but the title grants we were told prior to the November election that the state New Jersey was going
028to lose money and it's because other districts not us aren't spending all money and they're sending it back to the federal government so the federal government had already told our representatives in the doe um that hey you obviously don't need this money so we are going to reduce your allocation for full year 26 so most of our Federal grant money comes from IA it's about $975,000 the remaining $3 $400,000 comes from most of the title run and even that's been slash that was SL slash 50% from last budget year to this current budet corre we did the prior year we paid for three interventionists um we down to one and we're hoping right now if we stay at 75% or 85% will be able to continue to pay for one so again a lot for
029so very little of what we discussed and the only time you really see this again is when you approve the tenative budget and you approve the final budget because our budget question will break it out by fund and then we have fund 40 this is our debt service fund which represents the debt and taxes that were approved by voters for past referendum so we have two Bond issues left um there were three um as of this year there'll be two left um those are and as we discussed during referendum presentations they will finally be gone uh in 3132 as we continue um I know it sound like a broken record but we are a revenue driven budget and what that basically means is that the state says whatever Revenue you can generate you could spend
030the Only Exception is you cannot increase your tax levy by more than 2% from the prior year now there are a few adjustments one being for an increase in enrollment we do not qualify for that but what we do qualify for is for healthcare expenditures this year unfortunately we are projecting a 10% increase um it's not because our claims are running high it's just because of the general rate of inflation in the medical world um right now we're looking like a 9 N and a half for um health and about 11 to 12% for prescription so we are in better shape than what the state is I think the state is a high double digit number um for the state plan um so we're in better shape than others but still um the healthc care
031increase this year consume the entire 2% tax levy increase a few years ago when we had very low increases for healthcare um we would stay at 2% and that 2% would cover salary increases it would cover um Healthcare increases it doesn't do that now so we do qualify for almost $1.6 million of a health care adjustment it is in the budget right now to keep the budget balanced if we did not have that if we didn't take advantage of it we would have to reduce our budget by that amount questions on that I see some puzzled looks does that so there's a calculation because our our cost went up um State calculation is you a projected budget and the other thing they want to see on that is uh healthare and prescription we back out
032um Vision we back out dental and then you inflate your current year you inflate last year's cost by 2% and then there's a a calculation based on what the state does and that's where the state software says you qualify for $1.5 million all right so this is it this this is all from state code um so we'll talk a little bit more about it as we get into the budget and then just wanted to know I was when we look at the appropriation categories this is what's everything that's in support it's our attendant office our health services guidance child St team uh extraordinary Services which is our teacher of the de and our onetoone T um curriculum staff development otpt speech and our media centers so our second items to note um the governor gave
033us address today andt I didn't have time to hear it I'm not sure what he said um but our state aid figures should be released must be L later than Thursday if we're lucky we'll get them sometime tomorrow afternoon um so but more I'll email the board once I find out what the number is again we are projecting Healthcare to be plus 10% for medical and prescription and zero for dental uh we Al we're self-insured for all three we haven't had a raise in the rates for dentals since Brian BR was here so we're probably 14 15 years it's just dentals are much easier to program to run um costs really don't escalate in that world we do have have two students currently that go to Charter Schools um so the 2526 cost for the
034charter school students has not been released yet um I'm estimating $50,000 I believe either Thursday with state aid or a few days later the state will tell us what we are expected to pay um for those two charter school students energy increases this is the second piece of our budget that is going up significantly um we are estimating and this is through convers ation with some energy experts uh 25% for electric and about 9% for natural gas um I think I've said in various presentations the last couple months that your home budgets um the electric rate is going up 20 to 30% come June 1st um it is just the basic laws of supply and demand as we've taken more and more of the um generation offline the supply is getting lower but the demand
035for electricity is going up um the costs are going to spite there was in July the region that we belong to for energy is called pjm the Pennsylvania Jersey Maryland area and so they do auctions for um excess capacity for limit extremely hot for you know we have those 100 degree days four or five in a row when it's extremely cold and when the uh rate payers are demanding more energy cost those prices came in 800% higher than the previous year so we do belong to a co-op called ases in which we pull our purchasing power with over 300 other school districts and we purchased the uh the commodity of electric and natural gas from third party suppliers um we were supposed to have a new third party supplier in December because of the escalation
036and cost we couldn't accept the bid and so we are now paying directly with uh jcpnl and we are hoping that by the time June 1st rolls around we will have a new third party supplier so this is actually significant impact on our budget the electric cost or the energy cost is roughly where's my number here I'm sorry it's about3 $400,000 of an increase versus the prior year so um another thing to note is that what happened with our donov mediation has inflated our revenue and Appropriations for the 2425 school year um we had budgeted originally $300,000 to come out of Maintenance Reserve because of the amount of money we had to put into that issue we pulled out another $400,000 by a resolution during the year and I transferred funds from other places to
037get the work done we were hoping to get our insurance checked up back by February 1st because as I said before that's when we take a snapshot at the data for the current budget we didn't receive the check yet good news is we're supposed to be getting at least a partial payment of over $700,000 uh in the next two or 3 weeks so but unfortunately you see some of the numbers they're 24 25 lips higher because of what happened at Don and because we have not uh received back our insurance check um prior incumbrances if you've heard this budget presentation before you know I say I hate this but the state forces us to show those POs from 23 24 that rolled over into 2425 as part of the 2425 budget um I tried to
038break it out for you so you can actually see the truth uh increase budget year to budget year because if you factor in that 2.6 milon it looks like our budget actually goes down and as I said before any of the items that we discussed that are kind of highlighted things we're going to do next year's uh budget it's because we are repurposing dollars so some of our new or continued initiatives for next year in the area of security um Dr breath hour has some money um set aside to add additional security cameras for our buildings in transportation we need three buses which will they will be least purchased um just a note about our least purchasing and I've said this before we do our best to keep the total amount for Le purchases flat
039this way every year it's budget neutral doesn't have an impact on the budget because there will be some years where we'll come up to where we need 10 buses to replace because they are replaced based upon their age so if we keep it level it doesn't cause a spike one way or other in in the budget um we are also looking to add some new software that will manage to 10in S our buses right now when students get on the bus uh we rely on the bus drivers remember if Johnny got on the bus or if Johnny got off the bus especially during the begin year get the rest of the year we get phone calls from the buildings hey mom just called we're not sure what best Johnny got on and so now we're
040relying on the memory of the driver what will happen now is students will get on the bus they will swipe their card into a reader we will have automatic attendance in the bus so if office can say hold on one second I off to call Transportation they go on the computer and they will pull up the data to see which bus St sometimes they get on the wrong bus sometimes they miss the bus and they don't know so this will help us in that process right tell Mom or Dad how how thatof aing all the cards and all the functional will be able to do some work with scammers inside the building to be able to have students particularly the Middle School um right now they're turn styling physically into a location they'll be able
041to swipe into gu theology so big steps and again it's budget neutral because we are repurposing the dollars that I said in the begin of the presentation we upgraded our routing software last year and we addab that software where the driv general running G their pre and their post-trip checks uh on paper that it's all now digital and all stor digitally so Bri free Parts in the we already have in the budget for this next Evolution and um just a reminder we have done a lot in the last few years to improve transportation in terms from a security standpoint um we spent a lot of money about $300,000 a few years ago to upgrade this uh the radios and these last years have just been that next step in that Evolution to have better contact
042with our our drivers and know where our students are at all times and then along with that's s far sure the 20,000 some I heard 20 so we'll stick with that number obviously you know there's maintenance involved in that 50 bu 50 bu 50 buses 50 buses sorry y it's not a bad deal so in in the weather facilities um this will be our third year of replacing their Fleet of vehicles we need two more pickup trucks I think we're coming to the end of the upgrades for vehicles there uh we need a new commercial size lawnmower um we need two new codo Force scrubbers these are called Chari you actually ride on them so if you've ever seen if you go in the hallway at night they're giant they $133,000 machines these will all
043be le purchased as well um we will continue our replacement of old carpet and VCT in classrooms and offices um and over our DOT we have the M situation we cleaned out all those UVS uh and it make some more official money so we have budgeted money to start to do in the rest of the buildings this summer we'll do Eisenhower and then in future years we'll go over to Katina and Barco we hopefully they'll be new so I won't have to do that we'll have to do in a couple years but at least for now eisenh Howers need to be cleaned first teacher desk you know we've been looking no one spent any money in the last number of years to replace some teacher desks I was kind of appalled when I think Dr
044BR I was were in uh the fth grade R over at Donovan with Summer before they came back maybe it was before they came back in November and something at some had been left look like the teacher made it so yeah we've we're going to budget to purch start a replacement CLE about 30 desks a year just you know it's not a lot of money but it's something that um it help the principles out and I was I didn't realize with this new it was a brand new teacher who got moved uh from into this room from the teacher retired and they're like what the heck is was a teacher Des so um from a technology standpoint we will continue our new Chromebook purchases for our fifth grade students um we're going to continue our
045teacher workstation Replacements and um as I discussed in our finance committee we currently have in just about every classroom an individual printer um we have a print service management contract for that is expensive um and also the device that we have currently are out of date there's no replacement parts for it so we modeled something or ped a program over at Applegates called paper cut where um going forward everything the staff prints out to will go not to a individual copier it'll go to The copier machine um you will walk up to that copier machine and W be sitting at waiting for you so you have to some grav you'll take your ID card you'll swipe it on the machine and your job will print out so this should be at worst budget neutral um
046we had the C what has to happen is once Tech gives us the um final number of devices that will be taking offline uh this summer atantic copier who manages that for us will tell us um what the cost what we'll save um and the other thing we need to do is to get paper cut in places for six other schools add one additional copier it'll run us about $3,400 a month so um we provide the it's been there for a while now anywh got $8 to $9,000 per building they have a um copier uh or they have a FMF the devices we will take that back into my budget and we will manage this from there so it'll be at worst it'll be budget neutral and we're going to move more into the uh
04721st century and also I don't know Dr breath hour it's just one we tell you it's one last device our techs have to deal with so with the copers breakdown Atlantic is great of coming out on site we call them usually there that day and if they can't fix it they are back with the part or whatever they need to do until it can be replaced longm that individual printers are not designed for commercial use they're designed for home use and um they're now about what $800 effective cost a lot of money um so this Applegate really flourished and um word has spread so JJC now and um we're getting these big beautiful machines uh to print and you walk right up and out your stuff so we're super excited about it takes care of
048it yeah it's it's not us it's them so we've got 500 devices and our text when they break down and get a phone call can you come to room 302 the dev and sometimes they can't repair it and it just takes them away from the other things have to do uh special services Mr Dix already mentioned the additional Staffing we will have one additional teacher to create another eii class and we have one additional onet to1 ta that's being projected um we've been this district has done a great job of keeping a large majority of our special education students in District um we typically run nine to 11 students out of District um we will budget three contingencies like we always do this year we actually um exceeded our contingencies um thank number of those
049kids are eighth graders so they will be the property of the high school um come next year so but just let you know we continue every year at the budget for three additional um you know unforeseen unknown uh special ed students that move in that require out a district replacement and some of you probably heard this there are people on social media that say hey come to for Township and there's people that purposely seek to move here because they're hearing that we do a much better job of special education than whatever Township that they currently live in and also this um in the health service line and this is a special services issue we do have a student or two that requires a one to one nurse in the bus to and from school because
050of a medical condition um so the in our support staff budget is increased I think it's 75 or $80,000 an addition in the health services line um to accommodate this it's mandated by the I AP we have to do it we can't do with our own staff so we go with uh an Outsource agency that provides that for us and last this is not part of the budget just want to remind everyone that our Capital Improvements happening this summer um we just accepted the bids for the electrical upgrade over at Eisenhower and hopefully the rooftop units for Ericson and for Applegate will be fabricated in time for us to start at the end of June um to have them put on the building um this was part of our capital reserve budget and part of
051the rod grant program that came out in 2324 to have Revenue projections as I said before unfortunately the 10% increase in medical it availed the entire 2% uh budget increase that's it's $1.5 million on the 2% another 1.5 and change for the healthcare so right now we're looking at a 4.1% with $3 million um addition to the tax levy our fund balance is going to stay the same at $1.9 million state right now we're projecting it flat um if I if you looked at last year's numbers to says they didn't we're not receiv receiving the total amount that we should we did get an additional $500,000 last year which is great better than the loss um but we don't get we don't know the number until Thursday if the state has money and they run
052the funding formula we should receive additional funds um I don't I'm not going to count on it right now because we have heard that the state fill a lot of budget HS the last couple years with federal dollars and now that those federal dollars are gone um the coverboard is looking mighty bare so again we'll find out more I didn't hear the address but hopefully we'll get a few extra dollars that'll help us uh with our budget for next year extraordinary Aid this is the dollar um dollar that we budget for our most needy special education students there's a formula for students at IND District that costs more than $40,000 and then for add ofri more than 55,000 um in order to make this budget work I push this to the Limit I'm really not
053comfortable with this um we receive about $1.2 million every year but the problem is that right at the beginning of Co the state did a very good job of fully funding their obligation for our special education students so we we spend two months developing this application there's a lot of work with child C team in my office there's a lot of math involved a lot of pivot tail a lot of good stuff and so we submit for like 1.2 1.3 I'm sorry the number is like 1.7 that we're entitled to they're paying less and less a je as a percentage so if we do get some additional funds if possible I would like to take this number down a little B it because if the state doesn't change their budget to pay us more of
054what we're entitled to I might be overestimating the number so big a deal of it for a year it's not the end of the world but I'm just not comfortable because the state has been going backwards in the percentage of what we're entitled to in terms of they actually paying us tuition fees this is from two primary sources this is for iCal preschool students um at the EC in West freeold uh based upon Trend data I did reduce the number by 10 students the majority of this decrease comes from though from our three out of District students when we ran the the form of year to calculate our tuition um the number of thetion actually went down and the big reason is for more and more of our Tas in that program that they belong
055to have been classified as one to one or true to one AIDS versus pratic AIDS the one to one AIDS are not part of the calculation and so the number went down it's again it's not a big deal uh but it wouldn't better to see the number go up versus down transportation fees of flat this is for our typical preschool students that pay tuition we do offer the parents the opportunity to pay for a seat on the bus or the van um it's been roughly the same number for the last few years so we'll project the same stny this is the number that's provided to us from the state this is for our special education students that also qualify for Medicaid this number had been trending up each the last four years and this year
056when they sent out the file saying hey here's what you need to allocate for next year and I saw the difference my phone rang from the B from two District did you get your numbers like is it downlo yes it is but the reason is they are changing um the valuation of the funding of so Services we valued at X now now they being valued at xus y so for the same Serv we're getting paid less um it's not a lot of money in a in a almost $90 million budget but it still goes down we still have to do the work by law um we're just not as expecting to receive as much money as we did in the previous few years this forv this is everything from interest on our bank accounts to
057if we sell our the buses we get some money for that um it is for rental fees um this is going up 175 is because we are collecting a lot more interest on our bank accounts now um we we re renegotiated our deal uh about 18 months ago and so we're exper you know it really has helped the budget out so we are collecting a lot more money than we did before with Provident Banks so that's why that number is up $175,000 or 62% mainten Reserve um the plan all along the year was to increase what we withdrew typically it's $300,000 again you see the $700,000 up there for 24 25 because we pulled an additional $400,000 out um to deal with the issues over at o as I said before the B ofu because
058we haven't res received a insurance check yet it's going to overate or understate some of our numbers here so um this number should actually been up by $200,000 but it's not um capital reserve right now we don't have any other projects um scheduled for 25 26 that would we withdraw Capital res that $1.6 million reflects all the uh approvals that the board has done in the current 24 25 year for uh Capital res capital reserve with throws for uh two projects it was for um the electric and I think it was for some HVAC work so here's our total and first I'm give you I said before I don't like the fact that they want that $2.6 million a prior in commer SYM so if you look at the 25 26 projected budget at $89
059million versus 876 um it's up 1.3 or 1.6% change that entire change there is primarily due to healthcare going up right and you know the numbers go back if you factor into part your incumbrances it shows an actual decrease of 1.2 million or 1.4 so the reason I bring this up I've had board members and public uh members of the public in the past say Hey you know when I sell the advertisement in the paper the number you just showed me on the screen that doesn't match what's in the paper that's because is the number in the paper and the number on the D we software refects that $2.6 billion of Appropriations does that make sense so for the Appropriations here um Regular instruction this is everything from teacher salaries for uh typical prek through
0608th grade um home instruction supplies including the Chromebooks and all the pens paper of things that the principles buy for the buildings um it's roughly flat it's down $42,000 down .2 uh special education was up 3.1% this is what we discussed before there there's a additional teacher in here um and and that's one of the big drivers here as well is we picked up a couple mutas during the 24 25 school year that we didn't have to budget the entire cost them if we go back to even this agenda there's I think there's one tonight there was one in January there's one in December we pick up the full cost of those Tas and those special a programs for the 25 26 year um English is a second language uh biling and basic skills that's
061roughly flat as well at $1.7 million co-curricular Athletics is up $10,000 or 2.3% um Dr BL and Mrs Williams spoke we haven't given any additional funds for supplies there in probably 10 years so we bumped it up about $10,000 to reflect inflation and some additional items that they might need out of District tuition again it's up 3.6% um again we do a very good job of minimizing the number of students that go out of District we're projecting I think it's 10 or 11 students plus we've got the ad of District placements of the three contingencies both in the place support staff is all those groups that we spoke up before it's nursing guidance child study team the one to one AIDS um that's up 4.9% some of this has to do with the fact of
062the nursing Services contract um the addal one to one AIDs that are in the budget some of those again picked up in the middle of this year um there's thereal one for next year and when we had the Cyber incident last year and our Genesis was down um our student information system our HR platform and our payo system we spoke the Genesis about right what's going to cost us to migrate to you housing us on your service versus well this is I think we've got a three-year plan Dr Death hour to ro in the cost so there's a about a $50,000 increase to on the Genesis SI for in the guidance lines um because they are charging us to um be on their servers versus us having us on ours um Administration is down 4.2
063it's really flat um if you remember the transfers that happened in January and then we reversed in February it's because we're managing the administrative cap this cap has been in place since 2007 and it's it's whatever is we we make some transfer into the Alum lines because it is a cost per pupil calculation and they also reflect health care costs increase so if we didn't do that um we'd have to cut you know the things that we've been doing out of our admin lines and this is just how we kind of as they say we play the game in the state of New Jersey uh facilities brand security again this is really up um but because of the covid I'm sorry the um the no issue over at Donovan it's down because the the maintenance
064budget is down 647 compared to what we're projecting that's because of all the additional dollars that we brought in once I get the insurance check I'll be able to refund those expenditures and those funds will become available for the board either to laps or used for some other purpose for the years over um transportation was balanced Sly 1.8% and then benefits we said it's up one all of our benefits in total this includes uh pension f um workers compensation health benefits um allowance to our staff for their clothing allowance if you're who St Mak as a grand staff member or people that wave their health insurance the op out payments were made here um so all that Li it's about as a total 5.5 C equipment was down significantly and this is primarily due to
065the fact that in 2425 we had brought in all that 1.6 million of capital reserve as well as we had some caros from 2324 in the cap cap outlay line um there's minimal equipment that we need to purchase for next year trure score number again this is unknown but we're estimating at 50 it might be SL higher might be a little bit lower I'll find out this week um versus the $43,000 that we spent for this year again that brings you a total of if you factor in the um carry ofp it shows us down 1.4% or $1.2 million but when you pull them out we're up 1.6 20 which is the grants that we spoke about before and our debt service um again we were told to project a 75% of the current year
066that's why you see $933,000 versus the 1.2 that we received typically we have always received more than our projection let's hope that continues and fund 40 this shows again the the debt that we have to repay based upon um P referendum from 99 and 2001 and together you add it up that would be the final number that you will see on the budget um resolution when we have to pass on March 11th the draft um sorry the tenative budget it's $94 million versus 95 it's down 1.4% again it's because there are things like such as car PE that fact Implement um impact 2425 estimated tax impact we take the general fund tax L that we showed you um plus The Debt Service tax ly less this we call the rizing tax is really with bus
067business personal property tax um this is state aid that goes to the municipality on our behalf and so when the municipality finds out their state aid they will tell us what that number is so I always budget it flat and what it does is it reduces the amount of Actual taxes that the municipality has to collect from our residents because it's offset by some of that state aid so right now we looking at about a 4.3% increase um year-over-year and it's the assess value is projected land up 10.7% which is huge um that is the denominator in the tax rate question and so you know if everything stays equal it shows a tax rate decrease it shows for the average fund which will go to from 611 to 677 uh we see a $210 tax
068decrease for our portion of the tax ly remember you've got F Regional you've got your fire districts you've got the library system you've got the county you've got the municipality so our next steps is answer any questions that you have um we have two weeks to decide on what the tax Lev will be for the general fund again the extra $1.5 million in right now to keep the budget balanced if the board decides to take less then we will figure out we have to come up with the plan the next two weeks um for for our Mar of presentation and what is coming out of the budget um we will obtain the state aid figures this week and then right now there is a tenative budget meeting scheduled for next week um in which we
069would only discuss budget and then we have a regular scheduled meeting on March 11th at 8 o'clock it's a later uh start time that night and we will have the 10 budget presentation so what questions do you all have um sorry uh the skyrocketing energy costs I know hundreds of schools have solar do we have solar and if have we thought about solar we do not and so until our roofs are all replaced we can't they don't want to put Solo on a 25y old roof because you're going to have to replace so what have we have two new roofs right now it's Donovan and L freeold um if the ref on the passes that all that work schedule will be done and then we would definitely look at going out for a power purchasing
070agreement in which we would lease our roof space um it's purchasing the Sol yourself in such a l quantities they the architect would run the math for us but um the last few years most districts have gone through a PPA agreement in which you buy the energy from at a reduc rate from those panels from the financing company and usually you have a you have a no escalator cost so 2% 2.1 whatever it's going to be so until our Ro are redone um nobody will even entertain um putting solar out a roof so but that is something that we did discuss in some of the uh referendum presentations that this will have offset our um operating budget if we get these RS on and then we can go out and we can have that discussion
071for power purchasing agreement okay anything else so it's the state looks at us very differently than um than the counties and municipalities you have to have the solar field attached to a meter um and if you generate more than 85% of your consumption you will now Tre it as a utility company and there's different rules so um ground Mana units are possible but they are much more difficult so typically when you do the ppas it's up on the roof we get Expo that when we get to that point but it's our parking lots have to be redone as well those were pulled from the referendum because there's no funding from the state for um site work so that's something we would have get done first the um the parking L at Applegate is in bad
072shape it's very congested same thing with over adonan but in until to get that work done it's it's difficult we very tight spaces to put ground mounts in so is it actually like a penalty if you're actually [Music] generating I don't know exactly how it works feature like utility then it's it's a different set of rules basically you're selling it back you need to be selling energy back to the grid but you can't be any more than 85 it's the rules change that's what the BPU rules were I went off for PP in my last district and but that was what we were told so you know sending like electrical waves through the building I haven't heard of that any I know number districts have it but I haven't heard that as an issue so
073I don't I had it my last District we did the PPA and um they so I'm not sure what call that at whatever place that was so what other questions you have about the budget how would our if the referendum passed how would our um our fund 40 account be affected would you consider that budget neutral because you would be getting tax money in 26 to pay that or um so the The Debt Service wouldn't start into them uh the next year after that the in 27 2 27 it would start so so there be no impact of the referendum on the budget for 25 26 which is discussed it'll be that year after that's when The Debt Service will start that July to start paying that till 26 27 correct well what's the difference
074between the interest rate we pay on the debt servicing versus the interest we get on our uh Fund in our bank account I I it's we refinanced it all back in 2015 2016 I have to pull out the disclosure settings it's not a lot it went down it was in the twos or threes at that time I'd have to go p and the coupons are all different to B based upon the length of the piece of principal that matured so I can find that after I don't know off the top of my head in the two three range yep that's what I recall I'd have to go pull up the the the documentation from Phoenix when we did it it's been a while I've and looked at it but I I I don't know if
075you heard the presentation but when we were talking about the referendum and our Cent Debt Service figures about 4 cents of property taxes for all of our residents um now what was my point about that it we would have paid off this debt probably seven eight years ago but because there is a state law that says if you have more than 3% of Net Present Value savings on your bonds and if the bonds are callable which they were then you must refinance so that's the only reason that we're still paying off because there's enough savings to the taxpayers that it made it worth our while to go through this process you about a decade ago but I'll find after I don't recall the top of my head theate yeah yeah rate rat one it's like
076four to eight or something so remember rates when the rates start picking up because they they crashed in 2007 and they were pretty low up until yeah yeah so so so the rates so most Bond rates are always the less thing that you're going to get in other places because it's taxfree bonds and so that's know they're risky they a less riskier asset than buying junk bonds or commercial debt so so off I find it I've got I've got it in somewhere something off the top of my head anything else you considered an outside maintenance service versus buy equipment equipment salaries health benefits putting that whole package together so there's a specific law about that the only time you can consider that is during a negotiations year you would have to um not at least
07790 days out before you were going to Outsource you have to present a proposal to the union and then they would have the opportunity to negotiate before you made any change so it's at this point in time we've not look to do that anyone else thank so right now again so once we get the state a figures I will send out a notice to I'll email the entire board and we are scheduled just to have a budget presentation next Tuesday thank you um you're able to digest that I know that's a lot you can study it on your own a little bit but I think that really dissects the district and we really saw now everything that goes on and kind of how much money is category but if you ever have any other questions
078and you can talk to myself the finance chair um but I would encourage you to study it and then we're going to have another presentation and if you have other questions you could bring them up at that time so um at this time I'd like to um open the floor for public participation on just items on tonight's agenda if anyone wishes to address the board please write your name and address on the signin sheet and state your name for the record statements are limited to 3 minutes and should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature takers okay none and I'm going to move into Personnel policy and Communications Mrs spieler you do the SSD I could do that now okay yeah I missed one thing there we have to just um we have to
079open the floor for um for the um ssds report uh now therefore be it resolved the Board of Education shall open the public hearing on the ssds report for period one for the school year 2024 2025 do we have any public comments on that seeing none now therefore be resolved that the Board of Education shall close the public hearing on the ssds report for period one for the school year 20242 25 and now uh Mrs sper hi um so we did not meet as a committee tonight and um I'm just going to read I would like to move the following items the first reading of policy 5112 as listed position control as listed number four new employment as listed number five established start date as listed number six adjust resignation date as listed number seven
080leave of absence as listed number eight salary adjustment as listed number nine change of assignment as listed number 10 long-term substitute assignment as listed unpaid days as listed resend unpaid days as listed District mentors as listed District honorarium as listed Rin PTO honoraria as listed and 16 PTO honoraria as listed number 17 affirmative action team as listed and 18 where is 18 I'm sorry thank you 18 additional compensation PBS as listed and number 19 additional compensation safety care training as listed and um ssds report for reporting period one 2024 to 2025 as listed affirm bullying investigation findings as listed student teacher practicum observation placement as listed certified substitutes as listed number 24 non-certified substitutes as listed and that's it thank you do we have a second I'll second thank you do we have any discussion
081or questions for policy seeing none can I get a roll call Mrs brand yes Dr Casey yes M Crosby yes Mr Rulo yes uh m yes Mr Williams yes Mrs O Sullivan yes Mr Oso yes motion carries thank you um curriculum committee um this brand yes good evening so as the curriculum meeting we did not meet this evening I'd like to move the following items number two course reimbursement as listed number three home instruction as listed and that's so thank you short sweet do we have a second thank you um any questions for curriculum seeing none all those in favor say I I any opposed extensions great thank you finance um abilities um Mr Gula good evening the finance committee met in attendance was um Mr amaroso Mr gulo uh Mr D Michelle was not
082present we met as a group and we discussed as Bob said uh the paper cut uh contract where we're centralizing the cop which I think is a very good idea we also discussed student ID and transportation that would solidify the parents not whereabouts of their children which is another good idea we discussed the budget as we reviewed and then we went on to the agenda items so I'd like to move the following items um number three uh secretary treasury's report as listed Bill and claims as listed who did the Bills me thank you very much you're welcome number five travel related expenses as listed number six transfers as listed number seven out of District contracts as listed eight out of District contract update nine out of District transportation contracts m o c as listed number
08310 acceptance and approval of RFP for Wilson foundation's training and corresponding materials for 2024 2025 parenthesis 25-16 as listed 11 renewal of memorandum of agreement prevention first as listed 12 PTO honorar update West freeold School is listed and 1325 Esa title for Grant District PBS coaches as listed that wraps it up thank you do I have a second second any questions for finance okay seeing none um all those in favor say I I I are there any opposed car thank you do we have any old business I I have a question yes you said about um checking the NJ School Board um testing updated the njsba website to make sure you can log in you should be able to log in and check your status your education status and you and then I need that
084ready so that when we do the evaluation nobody has any login problems i' like to nip that in the butt early so everybody especially new board members if you just make sure that you have access to the site okay because like when I my first year we I had a certain course but I haven't seen anything would it come through the board first saying you need to log on about access he's concerned training will come but on there it shows you how updated your training is okay so you can check yeah you have to completeing too but it but it hasn't been executed yet as I think so you better look yeah okay so definitely log on if you need help just let me know okay I I got get my govern three yeah I
085think Al M said later in the year correct once it goes live and they offer it then she will reach out to you to sign you up I think she signed up our two new board members for your training and I but I don't think anything else has popped up yet yeah that was early monkey didn't pop up it's April 3rd were you able to log in your L okay she'll reach out to you okay if anyone can't find their ID just reach out to Ali the reason is because there's going to be a very short time frame when we do this I just want to make sure everybody's doesn't have to go through that we don't have a panicky week trying to get people access what we get up we're going to find out
086tonight okay for sure that's fine okay uh do we have any new business Wednesday nights uh SPO Junior National and uh play rehearsal musical rehearsal I should say continue in both and we should be hear yes real soon excellent yeah I got my invitation any other new business can I go back to Old business sure why not I just wanted to thank uh principal Shaw at the ca school for helping me record chapter 65 because I couldn't figure out but it came out great so I want to thank her and her staff very kind and excellent thank you great so um this is the second president's remarks just had a couple things one I just wanted to remind all board members about our board Norms um we're starting to see a little bit of excitement
087where people are just you know emailing Neil or Bob or Diane relentlessly and please if you could follow the board procedures and contact the chair of the committee because the thought behind that is not that your questions aren't important and not that they shouldn't be answered but that if five or maybe nine board members have the same question that they can't respond on to nine emails cuz sometimes we all have the same question you just don't know another person had the same question so when we send those mails out please make sure they're going to the committee chair and then the the way this works is at the meeting at the committee meeting the chair will go through the questions and make sure the answers you know are reflective of you know whatever the liaison
088to the committee says at that time then we gather our time management a little bit better so please please please if we could stop doing that and just try to follow that rule and um oh and then I just wanted to put another plug for the referendum March 11th is coming out very quickly so um if you can please spread more positive news um to the community if you can remember that on that day it's very important to get out the vote and to actually get people to go to the polls so keep that in mind because it's going to happen very quickly will be flyers or a table set up at the Honor Society of baralo there's events so I'll mention it now so way to answer there's events happening across the district all
089of our principles have been asked and reminded at all the events to have a table with the tents up that have the flyer displayed and then Flyers next to them for people to take thank you okay so uh with that I'm going to move to the um second opportunity for public participation if anyone wishes to address the board on any matter related to the school district please write your name and address on the signin sheet state your name for the record statements are limited to 3 minutes and should not be abusive obscene or defamatory in nature do we have any U takers okay then um seeing none this board is going to move into an executive session and whereas pursuant to njsa 10 col 412b the Board of Education May exclude the public from that
090portion of a public meeting at which the discusses any of the matters described at njsa 10 4-12 b19 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 legal exceptions prescribed by njsa 10 col 4-12 for the purpose of discussing the following matters pending or anticipated contract negotiations ftea contract negotiations it is anticipated that the length of time of this executive session will be 45 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 closed session no longer exist um do I have a second to go into executive session
091all those in favor say I I any opposed okay thank you everyone for coming