GBOE Live Board Meeting March 30, 2026

001Test 1 2. >> In accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act of the state of New Jersey, adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising on the legal notice page of the district's website. Please rise for the flag salute. Please remain standing for a moment of silence for the families that were affected by the recent bicycle accident. Mr. Labou roll call, please. Mr. Diaz. Here. Mr. Taylor. Present. Mr. Auto. Present. Mrs. Hassan. Here. Mr. Keles. Present. Mr. Gaber. Present. Mrs. Petrie. Present. Mr. Fokker Dr. Tomko. >> [clears throat] >> Testing. Oh. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming. Uh Board of Education members, we have our presentation behind so I don't I'm not really sure if uh you also have it in front of you, but just wanted to let you know. Um

002So, much anticipated budget hearing, uh I don't think it's top secret anywhere in New Jersey in every district that um the funding formulas, the taxes, all the things that we've been talking about now for the last several years with regard to health care, rising costs, energy, and all those things. Every district, not just the city of champions, every district is doing everything it can to tighten its belt. It's no and it's no different here. Um this board has worked extremely hard with the administration over the last several weeks. Uh it's it's been very trying. Uh it's not an easy thing when you're talking about maintaining excellence and trying to enhance everything that the kids need in this city and at the same time thinking fiscally responsible and also trying to understand the things that you're

003going through, but I can tell you right now every voice up here has done that and I'm not saying that because I have to, I'm saying that because it's true. 30 years of me doing this um putting budgets together, this is probably one of the most difficult tasks that a board does and this one specifically in 2026-2027 has been really difficult because of all the challenges. Uh we did get lucky again um because of the equalization aid and the funding, we'll talk about that in a few minutes, to get a 6% increase. Okay? Uh and we'll talk about what that really means because I still think that historically in the city it hadn't been explained um the it probably should have. It's no one's fault. Uh it's just, you know, budgeting is not as easy

004as everyone thinks it is. And when you're in your house, when you're home, your family, it's a little different, right? You A + B equals, you know, A + B. Right? And then you have a little bit over here in case something happens and we have some accounts over there. Doesn't happen here. You have to remember we're working on a school year versus a fiscal year. That's number one. Right? Everything's cut in half for us. Right? Number two, we have restricted funds. We have costs that soar that we don't even know about. We have students right now and parents that are saying, you know what, we want to move to Garfield. We want to move to Garfield because of the programs. We want to move to Garfield because of the special ed programs, but we're

005not going to move till January 2027. That's when we're going to make our way, right? Cuz it makes sense. We'll move in January, we're going to start packing now. We don't know they exist, but they're going to cost some money, right? So, we need to account for that. Those are projections. Very difficult. And again, I want to thank the board did an incredible job with that. So, again, talked about it last year, what's the what's the process and I'm not going to go through the whole thing. We'll be posting this as soon as the meeting's over. Um you know, basically just some of the main things you talk about, it's input. It's input from from basically what's happening in classrooms moving up. What are some of the mandates, mandated programs. New Jersey has a statute

006where you cannot have an unfunded mandated program. However, you can have an underfunded mandated program, right? Which is what happens in the state. Not not saying anything that the legislators don't know already. Uh preliminary budget, we're kind of on the um the 5:00 time right here. Uh on this little um clock here, watch hand. Um preliminary budget was developed. The state aid was was released. That was that meeting that we had Saturday morning. We wanted to get that done. We worked over the weekend to get those numbers for the board. Because of the April time frame, we're one of only a several districts in Bergen County that everything's kind of compacted, right? All these other districts are watching us right now saying, "Hey, what's Garfield going to do?" They're doing it right now. Like we're

007we're setting the the bar, which is another thing that's that's really interesting. We're like the lightning rod right now. Their budgets aren't due, I don't think was like May 7th or something. May 7th. Right? So, they're going to watch. They're going to see. They're going to see everybody getting up and talking. What's going to be the effect? So, that's where we are here, all right? We submitted the budget to the county. They gave us preliminary approval um several days ago. You may have seen it on the um on the website. So, we weren't really we're allowed to post it so you can see what we had, but at the same time it wasn't approval to we just got approval finally today. We had to make some um adjustments to some of the enrollment projections, etc.,

008especially with special ed numbers coming in and definitely charter schools. Our charter school students are over the 650 mark right now. So, we have 650 students or 668. 668 to be exact, students that live in the city limits and go to charter schools that we're responsible for. So, it's something you have to keep in mind, too. And then that brings us all the way up to tonight. Um and then the the uh the hearing where you guys now get to uh interact a little bit. Um the board gets to um look at the finalized and vote hopefully to adopt this tonight so we can kind of move forward. Let's look at some of the enrollment numbers. We're at 435 with preschool. Obviously, since I've been here now, we had some preschool changes a little bit

009with regard to some of the state funding and and some of the areas with um Greater Bergen uh and Head Start and whatnot and this is where we're at, 435. Um you know, the uh the changes have been a little bit um progressing a little bit up and down. Uh we are we have a um you know, I don't want to say it, but I but I will because I think you need to hear it. The projections for next year are even bigger for preschool. Preschool, we get a lot of aid, okay? It's called PEA, right? Preschool expansion aid. Preschool expansion aid. Uh however, it's not 100%, okay? The board still has to put a percentage of the local tax levy into the preschool amount. So, it's important that you understand that. However, I think

010the past 2 years we've done an excellent job trying to build everything that goes to the preschool into that preschool grant that we can, including salaries and and and and things of that nature. All right, here's our current enrollments, you know, as of March. So, you know, you see the numbers. Um they're a little bit little bit different um from last year, a little bit down a little bit, uh which I'll show you. There's a slide coming up. School 4 has 420 students. 6 has 349. 7 has 287. School 8's at 381. School 9's at 354 and School 10's at 281. Again, we may be one or two up or down, plus or minus, because again, this is a March number and we are at the end of March, so uh but this is where

011we were when we were when we were producing all this information um for the board. >> [clears throat] >> The current middle school and high school enrollment as of March was 951 for the middle school and 1284. This is in-seat enrollment we're talking about. Kids are actu- actually in seats. Okay? So, this last three slides are for kids in seats. So, if you're an out-of-district student or a special needs student, you're not on this roll. If you're a charter school student, you're not on this roll, okay? Um so, these are the kids that are in the seats. So, again, uh pretty decent number um enrollment-wise. Uh we have an expectation that middle school will most likely be over a thousand within the next year or the year after. Uh again, just a projection. Okay, and

012this is the slide that kind of says it all. I'm going to try to explain it in such a way so you you see where the city is headed. Um So, we went we went with September numbers and then current numbers, all right? So, so if you see here, we had a um little bit under, I think it was like point 98 or whatever, percent increase in total building enrollment for pre-K to 12 students. We had 4,705 in September with the September number and as of right now we have 4742, the numbers we just talked about. So, in 6 months, you know, we're we're almost we're almost 40 students more. All right, so that's 6 months. So, again, yes, you get aid for some of those students, but all those things were not, you know,

013were projected from last budget cycle. So, it's just to give you kind of an idea what's happening. Overall enrollment, the entire city, the entire city, the kids that we are responsible for, whether they're in the seat or not, is at 5,514 students. So, this district has 5,514 Now, I'm not talking about private schools. I'm talking about schools that we're responsible for, charters, um the academies, out of uh out of district students for uh special needs etc. 5,514 students. Again, within 6 months went up about 0.9. So we're still under 1%. But a 1% growth in 6 months that we're not expecting is is something that to consider. I think this is extremely important so that you understand that even though students may not be in the seats, we are still responsible for them because they

014are our kids, right? Parents pay taxes, they live in the city, they're you know, they could be they can get any program that they need here. All right, so we're responsible. Those tuitions are higher than our pure per pupil spending here. It's just the way it is, okay? And we're responsible for that. The the the interest the most interesting thing with charter schools and private schools or academies and whatnot is that we get an adjustment number in January. So January will come, we'll get a bill, but we don't know what that bill is yet. So that's another hey, it's January welcome because that's the beginning of the fiscal year, right? So January's rough. We get the new increase in health benefits, we get the increase in charter schools etc. Just to kind of throw a

015number out of for you, any type of aid we get, any type of money or whatnot, 10% right off the top is is basically set aside for charter schools. 10%. Okay, so just just kind of keep that in your mind when we're talking about all these things. All right, it's a little fuzzy, but again, those will be posted. Our goals remain the same. We've added a lot of great things here the last 2 years including some academies, but we want to maintain the core mission which is education. Okay? And that's curricular and extracurricular. People think extracurricular is just sports and stuff. No, kids sitting in a cafeteria eating learning how to socialize is also extracurricular. It's also very important. All right, all those things are important. So we want the English language arts, math, science

016etc. etc. All those things that we've talked about um at length every year even before I've been here. And those programs continue to do well. I can't wait to get up here when QSC comes back because we said we have some really good stuff to report on QSC. I'm very excited. Teachers, administrators have done an incredible job here and support staff. Uh we're continuing to advance the academies and different programs. We're we're working on more CTE cooperative technical education programs, right? Or cooperative business education programs. The ambassador program that we put in this year is going to be something that's incredible for the community and for these kids that are going into leadership roles in the colleges. Schools that have ambassador programs, those colleges look at those kids first. Some of the elite schools in

017the state and around the country, those kids get picked for the Ivy Leagues. We have kids that are definitely on par or above that. Um high school has the business academy, the criminal justice and law academy, the help in health and medical sciences academy which is now going to welcome some new Anatomage tables which I can't wait to have everyone in here walk around and kind of look at after we after we install them. Uh we're probably one of only three schools in the entire state at least that will have those. Uh and the media communications academy. So again, these academies were created to push those students that want to excel and guess what? Let's talk about it. We're all if we have coaches in here, we're all competitive. I want to keep those kids

018here instead of going to the Bergen academies. Right? Stay here. Stay in the city. Right? There's no need to go anywhere else. You want to we want you to stay here. So we have to provide those opportunities and that's what those are here for. Um another part of the goal here is to review the district personnel needs. All right, we'll talk about that in a little bit because I think that's a hot topic right now, but you know, are there ways to maintain these programs and shift personnel? And that's what we've been we've been contemplating and thinking about and talking about in some high level meetings. Maintain the high standards for a professional development. Be surgical with you know the professional development. Don't just put something in there that everybody have Well, let's just take

019this cuz it's leadership or cuz it's classroom management. No, we're working on specific things for specific people who need specific areas of improvement. That's coming. You'll see that coming in the summer and for next year because again, if you remember my plan when I got here, the first year was I need to you know, embrace this place, learn everything, learn all the personnel, learn about my administrative team and everything. And now this is the year where we're going to start making some major changes with regard to accountability, with regard to programs and the needs of these kids moving forward well well into the future as future Boilermakers. Um This bullet's probably something that we've talked about a million times. We're finally working on it, but guess what? It costs some money, right? Technology, facilities and

020infrastructure upgrades, phone. I know that sounds weird. You upgrade phones for? Well, Mr. Labou and I are working on upgrading the phone system here because sometimes some work and some don't. Um you know, for zero zero extra cost to the board. So we're actually working on that right now. Electric signage, I know a lot of schools get things donated, but I have to be completely honest. One of the most embarrassing things here for me is the high school sign when people come through. We have a beautiful city sign and then our sign has it's all this pixelated and you know, I mean it it's a perception thing, right? So that's something that we really need. You know, I think the board's made a commitment to kind of working on that and that's something that's definitely

021important I think because you know, we need to feel good about you know, what's happening inside that building and it definitely [clears throat] perpetuates to our students and what they're doing. Um the repair and enhancement of facilities, educational spaces for both curricular and extracurricular needs. We have a beautiful field there. We need to make sure it's maintained. We need to make sure that's being utilized. Um again, maintain those existing programs. RTI with response interventions and multi-tiered support services. Those are things that were COVID terms, right? But they were in schools for a million years. We just call them different things, okay? And again, the learning loss is real, but learning loss is for every kid in the summer, right? It just happens. Um but again, we're going to continue to strengthen those programs. You're going

022to see some shift in that those programs. Definitely some shifting. Uh that took me a little time to wrap my head around, but we're ready to roll that out as well um for next year. Uh and then expand STEM and I like calling it STREAM now. I put the R in there for robotics, right? Because oh, when robotics came out, only a couple schools did it. Well, now robotics is the the wave of AI. It's the future, right? So you know, if you walk in Stop & Shop or whatever, there's a robot walking around you know, trying to clean stuff up. So I mean again, we want to really really make sure that that's infused in the curriculum. So these are the district goals. Go back to the special education goals which you all know

023what those are. We want to support the out of district tuitions and transportations. Our teams are doing a great job trying to keep students in the least restricted environments, but sometimes those students needs we just can't do it here. All right, and that's our responsibility. Um the student services, evaluations, therapy, something called semi. Our team does a great job getting that money back okay to medicate thing, but they have to be reported. They have to be documented. Um you have to meet IEP and the aligned materials, technologies. Our life skills and our autistic programs here are phenomenal for these students. We'd love to expand that into ESY programs beyond 18 and 21 year old programs. Expand some of those. And I think the most important thing is getting our students back here into least restricted

024environments. Okay, regardless of your disability, if we can if we can help you here, if we can challenge you here, you should be sitting next to your friends. You should be getting on a bus with your friends. You should be playing sports with your friends. That's the most important thing. It's special special ed. I have a child that has special needs when he was growing up, there was nothing worse than seeing him you know, dissociated from everyone else. It was the worst thing for him. Okay? And that's very important to me and I we do a great job, but we need to continue to put money into those resources to expand some of those things down at the elementary middle school level because that's where it's most important. Not saying the high school is not

025important, but to work on elementary and middle school programs and special needs so that our kids can basically test out in high school so they're ready for the real world and do something called DVR which is vocational, you know, readiness. That's the goal. That's the goal. And our team does a great job, but we have this board has dedicated the time and now again, more budget to to support those things. That's the important thing. Those are the kids that are most important to us with regard to these life skills things. Technology, continue to upgrade, repair the critical needs. I've heard it a million times. Oh, why is this? Well, everybody talked about fixing things before I got here. We fixed it and then there's problems again because we fixed it for too much money. That's

026not true, okay? If if anybody knows anything about saving money or budgeting correctly coming in and getting things done, it's me. Every place I've been had those same issues. You know, my first 10 meetings here, kids were getting up. Kids, students, not parents, not people complaining, not just gadflies coming here to yell at me whatever. Kids coming up here pouring their hearts out. This board made a commitment to fixing that and it's and we're doing well, but we need to continue to do that even the technology in the extracurricular areas, right? Yes, guess what? Sports uses technology now. And guess what? So do we now in the city of champions. It's incredible. We're one of the last schools to do it, believe it or not. Okay, but now we do because that's what happens with

027technology. The technology you use today is not the technology that happens tomorrow. How many of you changed your phone in the last couple of years? Of course you did. Everybody does, right? We have to keep up with those things and that's what budgeting does, right? So that's an important piece. Technology modernization is exactly what we're talking about. This board is now committed through leases through leases coming up so that's no impact on the tax dollar that our students now will be receiving through a rollout program new laptops. Same thing with our teachers. Why? Because the last laptops we purchased were pre-COVID. They don't exist anymore. They just don't. We can't even upgrade parts of it or it's not fast enough or whatever it is. All right, so again, we found a way through creative budgeting

028to make sure there's zero impact and that's what's in this budget. Um system optimization, all these programs, PowerSchool. We had some issues moving into PowerSchool, big transition with SIS. Okay, we're there now. Renaissance, you've been trying to get Renaissance and EduCLIME working for several years. Our team this year finally laid it out and we're ready to use these things. I can't wait to get something called PowerBuddy in here where again your phone, this PowerBuddy little little app talks to a parent and says, "Hey, your son didn't do his homework yet. We didn't get it." It's pretty incredible. I can't wait to do that. That'll be next year's budget. Um [snorts] Office 365, we use it, but why are we only using it for email? There's plenty of things we can do with these, right? With

029these different drives and stuff. And then Teams, same thing. And that's where we integrate to our phone systems as well um because again what COVID did for us is realize that we can have quick meetings, right? And quick like follow-up say, "How's this student doing with teachers and staff?" Right on, you know, right online. Right, back in the day everybody had to come to an office, every right? Now it's like, "Hey, 2-minute check-in or whatever it is." You know, I'm I'm on calls like that every day um moving in and out and just easier because it's it's difficult to get around in a place like this. It just really is. There's too many things going, too many moving parts. Even the stuff we do after school, there's too many things going on to get to

030all of them. You guys know that, right? You're parents, your community members, there's something going on every day. All right, here's our facilities gold goals and these are the things that have become important what we've been talking about. Continue to coordinate vendor services for HVAC, electric, fire alarm, all these other safety systems systems that you might not think of. Okay, our team here, some of some of our team members have slight expertise in these areas, but not the expertise to maintain these areas. I'm sorry. Okay, it's nothing against these men and women, it's just they don't have it. So, we have to put these maintenance plans in the place you're going to see that in this budget. Integrated pest management, you you know, at your house if there's a mouse or whatever you come in

031here you take you start spraying everything. You you can't do that in a school. Okay, it's it's a policy that this board put in place. It's a program. It has to be ratcheted up in such a way so everybody's safe. Okay, and everything's done correctly. That's also a major part of the facilities goals. Water, lead, indoor quality management and and monitoring. We take baseline data in the summer so that when a teacher comes in and says, "I'm I'm coughing a little bit. I don't know what's going on." We can test for different things like mold or air quality and stuff like that because these buildings are older, we'll just say older, we won't say old, right? Um but, you know, we're doing the best we can to make sure everyone is safe and to remedy

032problems as they come up. I don't know what's going to happen in September or October. That's why I'll talk about a surplus in a little bit that the board's never had before, but it's in this budget because you don't know what's happening, okay? And then environmental testing. All right, those things have to occur all the time. Um >> [clears throat] >> also maintenance and systems for district vehicles. People forget about the vehicle fleet just like they forget about energy costs, right? Energy costs for the board aren't free. Same thing with the you know, changing oil, gas, stuff like that. Um big cost, you know, gas is almost $4 a gallon right now. Imagine what it is for our trucks, okay? Um outdoor spaces, we're trying to upgrade as many of those as possible. Bus depot

033enhancements, love to love to move these buses out of here and put them somewhere else. Okay, we're thinking about that. Same thing with lighting upgrades throughout the district. The board operations committee and I we've talked about that ad nauseam. We have a couple of proposals after this budget's put in to try to, you know, systemically change all the lighting. One to save money and two for quality. I guess they're both on the same level, right? But, I don't know if you've upgraded your your houses yet with LED lights or whatever. We have to do the same thing here. Um electric car and bus charging stations through a grant, we're trying to also make that a revenue stream which, you know, you guys have all heard of the cooperative stuff and whatever, but we're trying to

034do it as a revenue stream. And then classroom and restroom renovation. Whenever I bring up bathrooms, everybody always says to me, "What's the big deal? Bathroom works, you can flush it." Well, I don't know anyone who has a bathroom in their house that hasn't been renovated since 1940 or 1950. If you still have a bathroom that's the same as when the house was built in 1950, please let me know. I'd like to take a picture of it because I don't think anybody's done that. You change a sink or whatever. It's the same thing here, okay? Your kids and our staff members live here. They live here every day. Okay, it has to be a warm place, it has to be somewhere where they're safe, they feel at home, right? If you if you put nice

035paint on a wall, they won't mess it up. Okay, that's old thinking. All right, it's the same thing here. And this board is dedicated to making those changes, but we know we can't do it all overnight. We don't have the money for that, but we can budget for it so that every year in a plan, right? In a in a maintenance plan or in a long-range facilities plan which is due in May, we will have this done so then 5 years everything is, you know, as fresh as it could be and and as we continue to main maintain programs. I put this up last year, shared service agreements. Mayor and council were willing to sit and talk about. There's a lot of different things that we can share here and I and I and hopefully

036we can sit and talk. I know I'm meeting in a few weeks about certain other things, but I mean there's different things that we can definitely share in this city that can save all the taxpayers money. So, I can't wait to speak about that um at some point. All right, so we're projecting to spend $693 less than the regional limit. Okay, so the regional limit is $2,900.78 I'm sorry, $2,978 for administrative cost per pupil. We're going to be doing less than that, okay? Which is if you really think about it, interesting. Okay, and that's administrative costs, costs of all those things that you hear about salaries, etc. So, we're doing again more with less, right? I hate saying that, but it's the truth. I only I only speak what's out there. >> [clears throat] >>

037This budget has a 5% projected tax levy. That's what we're proposing tonight, okay? We'll see the numbers in a second. Um and but these are and these are the revenue projections. I know for a lot of people, you know, it gets a little confused confusing maybe. Um but, you know, there's state aid in there. We did get 6% increase in state aid. There's some federal aid in there as well. However, the local tax levy is almost is $39 million, $39.1. All right, that's an important piece and unfortunately has to go up a little bit and there's another slide that kind of breaks it down. There's one? Okay. Okay, so there's your total revenue projections. It's any type of simple accounting. The revenues, right? The left side meets the right. The revenue has to equal what

038the expenses are. It's very simple, okay? Boards of education have very limited ways to make money, okay? You cannot make money by charging kids an extra dollar for french fries. Doesn't happen. That's a restricted fund. That money has to go back into the food service. You can't charge kids an extra dollar for a hamburger and go hire a teacher. That's not how that works. Okay, um you have aid, you have tax levy money, that's really basically it. You want to bring kids in on a tuition basis to go to our schools, our academies at some point? That would be great in a couple years if I could stand up here and tell you that. Kids are dying to go to our medical academy and use the Anatomage tables. That would be fantastic. It's a revenue

039stream. Coppa, the cooperative um the cooperative program that we're using um for, you know, services and for supplies and we we already have four. There's more, but we only approved four last time. Uh districts wanting to join us with that, revenue stream coming back to the board, right? These um things that you see around the schools with the ads, it's a revenue stream. All right, it doesn't matter if it's $5 or $5,000. It's money coming in. Very limited. Most districts don't even do any of this. I applaud the board for allowing me to put this forward. Why not? Why not? If you're allowed to do it, let's not be lazy about it. Let's bring some money to taxpayer. Every dollar goes back to the kids. That's the idea. And here your revenue sources. I think

040the only thing I want to point out about this and again, this will be posted is that green piece right there. Okay, that green piece. All right, that's your special revenue sources. So, basically and I'm sorry, that's state aid, okay? Um basically all of our funding is is from the state. 61%. The tax levy is that blue part in the in the in the in the upper right upper right hand side. Okay, um and that's on your property taxes. So, again, see that we are basically because of some of the decisions in the past which I'm not blaming anybody for. I happen whatever happened happened. I don't know what was happening at the time. But again, this is what happens um as, you know, you see some 0%s, you see some things that were cut

041or things that weren't cut, okay? Where we now have to project for some of those some of those things. That 27% should be a little bit more over to the 30 32% area to help us out a little bit. It's going to take a long time to get there because this board is very cognizant of the amount of money it's going to take to do that, okay? And how that's going to hurt your pocket. So, we have to be patient with that. The biggest issue is that that 61% could take less we're in trouble, right? Because we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what the state's going to do next year. We have no clue. The equalization aid formula, you know, everybody thinks they know what that is, but it's very simple,

042okay? It has to it has to all balance out. But, there's places that have lost money and they're like, "Wait a second, we have the same amount of kids, we have the same amount of poverty, why do we lose money?" Because well, when you build new beautiful buildings, right? The assessments go up and when the pilot money goes somewhere else, well, guess what? The the the uh the state doesn't know that. They just know that that new building, right, is ratable. So, you need less aid. It's not how it works though, right? We all know how that all that works. So, the more developments that come in and things like that, really the less aid you get. So, look at some of the surrounding towns that maybe lost some aid. What's because they have all

043these buildings that are going to fill with people that are going to pay more taxes now to go to that 27%. Right? But, that's that doesn't happen all the time. So, again, you have to realize that 61% is extremely extremely extremely important to this board right now. And last year, I got up here and I told everyone during the health care stuff, I I tried to say everything I possibly could and we all know how that went. And I also said that we're in trouble. We're going to we might go in a deficit. I wasn't sure. And then last minute, boom, we get 6%. Everybody's cheering, yay. And I'm like, woo, we just kicked it down the road for a year. And what happened? 6%? Boom uh this this year, boom, 6%. Can't keep kicking

044the can down the road, all right? At some point, we have to try to mend this issue and that's what we're doing with this budget. Okay? State aid, there's your state aid I just talked about. The increase was 6%. We got another another 5 million. Another 5 million on top of that. Incredible, okay? And again, when we did the preliminary budget, we talked about the health care costs, etc. that basically ate all those up. Um so, that's kind of, you know, where we're we're at with some of that. Um but, you see the state aid number one up from 82.9 to 87.9. >> [clears throat] >> And where did that go? Okay, so, the premium increases for uh for the state aid, right now, just right now, which is important that you remember I just

045said that, is 3.5 million. Charter schools, 1.2 million right off the bat. Went right to right to that right to those those students. And they have a right to go there. Don't get me wrong, but let's get them to come back here. Utility costs, just like your house probably went up cuz I just paid my bill and it doubled. Sure yours went up just as well. 850,000. Almost That was like almost 50%, right? Of How much? 45% increase from last year. Okay? Again, it's it's the same thing we're all going through. It's horrible, but it it's it's unfortunately a reality. Same thing with your general fund appropriations from one year to the next. Again, I will post this as soon as we can just so you could see it. I'm not going through all these

046things, but you know, a lot of those things that you see here where the difference is, the increase from last year to this year is 6.7 million dollars. Okay? And that includes the SDA assessment that we get, our capital outlay, charter school payments, everything that we need. Okay? And just to make this very clear to everyone, if something breaks, we don't get to call up the SDA and say, "Hey, we need it fixed." That's not how it works. Okay? They give us a certain amount of money every year as an allotment and that we can use. It's usually a million dollars. We already approved that for next year. The board then approves what they think they need it for. And we can attenuate it, we can amend amend it if we have to. But, it's

047not pick up the phone, "Hi, SDA, our boiler just went." That's not how it goes. But, uh they'll help with emergent needs, meaning things that are happening, not emergencies. Okay? So, they'll give us a million dollars and say, "Here, main maintain this now or main you know, do some kind of maintenance on this work." Not, "Oh my god, it broke down and fix it." That that's if if if I can just put that to rest cuz everybody just thinks, "Oh yeah, call the SDA." It's not how it works, okay? They build buildings and give them to you. They give you the keys and they say, "Here you go." Right? That's how it works. Um which again brings me to the new building opening up next year, hopefully, okay? And some of the funding that's going

048to have to happen to open that up. It's not it's not as easy as take this building and squeeze it into that building. That's not how that goes. Um so, we have to be really cautious of that when we're making any cuts with this budget because, you know, anything that's cut with this budget that the board needs to bring back needs to bring it back basically twice, right? Which would be a very big impact to you. So, the board has also been talking about that. That's why we have the transition team that's going to be ready to go once this budget is hopefully approved tonight, we'll start having those meetings as well. We didn't want to meet prior to that because we we we would really probably have to backpedal a little bit if things

049changed. And [clears throat] there's your total appropriations. Um again, the biggest thing here is that blue area, salary and benefits. Okay? Those are contractual agreements that are negotiated in good faith with the board. They're decided upon, okay? Not this board, obviously. None of the units had with this board. Um but, you know, one board inherits the other board's um you know, approvals. That's what they do. They they continue the they can they continue the cycle. So, right now, that blue is not going to change. So, before we even like, you know, get up in the morning, we know that that percentage, which is 68 or 69, um What was it? 69. So, 70% is going right to salary and benefits. And now you see the increment increase, right? One year to the next for for

050all um uh workers. And then the benefits increase. And that's where you're at. 70% before So, we have 30% of the budget is what we're actually talking about. 30%. Charter schools, this is a very important slide. From 2022 2000 to to now, we're we're at 10% increase, okay? And that's only a proposed increase. Okay? I I'm going to hypothesize that it's going to be higher than that, okay? Um I don't know. I have a whole other charter school thing, but today is not the day for it. I I again, we need to maintain programs. We need to build the the uh the capacity for our staff, train our staff, get qualified staff to stay, retain them so that kids don't want to go anywhere else. So, parents like, "No, I want to stay here with

051Mr. Jones. I want to stay here with Mrs. Smith." That's what we need. Okay, so here are the slides that are, you know, probably most important. Um health benefit increase is 9% 9% increase on the tax levy. So, it's 3.5 million, give or take a few there. Energy costs, like we said, 45%. $850,000 increase to the tax levy. The charter schools, 1.2 million I'm sorry, 13.7 million overall, but a 1.2 percent I'm sorry, 1.2 million dollar increase from last year's budget on the tax levy. Substitute costs, nearly 2 million dollars, which last year was 851,000, around there. But, don't forget, last year the sub rate capacity rate, okay, was about 30%. So, that means three of every 10 classes were covered with a sub. So, you figure out what was happening. Okay? Now we're looking

052at 90s. Got to pay for that. Okay? And these are substitutes that we we try to get the the most qualified people, the best people that we can from from the company that fills them. Um but, you know, if you if you if you're someone that's going to say, "Well, that's a waste of money." Well, then again, when I first got here, we were talking about only three out of 10 classes were being covered. You know? So, again, I I don't I think that's something that, you know, you have to kind of weigh out, but we're here for academics, right? So, we have to at least get our substitutes to get, you know, those lesson plans in there so our kids can kind of have learning every day. Uh but, the board and I have

053some strategies for that as well. So, we can't talk about right now, but I think they're pretty good strategies. Um special education tuition is an increase of 1.2 million dollars. And I got to tell you, I still think that's too low. I really do. I'm I was talking to Mr. LeBleu about it. Very nervous. I'm not that nervous though because we do have a surplus. Okay? And I'm going to spend a few seconds on that so cuz I think people need to hear this. Okay? How are we going to control these costs? How are we going to be fiscally responsible? Well, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at position control. We're going to look at where individuals are. We're looking at all teacher and staff member certifications. Okay? We're

054looking at where we can adjust some of those things. Uh again, I've been here a few years now, so I have a little bit more of a lay of the land. Um we're estimating about 60 60 less positions. That's all I'm saying right now. We've We've We've looked at 60 fewer positions, which is about a 7 million dollars savings in the salary and benefits appropriations. So, let's be really clear. The 5% increase is 5% plus 60 positions. That's how we balance the budget. Okay? That's how That's our That's where our fiscal um you know, responsibility lied. Okay? Pre-K special ed in-house, the savings there just by bringing our autistic students in is saving us almost $500,000. We need to continue to do that. This budget also talks about a 3.5 million dollar um payout to

055the 2006 2000 I'm sorry, 2026 2027 school year. A payout to the 2026 2027 school year. Okay? Board did this last year when I was here as well. I think I need everyone to understand it. I know the board does because I've mentioned it, okay? That means that we are taking 3 and 1/2 million dollars from this year and instead of spending it here, we're saying we need to help the tax levy out and we're putting it into next year. That's not good. It's allowed. You've been doing it here for a few years, but it's not good. Okay? Should be using all that money in that year. All right? But think about it. If we didn't do that, we'd have to come up with another $3.5 million, which I think comes out to another 22

056positions or something like that. Okay? We also have a projected surplus, a projected surplus of about $3 million in this budget. Okay? The board is not used to that. Okay? Also, with capital and maintenance reserve of a million dollars. When I first got here, the capital reserve was $1. Last year in August, I uh recommend to the board and they accepted that I put $750,000 into it. I think it's an audit finding, but that's okay cuz we needed it. Okay? You need to understand why these things are important. Okay? A surplus is important. This is actually less than what we're supposed to have. It's a best practice. Okay? Surplus isn't if I want to buy, I don't know, tickets to a game or whatever it is or or start No, that's not what it is.

057You know, 10 students special ed move into town. Okay? Food the food arrears. We have we have an issue with kids can't pay for food for something. I don't know, whatever it is. We need to we need to fix something. Um we can move some of that into we could use some of that for uh the capital reserve and maintenance, too. Those are things that you need in case there is some kind of um you know, issue. It's Without a surplus, you were you you have a better chance of going into deficit. Okay? Without a surplus, you have a better chance of going into deficit. Deficit. A lot of these Bergen County towns that never thought they would ever be in a deficit are in trouble now. Okay? The surplus gives you a little bit

058of cushion. It's not going anywhere. If we don't need it, we kick it out into next year. Just like we've been doing, but hopefully maybe a little less. All right? It's budgeting. Again, I think at your house or in your own family, you probably have something aside. See, you have you have one pot aside to go on vacation, and you got another pot on the side in case God forbid the roof falls in, right? Okay? Well, hopefully you do. All right? That's what we need here, too. Same thing with that capital reserve maintenance, okay? So, instead of taking that surplus money and putting it into the tax levy so that we all save $6 or whatever, which I know is important, okay? The more important thing is to make sure we are fiscally responsible so

059that I'm not here in next June saying to the board, "We're in a deficit. State monitors coming in. We can't control our money cuz we couldn't budget the right way." Doesn't make any sense. Okay? And again, the board uh um the BA and the board have a uh have a very strong relationship when it comes to surplus with regards to transferring, etc. etc. It's not just like we just use $10 here and there. That's not what this is about. Okay? This, in my opinion, and I can't speak for before I've been here, but this is the healthiest budget that you can possibly have. You have a surplus. You have a capital maintenance reserve. Okay? Again, surplus is a little bit less than it can be, but I think that's extremely important knowing that things happen.

060Things just do happen. Okay. Two more slides, I think. Here's the local tax analysis. Okay? You got the 5% on the levy. All right? Again, this will be posted. There's a lot of stuff on here. I think it's important to understand that even though we quote you on a number on an assessed uh house, okay? I don't know what your house is assessed at. And if there hasn't been a reassessment a long time, your house is probably assessed pretty low. Okay? So, that's number one to consider. Okay? Number two, the town or the city collects taxes throughout a year, right? January four quarters, right? January-December. We don't operate that way. All right? So, I might say that your tax is going to be $10, but you may actually only pay $8 this year. All right?

061So, again, when you when you get it, you you know, some people always call not from here, but everywhere I've been be like, "My tax bill is different. You lied." It's not true. Okay? It's the craziest thing about schools, right? It's a different year versus a um a a city year. Okay? So, on all of this, the average home value is $285,000. Not how much your house is worth, how much it's assessed at. Okay? So, basically on on um Where am I looking for the fiscal year? Top one. Sorry, I can't I can't I don't have my glasses. I didn't think I had any. So, $245 is the annual increase. Okay? $245 on on that average home value. So, it's it's technically $20 $21 a month. Okay? That's your impact. Okay? Probably a little less

062if as they collect it. Now, here's your analysis over the last few years. Don't want to get too much into this, but I think it's important to see the historical context. Back in 2021, we had a 0%. Okay? Then the board, you know, said, "Well, we got to fund a couple of things." Went up to 9.6%. 9.6%. That's actually a low number still for us. In order to fund everything to be added to be into adequacy, we probably need around 16-17%. Obviously, that that would just be um not really attainable right now or tenable right now. And then it went back down to a 0%. So, again, not faulting anyone. I don't know what was happening at the time or what it was going on, but technically, if you look at it, a zero and

0639.6 and a zero means you have to split that 9.6 in half. Okay? So, for two of those three years, the board was only raising taxes really 4. what? 8%? Right? 8 16, yeah. Okay? So, even though 9.6 looked great and but it was really it really split you guys in half. So, that perpetuates a cycle. So, in '04-'05, it went to 4.5% throwing millions of dollars into the next year. Last year, same thing. 4.5% millions of dollars into this year. And now we're going 5% and we're throwing millions of dollars into next year. And for the first time, unfortunately, we have to reduce positions. Okay? So, you see how this is going, right? Because when you see all this, okay? I want to show everyone real quick what a 0% tax levy vote does,

064right? So, if this board right now turned to me and said, "No, we want to go 0%." You know, besides the 60 positions, minimally 24 more uh 25 more positions right off the top. Okay? That's impacting kids now. Don't care how you slice it. Okay? Right now, this budget has not affected any programs. Okay? All the sports are there. Anything that people have been talking about outside on on, you know, on all the social media, this board has given me marching orders not to affect the kids. Okay? We don't impact kids. And I I want to tell you, I'll say it. And they can shake their heads if they'd like, but I brought up some ideas and and certain individuals up here almost ran me over, right? But that's my job. My job is to

065say, "Listen, I have an alternative." But they're like, "No, we're here for the kids. Find a different way." And we're going to do that. We don't want to hurt any staff members, teachers. I'm very surgical with this stuff. Well, everything will be, you know, hopefully at the end of the day, nothing will be disrupted. We we we have some ideas. We've been talking about it. Um we have some time. Um but again, now is not the time to discuss some of those things cuz we don't know what's happening with retirements. I don't know yet. All right? We're going to we're going to find out. Um again, 0% There's rising costs, reduced student services, loss of programs, overcrowded classrooms. I mean, just at this point right now, just not a good idea. But I love putting

066that slide up there because I think, you know, it's easy for these men and women to go outside their car and everybody go up there go zero. Go zero. You can do it. It's not that easy. It's just not. Okay? My favorite slide. 30 years, 20 years I've been doing this. Mr. Geisler and I talk about this slide all the time. He loves it. This this city, this district in this city is $17.7 million under adequacy. Okay? All of the individuals that love me from all the towns I've been at have always got up at board meetings telling me that this is a fake slide. I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, let me tell you something. This isn't my slide. That's my favorite part of this slide. This is given to us by

067the DOE. The DOE is saying to us that the Garfield kids need $17.768 million more in this board's budget to be on par and adequate with other kids. You don't have to believe me. It's right there. Go call the commissioner. She'll tell you. Okay? That is directly re- related to some of the stuff with taxes over the years. Some of the other things with, you know, maintaining some programs maybe back in the day that shouldn't have been here. I don't know those things. But all I'm saying to you is this. That's a real number. Right? If you have a kid who's in school here right now, that's the number that should concern you more than anything else up there. That means that a that a kid in a in a in a district that's at

068zero right now is getting $17 million more in services and things that your child is not getting. That's an incredible thing [snorts] when you talk about equity. You know, people talk about equity, they talk about color and creed. It's not about that. It's kids on the north side of town getting the same things as the south side of town. There's kids the same place in Bergen. There's not any reason why a student in a more quote-unquote affluent town in Bergen County should have anything different that our kids have here. So, that's a real statistic. And my job is to work with this board to chop that number in half over the next couple of years. And we will do that. And not on your not on your dollar, but doing some other things. But that's

069a real number. Last year, I think I think the number was higher last year. I think it was 19, I think. So, we've done a pretty good job trying to get it down. I could be wrong, but I think it was higher. But that's a real slide. So, when you're taking all these pictures of your slides, make sure you post this one, please, on social media. Okay? District is facing funding shortfalls due to the school funding system, but we're on the other side of the school funding system. We're on the positive side. Districts that are like, I don't know, $100,000 over adequacy, they're getting money taken away. Okay? So, we're on the other side. Local efforts to raise money. This is why we're trying to do these revenue sources. State aid, you know, it can't

070keep up with us. We need We need again, another We need double the state aid we're getting. It's not going to happen, though. Okay? We need to continue to to to change that so it's not impacting Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Tomko. All right. Now, I'd like to open up the meeting to the public. Uh we can discuss items regarding or any questions. So, we're [snorts] opening up for questions on the budget presentation. Please state your name and address. Abdel 33 Wood Street, Garfield, New Jersey. I'm here to talk about the budget. I'm not here to talk about the threats Mr. Gaber and other board members made to me this last Saturday. Good evening. My name's Abdel I'm running for the Garfield Board of Ed this election in April. As someone who deeply

071cares about this community, I want to take a moment to ask important questions this year's budget. I'm going to direct these questions directly to Mr. Alvin Gaber and Adrian Diaz. As candidates running for this year's election, if elected, you will be responsible for help oversee and make decisions on these budgets moving forward. First question I have. With the new school five project coming in at 3.5 million fund balance already used to support this budget, what is the projected tax increase needed for next year to sustain both? Has that been calculated? And if so, what does it look for our taxpayers? What are we talking about laying off teachers as you stated, it is hard to find teachers. When we find them, we need to pay them more. So, we're getting rid of teachers just to

072hire more next year at a higher rate. The math isn't mathing. It really isn't. And the second question I have is if the state aid was reduced next year, as it has been around many other towns, how much taxes need to increase just to maintain the same level of spending? I could tell you with just simple math, if it dipped to our emergency saving funds, we would have to increase it about 15%. The largest Garfield would probably be seeing, honestly, in history. And hopefully, you guys can answer my questions and not leave it to the super. Also running. Question isn't for him, either. Through the Through the chair, please. Marlena 67 Morris Ave, Garfield. Um I'm curious about the charter school cuz for example, I think Tomko, you said there's 684 kids in charter school.

073Okay, so 668, but on their budget, what they post, they are counting that we have 1,190 kids from Garfield in their schools. Also, I'm looking at like a year before, year 12,508 Well, 12 million 518,201. That's what it says that you guys paid them, but on their documents, it says they received 12,370 Uh oh, I'm sorry. The um 384. So, your math is not matching the charter school math. So, I'm just curious if there's ever like an audit because it it just doesn't match. Like that's that and then this is from their budget. No, cuz you're like saying changes, but that's where I got it from. But you don't have to answer, but in the few in the My thing is, there should be some sort of audit cuz your numbers are not adding up

074to their numbers. And that's a lot of money that could be here. It might be just, you know, miscalculations, but that's like 400 kids. Um and then I'm questioning your math cuz I'm just confused, but I could see the board this thing at your office tomorrow. Because when I look at this per pupil thing with all the salaries and benefits, the administrative salaries and benefits, the maintenance salaries and benefits, uh with benefits, this thing comes out to like 108,341,948, but from the salaries you sent me the other day, the Garfield teacher salaries, including yours and maintenance, that whole list, that's only $53 million. So, I'm just questioning how you got the number, but I'm assuming I could see the budget tomorrow. That's all. Thank you. So, my name is Alexandra I am only one My

075address is 152 Sherman Place, Garfield, New Jersey. And I hate reading and standing. So, as we speak, on March 24, 2025, I stood here and raised several questions about the raising expenses related to charter school and school school transportation, Garfield. Unfortunately, I did not receive any response. So, today I'm here again repeating those questions because transparency and accountability are part of your public obligation. Let's start with charter school. The original purpose of charter school was to give a family more choices in education, especially in areas where traditional public school weren't meeting students' needs. But if that is the case, then what does it really mean for Garfield? Are we saying that our own public schools have lower standards? That our teachers are less qualified? Or is there some form of favoritism that divides our school

076community instead of raising the quality for everyone? According to financial report, because of charter school tuition, it has surveyed dramatically from 2024, 4 and 1/2 million, to nowadays, 2026 27, almost 13 million. That is a huge amount of local taxpayer money. Money that could and should be supporting Garfield public school. As of October 15, 2025, you have 31 Garfield students attending private schools. And um one second. One year later, the number went up to 38. So, many questions that My question is that why aren't our own school able to provide our own school and not able to provide students with the same level of education that is getting in private school? Why we sending kids to private school and we are paying for this? I don't get it. Mm. Sorry. Another serious issue is special

077education placement. 35 Garfield students were in 2024 were sending to other districts for special education. In 2025, that number grew grew to 43. And this year is 103 students. How that happened? Are you telling me that it's so many disabled kids who need to be sent outside our district? Because I I kind of it's kind of very strange. That is not just a small change. That is major increase and it raises really question about the cost and complaints. According to New Jersey administrative code, title SA chapter 14, 61A, a district is not required to pay for student special education in a non-public or another district program if the district already provides a free and appropriate public public education here at home. So, why are we paying for services in other districts where sim- similar programs

078repor- reportedly exist in Garfield? I already asked this question by email to the superintendent. The only response I received was to file an OPRA request, but I'm not asking for individual names or private information of the students. I'm asking why a taxpayer and as parent, our district keeps spending so much money outside our outside our own schools. And by the way, I have child who has dyslexia who is under this program, also. So, there are matters of policy and responsibility. They They affect our community, our teachers, and especially our students. The people of Garfield deserve clear public answer, not more silence and redirection. Thank you. And this part about charter school is exactly what Mr. Tom Coste about below adequate budget. If we close them and those kids are going to real public school maybe

079it's going to be like $4 million not $17 million. Thank you. Any other public members care to speak? Nick Discepolo, 136 Mars Ave. I was astounded by this presentation today. Uh $17 million we need to get more tax money from us? Listen. How many people here want to live in Alpine? Why don't you live in Alpine? Why don't you live in Upper Saddle River? Why don't you drive a Maserati? Maybe some of you do. Cuz if you don't have the money you don't buy the car. If you can't afford the insurance, you don't buy the car. It's like he's quoting the Department of Education. How much taxes we pay in New Jersey? 9,600 on average in the whole state of New Jersey. You know who's number two? Connecticut. 5,000. And I'm going to listen to

080the Department of Education on their numbers on how much we should be paying in taxes? That's absurd. An- another thing we one of the things that Dr. Tomko mentioned was about well, we got to hire these we got to get people here because they don't have a if they don't have the qualifications if they can't do the job fire them. It's that simple. If I hire someone to do my plumbing in my house and they can't do the job, I fire them. So if they can't do the job, I don't hire five, six, and seven other people to DO THEIR JOB FOR THEM. When I grew up, when I started teaching, three people in the business office. Superintendent, business administrator, one secretary. How many do we have now? We have a consultant with the business

081department who's responsible for those beautiful contracts that were created. Nobody wants to blame anybody. I'll blame them. Another thing well, we're going to save money here. First of all, we don't save money on teachers retiring anymore. There's no more breakage. Cuz you're hiring people at $108,000 a year. Oh, by the way, the uh girls golf coach that we have there's five members on the team and two of them play on the boys team. But we need a girls golf coach as well as a guys golf coach. I just wanted to put bring that up to everybody. Just say no. But my point is guys, money doesn't improve student achievement. Hard work does. Discipline does. Accountability does. And no, I'm not becoming a politician here. I would rather dig ditches in Louisiana in the middle of

082the summer time than be a politician. I'm pointing out to everybody HERE WHO SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. IF THAT DOESN'T DO IT, WE GOT kids passing in this district that don't belong passing in this district. And they keep going on and passing it on to the next teacher and then to the next teacher and to the next level. And then we wonder why people aren't getting educated here. I see it. So before you start thinking about well, we got to spend more money here. We got to do this. Think about the main purpose of the Board of Education. To educate our kids and money doesn't educate our kids. Thank you. Happy Easter everybody. Hi, good evening. My name is Demetria Sipakis. I live at 159 MacArthur Avenue. Um I thank you Dr. Tomko for the presentation

083because it opened my eyes also to what we're spending ever- everywhere. Um as a concerned taxpayer, I do not have children in the school system. I don't have children. I have nieces and nephews. I've gone through the Garfield education system. I've lived here for going on 40 years now. I've been a homeowner for 10 years now paying a lot in taxes. So what you put up, my house is not that low. Um and I'm concerned with having another tax increase because as I'm calculating it, another 5% for me is about $900 to $1,000. Um because I'm already so high in taxes in Garfield. Um Dr. Tomko, if you can kind of address this, um you had put up there that the Board of Education is trying to work with um City Council. How can we

084work with the city a little bit more to get funds over? Because as I see in Garfield the city makes a lot of money. And I'm talking about the uh Sorry, the um uh court system and so forth. So how can we kind of levy that in order to make more money for the Garfield Board of Education without increasing the taxpayers' dollars? So I would love to understand how we can, you know, work a little bit better with with City Hall on that. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Danielle Marcello, 66 Krakow Street. Um so more of a question. Um you know, looking at the budget, we put the budget for this time of the year. We start the school year in September. I don't see projections actual. I see a revised budget,

085but what were our projections? Are we on or behind or ahead? One of the things we're talking about is a I don't know how much money you said, but there's a fund balance transfer. I think $3.5 million. I have a good memory, but it's sometimes off. That's wonderful. And what I want to know is if that was projected and we didn't spend it, did we overshoot? Where did we save that money? Is that an opportunity for the future? I would love to spend that money every single year in the year that we account for it. However, where does that money come from exactly and why is it a certain considered a surplus that we can transfer over? Uh the other thing I just want to say is, you know, I've gone to school here my

086entire life. And when it came time for me to pick high school it was private or I was fortunate the Bergen County Academies had just opened the I think the year prior to me. And I knew that healthcare was my trajectory. And I could have gone there, but I didn't. And I think one of the things that I can value tremendously is that yes, we want to keep students here, but how do the parents know what you're going to offer? I knew because I was I grew up here. My parents grew up here. We knew the teachers. We knew the principals. We had a very, very profound respect for the education I was going to receive and guess what? I was successful, but it was very, very, very pronounced that this district had a lot

087to offer and the parents in the district had reassurance that their kids could go to school here and be successful because of the dedication of the teachers, because of the culture of the the Board of Education at that time. And we were able to have fulfilling careers, but if the parents don't have that reassurance, guess what? I listen to it every single day in where I work. I work with children. And the parents are saying, "I'm going to send my kid to charter school." Less teacher to student ratio. Free for me. Advanced in technologies. My kid wants to be you name it. Uh an astronaut and they're going to go there. But how do we assure the parents that their kids could get that here? They don't know. They hear charter school. They see it

088on social media. All the buzzwords are there and they're going to send their kids. So I would love for that $1.2 million to come back. I don't know if I cut out or not. To the district, but you guys have to take that show on the road and let people know what we're doing. It's the best kept secret. If if it does come to fruition and we're going to have these academies, parents need to know. Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing none. Motion to approve resolution 5.1. Mr. Taylor. I have a second. Miss Eason. Let's do a roll call, please. Mr. Diaz. I don't make this decision lightly, but I vote um I. Mr. Taylor. I. Mr. Auto. I. Mrs. Eason. Mr. Kielas. I. Mr. Gabba. I. Mrs. Petire. I. Mr. Focarino. I. At

089this time, I'm going to open up the comments uh public comments. Good evening everyone. Shawn Redzio, 96 Autumn Avenue. So, to begin, I won't be as negative as everyone else. I will say that budget isn't ideal. I don't think anyone wants this budget, but the budget that we have presented us today is probably the best outcome scenario. I will say that. But, I will agree with you, Abdell, that the future ahead of us is uncertain, especially with the $3.5 million uh fund transfer, and especially with the increase in cost we have that we can't really fix. But, what I will say is that the $17 million that you pointed out, that's absolutely the reality of Garfield students. And I graduated only 2 years ago. Ask any student if they are proud to be graduating from

090the Garfield High School. I'll be honest with you, the the honest honest truth is, no. We aren't. And I think this is a major issue we need to fix. And I understand you're a former teacher, and it's hard work, but at at the end of the day, when a student arrives to school to a cold classroom or no Wi-Fi, that student simply can't be successful. So, what I will say, the budget was done the best it could be, and the future ahead of us is uncertain, but I do believe that we will have to make the hard decisions eventually, but as long as we include the community, as long as we include parents, as long as everyone who's in the audience keeps showing up, keeps coming to these meetings, that's what's most important. Thank you.

091Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing none. Any comments from the board? You may. Mr. Gabba. Mr. Abdell, thank you for bringing in those uh concerns in directly to me about the budget, the finance, the whole thing. I will get all the information from Mr. President and uh from the BA, and I'll get back to you. As far as threatening, I don't know what you're talking about. Thank you. Any other board comments? Mr. Diaz. Yeah, Abdell, I'm not on the uh personnel or the finance committee, but I will get those answers for you. I promise you that one. Um as for this uh budget hearing, I did come here today honestly to vote no. I own property here, um more than one. And uh I was very concerned about the tax uh hike, you know.

092Um But, sitting on this side of the table, you see everything that's going on. Um I felt like if this was held another year, it'd be a true disaster. I have two kids that go to the school system. My daughter is in number 10 school, my autistic son that's in the ABA program at number nine school, and I know that if I would've voted no for this, uh all those kids there would've, you know, not got the education they needed, and it just just wasn't an easy decision for me. Um so, I had to come open with that. I just have a vision um to bring trades here and maybe more opportunities for all students. There's just no way for that to happen without this. Okay, I'm the chair I'm the chairman of the finance

093committee. This is was very rough. Many, many days and nights going over this, and most of the time we didn't have a full board sitting there. Um as far as programs being cut, sports, music, this is why the budget is the way it is, because we would not take that as an answer to cut anything out for the students. As far as the charter school, a lot of people here charter, and it's not just not people here in general. It's not just the charter school at Mount Virgin or the charter school high school. It's Bergen Academies, Bergen Tech, Englewood Academies, and there's transportation that's also involved with that. Uh the special ed costs are up up the wall. The woman was saying about why do we send so many kids out? Depends what their IEP

094says. If we cannot accommodate them here, by law, we must send them out. There are parents that come to us and insist that they want their students sent out. We do not send them out. Those parents take us to court in Newark under title 6A. And if we can accommodate them, we and the court says we have to send them out, we have to send them out. We're not above the courts. Um No, you are correct with what that book says, but if they choose to get an advocate and go to court, and the court in Newark tells us we must send them out, we must send them out. We have no choice. I'm sorry my answer didn't fit you, but this is what it is. And again, it was a very hard decision on

095all of us. No one wanted to do this. But, we're not taking anything away from the kids, whether it's sports, music, or whatever. Thank you. Any other board members? Uh uh just to kind of echo what um Miss Petire said, we did sit in several meetings to go over this budget, and not everybody was there with us to do it. Um this really was the best we can do. I mean, I'm a homeowner. I have children in school here also. So, I mean, I'm I'm affected by it just as much as everyone else. Uh we were even asked to go higher than what we did, but I think what we came to is the most fair thing that we can do for everyone. We can't raise taxes like some districts to a 17, 20, 25%

096to accommodate uh everything that we get in state aid. And uh we don't really want to cut things for the children. I mean, they're here to get educated. A lot of these programs are part of their education. They're not, you know, like free play time. Uh I I think this is the best we can do, and I I stand by my decision on it. Any other public Any other comments? The The only other thing I wanted to say was to the uh the lady from MacArthur Avenue. I may not understand this, you may not. I just want to make sure I reserve all my other comments for later. But, the the 5% is just on the school portion of your taxes, right? So, that's there's city, there's school, and there's county. So, just to again

097understand, it's not, you know, if your taxes are just for round number 10,000, it's not going up 5% on that 10,000. It's going up on the school portion of that. So, you know, I know the 245 or whatever is an unrealistic number, but 550 is a realistic number about in the city overall. So, if you just double it, it's it's about $500 which nobody wants to spend an extra $500 a year. I know I don't. I'm a homeowner. But, that that's a general, you know, guide for for the number that'll be spent. Everything else, I'll save it for another time. Uh I do want to reiterate what he just said. If we can work something out with the council, and we can do shared services, we can save money that way. And that's something when

098Dr. Tom Cole was talking, uh he mentioned that that's on the works. Hopefully, that the city can work with the Board of Education both ways, so that way we can make sure that we can provide not only the citizens that live here, but the students in this district uh all our efforts in making sure they get what they needed what's what they needed, and what we can we can afford to provide them. I'm also a homeowner. And I understand the the the pain. But, we have to move forward with making things better. And if that takes some time, well, let's do it gradually. This was a hard decision. This was not an easy decision. This is hours in the taking. And um all I could say we did our best to try to make it

099as fair as possible, but we wanted to make sure that what you know, that we provided our district with the best education, whatever we can to make sure that we can move forward and not fall back. For the many years that have occurred, we can't it happened already. Now we have to look forward and I get it. These are things that are going to happen. But uh let's hope that the citizens not only when they come to a Board of Education meeting or they go to a city council meeting, they can express themselves like you did and ask them, "How can we make it better? Let's work together." And uh so I I I thank everyone for coming and your concern is is heard. I'm listening to it as a board member and I'm sure

100we all are and uh thank you again for addressing your concern. Just one more thing and happy Easter to everybody. Can I just I'm sorry. I I didn't know. I just wanted to Mr. Tomko. Okay, Mr. Tomko. It's okay. Thank you. I uh I I just don't want the board anyone to leave here without some misinformation. So I mean I and I appreciate all the answers the board did an incredible job. This is what we've been talking about for months now in these committees. Um and we I guess I'll speak for Mr. Labou that we appreciate your support on this work and make this work. But um gentleman came up here and and kept saying we can't we can't keep throwing money uh at stuff. But I I just want to be really clear that

101when we and if when you look at the presentation again tomorrow, the bulk of the tax impact again Okay, this is this is has to be very clear because I think this is that rhetoric that I've been talking about since I got here. The bulk of the impact, if not all of the impact in the tax levy is health increase increment and energy. Okay? So to get up here and say that this board is throwing money at stuff and that nothing's going to get better if you keep throwing money at it. I wish we were throwing money at that stuff. That's what I've been talking about. And yes, the kids in Garfield deserve way more than the kids in Alpine have. And and and I will say this, if there is a staff member here

102that doesn't feel the same way, then that's the person that has to leave. Okay? So that's why I'm here. But I just want to make that really clear that no one's throwing anything at a this is these are these are costs that I've said since I first got here that we're going to be, you know, accumulating and and we were there. And our biggest problem right now when we talked to the auditors there, I probably shouldn't say this is we don't even know if the 30% is going to be enough when January comes. That's the greatest fear they're saying now because as more districts are pulling out of the state plan we have to pick up that cost. So we're very nervous with that. So. Thank you. Progress. Thank you, Dr. Tomko. Uh again, this

103was a very difficult decision and I appreciate all the work that the finance committee put into it. Uh it was not the direction that I wanted to take with this particular increase. However, we have fared much better than many other districts throughout the state. So we're really appreciative of that. And we worked very hard to maintain the programs because we have excellent programs in Garfield and I strongly encourage parents that are using charter schools to reconsider their enrollment at Garfield because we have excellent programs available to their students, if not better. And um with that, I want to wish everybody happy holidays. Mr. President, I just want to say something. I went to a show here at the high school. Uh I'm sorry, but the talent show was amazing. The auditorium was full and that

104is what we want. We want uh to the parent that said, I can't remember who was I think it was Danielle. Parents need to get more involved. Maybe that that that's maybe some of the answers that we need, right? And I don't mean to cut you off, Mr. President, but I had to say this because this is the second time I went to a show and it was extraordinary. It was awesome. It was amazing. Music is part of another language and it helps our students. So please, we're going to do everything we can. But again, to Mr. Miko and to uh the music teachers, uh middle school and everyone, thank you. Again, Ms. Danielle, I do want to emphasize parents are absolutely part of the solution for our educational system to move forward. Cuz you

105could teach they go home and the parents got I know they're busy. I know they work two jobs or three jobs. I was that parent that worked two jobs. My wife worked one job and it was very difficult. But nevertheless, And that's something that we have to try to continue to to talk and understand that we are a working class community where most parents probably work two jobs and it's very difficult. But we got to try to figure out how we can convey that message. So uh sorry for the interruption, Mr. President, but I had to say that. I just didn't want uh uh these kids to not be recognized for the amazing performance they gave. And uh again, thank you and have a happy Easter. So as I was saying, I would encourage charter

106school parents to reconsider what we offer here at the uh Garfield school district. We have excellent programs and uh we did our best to maintain everything that we have, if not improve it as we go along. Uh we are trying to monetize uh or find different revenue streams. The cooperative was an excellent opportunity to get a little extra cash flow into the Garfield district and um I appreciate Dr. Tomko working with that. There are other things I can't even think of right now that we've been doing to try to get some more revenue here and and keeping any increases to the absolute minimum if if at all possible. So uh I want to thank this board. Thank the administration for the hard work, the finance committee for what they've done to try to coordinate and

107go through all these numbers. And uh with that, I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion. Uh I think everybody did. Can I get a second? Everybody did a second. I'll second. All in favor? All right. Thank you.