001March 24th, uh, the first half of our meeting. Is it on? Hear me. All right. In accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 104 through6, adequate notification of this meeting has been provided advertising in the record. Please stand for the flag salute. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Stand for moment of silence. Thank you everyone. Miss D. Roll call. Mr. Mr. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Munos. Present. Mr. Focarino. Present. Mr. Gaba. Present. Dr. Pivorce. Present. Mr. Moleo. Present. Miss. Sanchez. Present. Mr. Keles. Present. Mr. Ramos. Present. And our student representative, Mr. Chong present. We have a quorum. All right. Uh at this time, I'd like to open up the order of superintendent. Yes, sir.
002Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming to see this. Great to see everyone stakeholders in the room. Um I'm excited to be presenting to you my first uh budget all be here in this incredible city. [Music] Um I like to thank Eric M and uh the business team for helping us put all this together. Um there's a lot of historical context that I kind of learned the past nine or 10 months I was here. Sorry about that. A lot of feedback, a lot of historical context I had to learn uh for the city, things that have happened in the past with regard to funding and other things like that. Okay, I'll hold it. Um funding and stuff like that. So, so, uh, this presentation is something that, uh, we put together for you, uh, to
003talk about how this works, how the bud how the budget cycle works, how we came up with some of the the things that we put in this, um, in this budget for 2526, the importance of it, and why it's in here. So last uh two weeks ago we had a preliminary meeting uh where preliminary budget where the board um through the administration has to approve what they call technical review. That means you have to put everything that you think you need in this budget so that the county could make sure uh that it meets certain standards uh etc with regard to referendum and other things tax levy and all of that. So with that preliminary review, you can't add anything after that, but you can cut. It gives the board more time to cut some
004of these things. So with that preliminary review last uh last meeting, our preliminary tax impact was 5.5%. Since that time, we scrubbed all the data a little bit. We we made some changes and we're we're bringing that down tonight a little bit with keeping some of these really important programs and definitely talking about personnel tonight. uh which is really important and I'm very excited about um because originally before before we had the um the word from the governor of where that um new aid would be, we were told or at least I was told that Garfield would be the other way minus 3%. Which is very dangerous, right? Because you know last year we we were very lucky uh in getting a nice a nice bunch of aid uh which helped out uh to get
005us out of a financial bind. though. So, if you could start here. Okay. So, basically when you put a budget together, it's a process, right? Things come together. You look at historical context where you want to be in a strategic plan. The board had a strategic plan that expires this year or last year. A lot of the a lot of the parts of that plan were not met for different reasons. Okay? No fault of anyone except for the fact that uh things just didn't happen whether it's past administrations or things that happened because of COVID etc. Uh some of those things didn't didn't come to fruition. We need to make sure that those things in that strategic plan are met because I'm going to go over a few things tonight that are really important that
006some of you might not be aware of uh which is causing some of this budget. So the process is sort of I know you can't see this. This will be posted tomorrow uh online or tonight maybe online so you can see it if you want to you want to view it and learn a little bit more but the process basically starts in July rolls all the way around meet with stakeholder groups meaning uh principles what their needs are. I met with all the principles again the last two weeks before the budget just to go over what make sure these needs were correct and some of these numbers. Uh so we'll talk about some of those things. Um and then obviously the tenative budget and now we're here tonight um for this final final vote. Hopefully
007uh the board supports this. I want to appreciate the board and meeting in the uh the uh meetings that we had the financial meetings and and stuff like that. So, let's talk about enrollment because I know preschool's been a a a big thing that uh we've been talking about for the last uh nine months I've been here. There is a decrease there is a decrease in in preschool enrollment. Um these are the true numbers that you're seeing here. We'll go over some of it um a little later. You'll see a little bit more direct stuff. So, around 50 students plus or minus. That's nothing more than in the past because Garfield had a preschool early on. There were there were students from a lot of towns, a lot of people moved here. Now almost every
008town has a preschool program because of the aid that was given out over the past five or six years. It's nothing to do with anything else but that. And and I have to applaud everyone here, the past boards, the past administrators, everyone because you all still do, but you all then had prominent preschool programs. You really did. uh just going into those rooms now. And I I've argued with many people in different districts that preschool is not important, which is the worst thing to possibly say. We all know the earlier we can get kids in in classrooms learning things, the earlier we can identify problems is is better. As parents, we know that too, right? Okay. So, there's some percent changes there. Here's the real enrollments, though. This is for real. Okay? This is the
009real stuff, real time. The number on the left is a number that gets reported. Okay? It's an ASA number. Okay? It's an it's called the October 15th number. The number on the right is a number that we took a snapshot of March 1st. Okay, so you could see some of the differences, the differences in and out. All right, different schools, some some increases, some decreases. Uh historically, um around January, there's a big jump. And don't forget, we're also doing the re-registration now, so we don't know where these numbers are going to be. We don't know if it has anything to do with these numbers, etc. Again, this will all be posted so you can see it. Um, interestingly enough, the middle school and high school have had a jump in enrollment, okay, for whatever reason
010that is. So, let's think about that for a second. Okay. Um, our goal is to maintain those numbers, too, by adding, adding more things for our students to to have uh for accomplishments when they get there. And hopefully that's going to keep some of our students from going to the charters and the private schools, etc. Some of the stuff we're going to uh talk about moving forward uh with regards to programmatic issues. Okay, so there's some enrollment stuff there. uh again. So we're looking at you know 3/4 73.75 increase from those two numbers. So so basically from your September 30th that's our first enrollment number right we get kids in the classrooms for 3 weeks they sit down we know people are in and out there's our number and now where we are. So we're
011looking at a we're still looking at a um an increase total increase of 73%. important to understand that even though the preschool population seems to be declining, we're on an incline on an increase moving forward. And that and that's important to think about when we're talking about facilities. And the main thing we're going to be talking about in a few seconds, which is uh statutory compliance that that we haven't been in for many many years. Okay, next slide. Okay. So, here were here is where the budget allocations for that increase that increase that you saw at 5.5. Here's where it was. The main one right there were 20 new positions. When I first when I first laid out this budget with Miss Derek, I said, I want to put everything in here to make sure
012we're in compliance. All the areas that I've heard about since I've been here. uh the preschool compliance issue, which is a head start issue that I'll be talking about a little bit at the second meeting because I know some people are asking about that. All of those things, how much do we need? How much does this board need moving forward to make sure that all of our kids, all of our staff members, everybody gets what they they need compliance-wise? And that's a 6A regulation in title 6A, which a lot of people don't understand as education as well. It's usually 18A we talk about. Title 6A talks about SDA districts or former Abbott districts. There are specific enrollment numbers for each classroom. Okay. Uh working with some of the unions this year who have actually made
013this uh a priority this year. We'll just leave it at that. Okay. Um we needed this I needed this board to understand that in order to maintain the numbers underneath to stay in compliance that we weren't out of code compliance which we've probably been out of code compliance for 15 years now. Okay. So with this budget and the approval tonight, we're going to add 20 new instructional positions, okay, to the district so that we stay in compliance. Now, what that means is that enrollment in the classrooms, enrollment numbers will go down, smaller class sizes. All right, very important. Now, unfortunately, I'd like to add even more teachers if possible in years to come, but now we're running out of space, right? You all know that. So, it's a it's a space issue. Okay, but this
014these are the these are the teachers right here. Um, we're excited. I just put on an addendum tonight. Um, we finally have a chemistry teacher joining us, okay? As soon as possible. Uh, we met with her. I just met with her the other day. Um, we need to hire another chemistry teacher as well. Okay. So, we have all this here. Elementary teacher and English teacher, language arts, all these things you see here. Um, kindergarten teacher, uh, preschool, LDTC, social workers, behaviorists, all these things are in this budget. Um, and there's going to be a lot of work this summer hiring some incredible candidates. We already have, uh, we've already gone out to different colleges, uh, different fairs. There's one in, uh, Bergen County coming up in Mawa. Uh, so all these things we're looking to
015recruit excellent teachers like so that we complement what we have already. So these are our goals. Sorry, it's a little fuzzy. Um, expand the mission. That's, you know, our our core requirements, right? Our mission here. um advance themies and programs that we've talked about. We're adding public safety, CTE, continue the junior ROC program that we put in this year and a leadership academy as well. Our personnel needs enrollment trends. We talked about obviously initiatives uh with the infrastructure, all our facilities, things that everybody's been talking about every month, right? Every month we got more money from the SDA, thank God, um to help us out with that. uh we want toi continue the uh programmatic uh things that the the the teachers and administrators are doing already. All right. So we want to maintain that
016in this budget. Uh we have to increase or enhance the academic programs through RTI or or multi-tered systems. This is what was big for COVID for the learning loss or you know I think learning loss happens every year in the summer but uh for some of those kids if you have a COVID kid a kid who was you know in high school or middle school transition during co you know exactly what I'm talking about right their social skills are a little different um they're more into online stuff we need to still work with them through these RTI and FTSS measures uh security measures all right there's something from the governor that was put in with some of this aid that was tapped through all these schools people don't know this but every school has to
017have a security guard. Garfield's way ahead of the game on that. We already have that here. Um, but we're going to continue to enhance that. And then STEM, steam, and now stream as well. Stream is robotics, right? The art is robotics. It's an important piece of everything that we do now, uh, moving forward. So, special education goals, instructional supports, program expansion, you know, big thing there is tuitions, right? We have to maintain the tuitions. If something's in IEP, we have to cover it. uh if someone moves to town with an IEP, we have to cover it for a certain amount of time until maybe we don't agree with it. But all these things are happening. Um as more kids uh need these these uh these expanded programs, they they're costly. Okay. Um next, our technology
018goals. We have a 5-year agreement coming in to fix that entire infrastructure program that we've been talking about. Uh I know that past boards have tried to do this. Uh it just wasn't there. It wasn't the money wasn't there. We have a leasing idea to do this. I've been successful with it before. Uh we want to implement state-of-the-art hardware. Uh again, we've had our kids come up here talking about it, right? We put a temporary band-aid on it for Active Directory. Uh and Minds Eye was the was the company that came in early, did that for us on an emergency funding basis just to get some of our kids to log on because some of the switches and permissions and stuff are off. Now, we need to do a whole revamp. It's a big number,
019but we're able because of cooperative bids, we're able to do it over a five-year program, uh a five-year pay schedule. This is the the fir well, actually, this would be technically the second payment, believe it or not. We're going to we're going to try to get some of that in here. Now, um also, Edge Climber and other things that we're putting in here are very important. I know our teachers are going to love that. It's going to help them um look at the whole child and what your children need. So, for example, Edge Climber, click on something. Oh, Johnny did this wrong. Blah blah blah. This is what he needs. Page five and this. It's it's all there. It's all automated. It's all ready to go. Uh I know we're they're going to love that.
020Thank you. Facilities goals constantly working on HVAC IPM integrated pest management policies. We were talking about Ahira today, which is your asbestous abatement plan. All these things that happen, all these things have to be maintained. Um obviously there's there's water concerns uh in the in the city uh lead indoor air quality. Uh, I have a habit of making sure we do air quality samples every summer, right? So, we have a base mark every summer. I think people don't understand how air quality works. Sometimes if the inside of your classroom is the same as the outside of your classroom, that doesn't mean that there's an issue. Okay? Sometimes there's pollen inside outside, but I want to make sure we have a baseline. So, we that's something that's going to be new here uh moving forward. And
021I think that's important to understand because even though it's it's it's not extremely costly, it's important because it doesn't mean that we think there's a problem. It means that we want to benchmark. So if a teacher comes to me or your parent says, "Room 101, my son has a headache now." At least I have a benchmark of where that is, right? So I know where it was in the beginning. So when you see all that testing happening, don't get nervous, okay? We need benchmarks. We want to see where we're at. And obviously, if any of the levels are high, you know, we're going to take care of that. There's also CO2 levels, believe it or not. Everybody's about carbon monoxide, but CO2 is not good for uh for headaches and stuff, too. There's ways of
022fixing that. A lot of schools don't really uh recognize that stuff. um preventive maintenance like we talked about continue environmental test um environmental testing I I just said the lighting upgrades on the outside some of the gym upgrades the dedication to coach Dawson uh which is underway right now for the new gym it's going to be looks spect spectacular um just a lot of perception things as me walking around the district I spend a lot of time outside of my office I don't know why that's a big thing for people but you know superintendent should not be sitting in their office they should be seeing what's going on especially if you're new um as I go around some of these places you all deserve just like in your houses, right? That's why you mow your
023grass. That's why you paint your fence and all that other stuff so it looks nice. People look up to go in your house. I'm like, "Wow, this person takes care of their place." Should be the same thing with us, right? People come from other towns, they come into they come into the gym and they're like, "Oh, this is Garfield." Well, that all stops with this budget. Um, shared service agreements continually to try to meet with the township mayor and council to talk about some of these things. Hopefully hopefully that kind of breaks through at some point. Uh there's a lot of ideas that I have, but again um it's going to take a little time. I think the main one is this and I'll bring it up again. I brought up a few times now.
024I'll make it very clear. We need help when school 5 gets built. I know everybody's talking about oh school 5. I I'm telling you that building is going to go up quicker than you could imagine. The biggest problem is the site work and it's almost done. Having it go up is not going to be an issue. It's slated to open up September of 27. Seems like it's a far time away, but it's not. We'll probably We'll probably get the keys probably like January 27, right? Maybe start filtering people in. I don't know. You're talking about 125 staff members, 700 some odd students. Okay. Um I don't know what the configuration is. I know what the original idea was, but maybe that's changed. We have to meet with the board and discuss that as a stakeholder
025group. If anybody would be interested in that, I'll be putting out for parents to sit on that committee. Um, however, you know, we we need some property because parking and traffic is going to be crazy there. So, have an idea to share a service with the uh with the the township where the board picks up the bill, but I just need them to help me bond. But we we need to talk about that. I think that shared service is imperative or you will never be able to go down out order lane in the morning, okay? Or in the afternoon, okay? Um so so that's coming hopefully on the horizon. The administrative costs and all this other stuff that you're going to see these are all projections and all things that are done by the state
026department. This is not us in a room making up these numbers. It's done for us. It's a through formulaic um probabilities etc. We we spend 364 less than the regional limit. Okay, that's not uncommon because when you see the last slide I think it's going to be interesting. Can I get the next slide? So when we had the 5.5% increase obviously the revenue is higher right so this is the revenue that we were looking to project this is prior to this meeting all right you see some extraordinary aid helps us the tax levy was going to be 37 million um and then other things that you see there which is unrestricted aid which is called semi which is which is information sorry is money you get back for things that you do for special education
027students etc. Okay. All I want to point out on this right here is where 52% of the revenue sources come from. That's called equalization aid. Okay. That's money you get from the state to basically stay afloat. Last year, you got a lot of money and aid here before I got here, which was incredible. Um, unfortunately, you had to lose projects that you had planned. Hopefully, we get some of those back. Um, however, that big bubble on the bottom of the pie or that big pie cut over there is very important to understand that the state doesn't want to fund that. They don't. They want the local taxpayer to fund that. Okay? So, if you hear anything ever someone talk about an S2 district, right, districts that have a higher tax levy, what the state does
028is that that equalization aid is a lot less for them. Okay? At some point, at some point, that half of the pie is going to get a lot smaller here. I don't know when it's going to happen. I have an idea when it's going to happen. Um, after maybe a new governor comes, right? But I'm telling you, it's going to get a lot smaller. Okay? So, we have to start preparing for that impact. It's just reality. Has nothing to do with Garfield. Has nothing to do with anybody in this room. It's just reality. I've seen it happen before. You've all seen it happen before if you just think about it a little bit. So, that's equalization aid. Okay? And and again alto together with that revenue projections in state aid was a 6% increase overall
029because we got that money. Uh as you know we got 4.6% instead of losing 2% or 3% which was incredible. I was very taken back by that uh and very thankful that that happened. So where did the 4.6 $4.6 million go? Right. Oh, they got an extra $4.6 million. What happened to it? Well, first are your contractual obligations. Right now, off the bat, just people working next year, $2.1 million in increases. Okay? So, that that takes away your your aid usually when it helps you out that way. Your insurance when we we're keeping the same health insurance premiums and whatnot. So, instead of the savings that was projected, we did get some savings because people change plans, but that's becoming an issue now, too. We now have to put in $2.2 million extra. That's our
030projected cost healthcare rising for January. 2.2 million. Okay. With the state benefits plan, um, as you've seen, a lot of other districts are moving out of that plan, going to different plans. Uh, again, I still think it's something that we need to look at moving forward because $2.2 million on a tax tax levy to pay for um benefits is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Okay. Charter school enrollment um we had to come up with an extra 300,000. We're only projecting 2% right now. This year, I think it's is it 10% when we finally got the numbers or something like that. You know, we don't realize who's going to charter schools until maybe mid year or whatever we get. So, sometimes you project for something that the the uh state tells you
031what to project for and then all of a sudden they say, "Well, we thought three kids would come and there's 50 kids, so pay us." What? You know, so it's not projected, right? But if I boosted that lineup a million dollars, then everyone here would be like, "What do you mean? Why do you need a million dollars?" Right? Same thing with special ed lines. You have to project for special education students to move to town. How do you do that? It's impossible, right? If a family moves in and they have three special needs children, which obviously they need to be taken care of, right? They're they're part of our family. How are we going to cover that? I'm not I'm not projecting for now. It's impossible, right? So, you give yourself a little bit of
032cushion, but how much cushion is a little bit? You don't know. Okay? And when you have better programs and and people get transportation like you do here for your kids, people want to move here. It's the way it goes. Okay. So, here are the general front appropriations. Now, moving forward, again, this is a slide that you can see later or tomorrow. Um, obviously, it's a lot of information. Okay. Next. Okay. Uh, different pie here with some charter school expenses, etc. Again, it's tough to see because it's so tight. I apologize, but you know, the board has it in front of them. Um, and again, the the town will can get it tonight or right after this. Your capital outlay, I'd like to see that a little bigger at some point because we we we should
033be expanding some some things here with regard to physical parts of of buildings and whatnot. Here's that historical chart. So, in 2223, you had 8% for charter school increase. 2324 10%. 24 25 we had 13%. We're being told to project 2%. I think it's going to be 15%. That's 13% that we have to come up with now when we get that that number. It's like January 13%. At least, but that's what we're told to to budget at right now, right? So, we need kids to come back here, right? Don't go to the charter schools. Well, obviously it's a a parent choice. I get it. Okay. But then then we have the enrollment issues again, right? It's a catch 22. Okay? So, the charter school argument is interesting sometimes, but again, uh, and just for everyone's
034edification with during the re-registration, everybody said, "Oh, all these kids, they don't live in town and stuff like that." We've we've done as much as we can with, uh, with with finding kids that maybe do live in town or don't live in town, right? Um, so we continue to use that with a with a company that we now have. though. So now the uh we we come tonight to the to the um board with a 4.5% increase. Okay. So we were able to shave off conservatively 1%. Okay. 1% bring down to 4.5. This is what uh the taxes were raised last year. 4.5. This is where we're at to to continue to run all those things that we talked about. Using the $4.6 $6 million to cover some of those needs. We talked about hiring
035all those new teachers um that we need to stay in compliance, which is going to be an incredible thing here. We haven't seen that in 15 years. Okay? That takes the burden off of teachers, takes the burden off of supplies, takes does better for your kids in those classrooms with less kids. Okay? Uh it'll boost an extra almost an extra section in at least one or two areas in your elementary schools. Okay? So, all good stuff. Here's where we cut some of that. Okay? Okay, we took about 10,000 out of travel expenses, general supplies about 72,000 mostly from superintendent's budget, uh some security budget that we didn't need some supplies. We were able to um recycle some of this stuff. Professional development, most of our professional development, if not all of our professional development is
036through title money, federal money, which we really have no clue what's going to happen with that, right? So, we're just kind of holding on real tight. I'm proud to say that none of our salaries are tied into federal money, which is actually an anomaly. Usually districts are paying salaries with federal money so we don't have to worry about that. Um purchase services and different things that we have there are a little heavy with 110 miscellaneous service about 9,000. So we took a percentage of each area in those account lines that you see. Um Aiden Lou we're we're we're thinking that not too many stu more students would stay so we have to pay aid. Aiden Lou is that if you have a child that goes out of district to a different school um you get
037a um I think it's like $1,000 or $1,100 to cover some of your expenses. uh if it's within certain mileage, stuff like that. Uh tuition reimbursement, salaries, etc. Energy. Now, our energy costs are going to go through the roof. They're supposed to be 20%. 20% increase. Uh we took a little bit off that to come up with that 357, which is one point. Okay, one point. Uh sorry, not one point, 1%. So, here's that tax analysis, okay, on the 4.8%. The bottom number is really interesting. I know some of you might might be a little bit like jumbled up a little bit here. You don't understand it. You just want to know what the meat and potatoes are. We're getting that in a second. But here's a really interesting number that I know is going
038to be really difficult and I'm sure we're going to get a lot of uh head shaking for this. All right. To try to explain this, the municipal budget and the schoolboard budget is severed in half, right? The municipal budget is January to December. The schoolboard budget is July to June 30th, right? Okay. So, when you're paying a schoolboard budget, you're actually paying half and half, right? It's weird, right? So, it's half of one year and half of another year. Okay. So, the tax levy increase for us is 4.5% on your average assessed home, which here is $285,000. That's not how much your home is worth when you go to sell it. Excuse me. It's what it's assessed at. I am telling you this and it's not to say anything else, but this is, you know,
039how it how it's kind of laid out. If you look here, you see 4.7%. You're like, "Wait a second, that's a typo or whatever." It's not. You're going to feel the impact of 4.7% because the valuation in this town, in this city, is is lower. Okay? it has been lowered this this current year from what we're being told um by the tax officials. That means that this city is ready and ripe for a reassessment. Has nothing to do with the board and it's not the municipal council's fault. Has nothing to do with it. It's the way it goes. Okay, that's what your impact's going to feel like. And I hate to tell you that, but that's again these I didn't make these numbers up. Um so your assessed valuation, what your home value is assessed
040at. If a reassessment goes in and your value, your assessed value goes up, everybody's taxes are going to go up. So, just be prepared for that. Regardless if it's a 0% or whatever, it doesn't matter. It's sort of like if you say, "I'm not going to put in a um uh get a a permit to do my, you know, I don't want them to reassess my house." Well, now the town or the city every 10 years, I think it is, right? Has to go through a reassessment. I'm pretty sure you're close. And that shows it to me right there at 4.7 versus 4.5. So, that's why it's important that we continue to try to work together as one unit here so that you guys don't get hit on all different angles here because I don't
041know how um the city the city um tax plan is going to come out, but I I really think that that average home value is going to have to go up or or it's going to get really high um pretty soon. So, your monthly impact on the average house is going to be $18.50. Okay, $18.50, 50 which I guess we call kind of figure out what we spent $18.50 on. Uh that's what we're asking for. Here's your levy analysis over the last five years. I gave you historical context just so you just where you see the last slide is the most important slide. Okay? Because I want you to see where we're at. Very important. Not this slide, the one after or maybe two after. Not no. Go back. Go back. Go back. Go back.
042Thank you. Sorry, I'm waving my hand. 2122 postcoid you came out with 0%. Okay, board. Incredible job. We're just coming out of COVID. Nobody has any money. What are we doing? Let's tighten the belts, right? We got a lot of money. Got a lot of money. Got a lot of eserro money, which you had to use a couple years later to fill the holes from the zero. Okay. Not the only city that did it, right? How do we fill the holes? Well, there's no air conditioning. Well, it's the way it is. And you could you could you could spin it all you want. That's how it is. Because of that zero, you had to fill some holes because of the you had it go to a 9.6 six because of a field and all these
043other things that were happening. Fantastic field. Great job. All the other things you needed. Then we had to go to a zero again. Okay. When you when you give the township a zero, it's compounding. It's compounding. You know, over year after year after year, there's issues, right? And now if you look at if you look at the next two years, what we're proposing now, last year, we're at a nine again. Okay. I want to try to get this on a track for everyone here where we can maintain those very small increases, but there's a few reasons um why we can't do that. And we'll we'll talk about that last because that's my my biggest slide. But I want to talk to everybody about going to a zero. We want to go zero again. Go zero.
044You know, we're going to vote zero. We don't care what you say. No, nobody said that here, but I'm just saying you hear that in all these different districts. Well, if this board right now or if I propose this zero, forget about hiring 20 positions. We'd have to lose 20 positions. Okay. Um, we would have increased expenses. We would still have the we would have less of that 2.2 million increase, but we'd still have it. We'd have to lose some programs, overcrowded classrooms because we wouldn't be able to stay in compliance. So, that number is not feasible. It's just not. Okay. where we are right now is a conservative number at that 4.5 coming down 1% to scrub it a little bit um to do all those things that we talked about on one of
045those first slides. This is the most important slide besides how much it's going to cost you every month and I don't know if you've ever talked about it here. This is the one you should be thinking about. Okay, this is not a Garfield calculation. This is a state calculation. This is saying that after the board approves hopefully 4.5% tax increase, this district will still be $17.5 million underfunded. Underfunded so that it can equal a district just like us. 17.5 million. That makes complete sense to me as I lay everything out saying that I need a 20% tax increase to give everybody what they need here. Okay, that is an extremely high number. The state wants you to raise taxes $17.5 million to cover that. Never going to happen. It's not going to happen. It's not
046just just don't even think about it. But I want you to remember what everyone here is doing for less, okay? What everyone here has been doing because that number just continually grows. That number grew from two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, that number was 17.2 million. I think we took a percent off and now we're at 17.5. That's a real number. All right. You go to other districts, Bergen County districts that are doing different things, maybe have four chemistry teachers. There's districts in this county have four chemistry teachers. We can't find one. Four. Okay. Their adequacy is plus 200,000. Right. That's they're called S2 districts. They get cut aid, right? we keep getting equalization aid. When that equalization aid goes away, which it will one day, not completely, that number is going to skyrocket. Again,
047I've been involved in districts that have been over $20 million. It takes time to get that down, but you see differences in a whole bunch of different things for these kids because that's what it's about. What these kids need and what they have, not what they don't have, what they have, right? We need to give them more. That's why we're all here. That's what it means. basically means there's a shortfall on the funding system. Um the impact is less programs, long-term effects. You know, why shouldn't a Garfield kid have exactly the same opportunity as a kid a mile away? Why not? Right. Right now, it's because of that number. And it's not because of this current board. It's not because of boards in the past. It's systemic. It's what's been happening. It's time to change
048that narrative. It's time to change what we're doing. It's trying to time to look towards the future. A new strategic plan, a new way of going, everybody working together to make sure all this stuff comes together. So that's it. Thank you very much. Well, thank you. Not a problem. At this time, I'd like to open up the floor. All right. At this time, I'd like to open up the floor for public comment. Um, everybody knows the procedure pretty much by now. Um, at budget only. Public comment is open. I'm sorry, Mr. President. Um, it's limited at this point just to budgetary comments. Public comment for this portion of the meeting is for the budget only. Please comment at this portion uh at this time in the meeting just regarding the budget. There will be another
049agenda and another meeting uh after this for general comment. But if any of the public has comments regarding the budget, now is the time to make those comments. Okay. Good evening, Orlelene Peter, 184 Midland Avenue, Garfield, New Jersey. The budget kind of went fast, so it was hard to look at. So, I'll go over it more tomorrow, but my question is, you've cut and you keep using the word compliance. Don't you think we're rather topheavy? Not talking about teachers, secretaries, janister. We have assistance to it. You're shaking your head. No, Mr. Tomgo. But we have assistance to assistants, which we never had before. We have people getting stipens for doing their job. It's not an extra job. They get a $10,000 stipen per year. I know of two of them. I wish I would have
050brought the resolution numbers with me, but they're doing one job, not two. Normally, when a secretary gets a sip, it's because she's doing her secretarial job and another job. I mean, I'm sure this budget could have been trimmed down a bit more. Again, it was going so fast and not by anybody's fault, you know, but I, you know, want to look over it better. Um, and I'm sure you're going to hit the insurance again next year. You don't realize our teachers are on the lowest pay scale to start. That's why it was so hard to find a chemistry teacher because our pay scale is low. So, at least the compensation of giving them decent health insurance maybe would compensate somewhat for their low salary. And give me a minute. Um, and normally I I guess
051you didn't do it tonight as far as voting on the budget, but in the future, uh, I don't know why. Okay. I'm on a different board than you guys are. I'm on an appointed board where we open up to the public before we take a vote. Opening up to the public allows the public to make comments because there's a lot of times and I'll admit it, I'm looking at something on the zoning board and in my mind I'm saying, "I'm never or I'm definitely going to let this pass." And then when I hear from the public their pros and cons, I change my mind. I change my vote and say, "Oh my god, I didn't even think of it that way." And I think you should really consider having public comments before it goes to
052a vote because I'm sure some of the board members would see it the people's way. I mean, really. Uh oh. Oh, okay. Wait, one more thing. If it's to the budget. Okay, it wasn't to the budget, so I can't talk then. Okay. Thank you so much. Next. Here we go. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Tonko. Committee. Uh, I'm trying to under Oh, 152 Shan Place Garfield, New Jersey. Alexandra Zan. I'm trying to understand why our district needs actually charter school. Why we are forcing to have charter school whose expenses have significant grow over the past three years. I checked the numbers because you post them actually on the website. All the speech is on the website. You guys could find it for the past week. I have to say something about that. um expensive sign expenses
053of charter school significant grow over the past three years from four and a half million to 12 million dollars if I am not mistaken again not every student attending this school is a resident of Garfield yet when it comes to education the quality should be the same as the p as that uh of public students from my understanding over the past few years there have been major issues with charter school in Garfield they received funds for air conditioner Which one you just mentioned that electric bus buses? Yeah, we need it and I can see the future for them. However, air condition for high school is more important at this moment. The electric school buses. Ashcarter school received funds for air conditioning that were intended for public schools only, not for partially public school because charter
054school is partially public school. Furthermore, according to the state regulation, schools must first accept the students who are residents of Garfield taxpayers before enrolling students from other districts provided there is open enrollment. However, we are still supporting students from other districts and covering the transportation con transportation cost. And I'm talking about exactly charter schools which us taxpayers a lot of money. And I think most of you guys agree with me. We have to stop that. We have to start saying to state no, we're not going to have charter schools. Our kids deserve it in public school also has the same education as the kids in charter school and the same tools. Thank you. Okay. in case in case we didn't understand her discussion was just about the charter schools and about uh us having the
055ability to keep our retain our students here versus having our students go out if there's other opportunities and reasons and ways to keep their students here. Don't ask how I understood that but good evening everyone. Everett Egarnto Jr. 51 Jewel Street, Garfield, New Jersey, taxpaying citizen. Also the mayor of this city. Um, I just got two questions. Yes, believe that enough. You know, Mr. Tomco, you you gave in your presentation where the $4.6 million in state aid went to. You said contractual obligations, 2.1 million, insurance premiums, 2.2 million, and the charter schools. Wasn't all this supposed to be already in the budget? Why are you using these things, these three entities, as an excuse of spending $4.6 million that you just found out you had? Should this not have been calculated in the budget prior
056to getting that money? What? What? What? I mean, am I asking something that ridiculous where your head's coming off your shoulder almost? What? What's this? No, you okay? And my my next question within your uh presentation, you had mentioned that you're finally going to get a chemistry teacher. Do um is it going to be within district? Do you know that or you don't know that yet? You said you were going to finally hire a chemistry teacher that we have not had. Is this person that you're finally going to hire within our district? Another question that you don't Okay, that's just the part the sec. So, uh, real briefly, just so everybody's educated on what's going to go on. So, versus us waiting to the end and then answering everybody's questions, we're going to answer it
057on a case by case include, you know, for the budget, just so so that you know. So, once he compiles all all of your questions, then he's going to answer them directly to you as soon as you're done. Okay. So that's what that's what he's waiting on. So they will be answered today. No, I it was just the Yeah, I just want to make sure head movements when I ask a question. I don't think it's that that's from the past and we're trying to address it. And my ne my next question in reference to that chemistry teacher. Um have you ever thought about possibly looking at the science teachers within our district and asking them to get the extra certifications or whatever other schooling they need to do that? because um you know, street talk
058says that there were people that would have done that if they were asked, but I don't know, maybe you wanted to go outside a district like you normally do and not, you know, choose some of these hardworking individuals within our own district. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gardo. Appreciate that question. the uh the the teachers in district have six periods already to cover as much as they can. Uh you're right, whoever told you that I don't know if it was the union or not, but we did talk to the union. They put a nice proposal together. Um we are now going to be going through negotiations regardless with that uh moving forward. Some of the teachers uh I've also talked to the state department uh with regards to trying to get some of that
059emergency certification. So, so that is on the way. I don't know what you mean hire from indist unless that's what you meant. Now, now I understand your question, but your question was confusing to me. So, I apologize. the person on the agenda is not in district obviously. Um so that is a hire. We do now have to find someone else. I'm hoping she could start as soon as possible, but as you know being, you know, former board uh trustee um usually it's 60-day clause that's by contract. So I'm sure she'll get here as soon as she can. That's what we're hoping for, but uh unfortunately expectation isn't that. Um uh the budget for the uh increase would come off the tax levy. So if you have a contractual increase so in the in the negotiations
060for the unions which you were part of I believe um those were unbudgeted numbers um the board at the time when a board budgets four or five years out in year three they're saying yeah in year three we're going to budget for that so the 2.2% which is we have two units negotiating right now so I really know it could be more than 2.2% but conservatively let's say 2.2%. That's something that three years ago everyone knew we'd have to budget for. Um, but the only way you budget for it is by increasing the tax levy. So, the best thing that happened right now was that we got that 4.6 to cover it instead of the tax levy. So, if we had a flat Let's Let's put this in perspect. It's a great question actually, Mayor.
061Let's put this in perspective. If we had a 0% increase on our aid, that would have to be the number I just put up here would have to be 6.5% just to cover the increases in salaries. So, think about that. So, so instead of going backwards, which I thought it was going to be 3% because we did get a memo saying it was probably going to be lose 3%. Now, the 4.6 really helped the city out by taking that away. So, it's not it can't be budgeted for until so for next year, for example, it's probably another well, it's probably going to be 2.5 million next year. So, that now next year, I'm telling you before we even start, we're talking 26 27, we're we're already 2.5 million probably in an increase bracket. So, that's
062that's just from contractual agreement. So, thank you for letting me clarify that though. Danielle Marcelo, 66 Crackow Street. So, I want to start off by saying that not only did I attend the schools here, my entire K through 12 education, but I was afforded every single opportunity that people I went to college with that were not from Bergen County were afforded, if not better. So, what we are Yeah. If not what we had, I had better than what they had. And so I would like to make a very very strong point that regardless of tax dollars or how you twist it, it was the teachers who afforded me those abilities. And every single one of them deserves to be commended because they were not given an excess amount of money for them to be able
063to do their job. They did it with passion. They did it with dignity. And they did it to know that they were going to be here to make sure that I had the best opportunity. I graduated 13th in my class for high school. And when I got to college, people said, "Oo, were you validictorian? How competitive was your school?" And you want to know what? There were people, we were down neck andneck until the very end up until graduation. And our teachers were pushing us every step of the way. Come on, a little bit harder. You You need a 100 on this test. You're so close to passing by. That didn't have anything to do with money. It had to do with the will of the teachers. So, that's the first thing I want to
064bring up because they do deserve to be commended for what they have done for students over the years. [Applause] Thank you. So, this is to the board. Uh, one of the things that I I'm still concerned about because last year I was here for the budget um meeting and we were having a solid budget. We were optimistic going into this school year. Looked good. Our numbers were nice and balanced. Has anyone asked what is our strategic plan for replacement of large ticket items? So, we hear about the boilers breaking all the time. And a fun fact, every single one of these schools um was actually built in the 30s by my family. And so, you're welcome that they've stood the test of time. However, things are going to fall and break. So, as the years
065go on and we know that we're reaching the lifespan, where is it exactly for the board? Where are you asking? What is our plan? If we know that we have a a 10-year life expectancy on a boiler, we shouldn't be preparing in year nine to figure out how we're going to find the dollars and we get hit tax year after tax year after tax year in last minute scrambles. So perhaps we need to be looking strategic and asking where the priorities are for for facilities. The other thing is again with the capital request process, you know, I I don't understand or maybe I'm I'm not grasping for lack of better words, why are we not prioritizing? I saw lovely slides there of all the things we want to do, but you can't do everything at
066once. And the people on the other side of that are the taxpayers. So, when we're getting upset and we're asking and we're fighting back on these tax increases, I don't understand if it's more important to get a boiler. I mean obviously I do I'm being facitious or for us to look at hiring 20 teachers in. So I think that needs to be more transparent. And next I saw that there was a supply cut of $72,000 I believe the slide went a little fast in central office supplies. If we can find $72,000 in central office supplies which will give you $1.5 teachers I'm just going with a rough number. I think we better look a little harder as a board and seeing else where there's money we can find because $72,000 is quite astronomical for a
067board for a central office. And and the last thing that I'm going to say, um, and again, this is not being disrespectful of any sort, but we can't keep solving the pitfalls, the financial pitfalls by adding insult to injury. I think we need to as a board ask are we going to have a position freeze on all non-teer or non-essential salaries in the upcoming year because I keep hearing increase but I don't hear freeze and we should be asking that because the essentials need to be handled first before we can start adding all of these additional costs that quite honestly if I saw a prior prioritization chart they would be last on the bottom for me teachers. Yes. Thank you very much. So I think as a board those are the questions we should be
068asking going forward. Like Miss Peter I sit on a board where I love to hear the public comment first. That is where you need to draw your focus before you vote on this. Thank you very much. Yeah. No interest. Thank you very much for your questions. Let me let me just just a couple things to clarify because I think there was some maybe maybe I didn't explain it. Um, central office supplies are basically just not central office, but it's it's it's the money is contained there. $72,000 is not one and a half teacher salaries. So, I mean, even if it's step one, so you also have to put benefits in there. So, even though um you know, I understand where you're going with that. Um, adding the teachers in the classrooms that we had up
069there is a compliance issue. It's it's code. It's statute. Um, it it should be tied to funding. I don't know why it hasn't happened before. Unfortunately, uh it's been happening here for years. Uh we now have a formal um situation from the union that we have to now we definitely have to take care of this. So, um that is priority one, believe it or not. Um even though, you know, maybe maybe it's not an agreeable priority, but it is uh the enrollment piece. And again, because it's been years, the numbers, if you look at the 6A code, the numbers are very clear that any SDA district or former average cannot be over a certain number. We're over those numbers in over a hundred sections. Um so that has to that has to happen. It's a
070compliance issue. It's a 6A code issue. The board is actually breaking code right now. So with this approval today, um that'll that'll happen. It's if you want to I could talk to you later and give you the actual code so you could see it. Um that's something that should have been should have been done by the administration a long a long time ago. I don't know if it was brought up maybe cut out. I don't know what it is. I don't I can't find any action plan. I can't see any strategic thing like you're like you were talking about uh with re with regard to all that stuff. Uh and just to kind of put on what you what what we were talking about just now about um you know how well you did and
071and all that other stuff and and I'm I'm glad you did. I know this is nothing to do with commending teachers and how incredible they are. I just said they're doing much more with less. I wish I was here for their last negotiation. I think the negotiation could have been done differently so we could have boosted the bottom. I don't know what happened. the bottom and the top seem to be very stale, which is a problem for us on both ends. Um hopefully hopefully next uh next cycle um we'll be able to work on that. Uh regardless of that, just because certain students do well in Garfield, there's other students that aren't doing as well and and excel in other things. And that's why these programs are important to have neighboring towns not even a
072mile away have different extracurriculars, robotics, uh, anatomage tables, all these things, uh, I think that's extremely important and and I think the board hopefully would would echo that because we are here for academics. Some kids are just going to excel. Their parents have the means to get tutors and all that other stuff. We have to expand our tutoring program. We have to expand our SEAL program here. You know, we've talked about that. Our SEO program here has to be expanded. MTSS, we need multi-tered structures. That's the first thing that districts take out. A lot of districts this year are going to take that all out. So, that's important stuff. But, but I I I do I do understand what you're saying that our teachers are great. They do a lot of stuff here. All this
073board all I'm asking to do is to get them some help. Lower the class sizes, hire some more individuals to help out. Um, uh, expand and enhance those supports that are in the classrooms. And, and I don't know, I don't think it's a it's a difficult find. Uh when again you're still if you look at the average fiveyear you have 18% over five years. You know that's not that's that's average that's average taxpayer role. When you get a zero and they get hit with a nine that's a big impact. It's hard to do that. Whatever the reason the board board did that in the first place it's just difficult on the taxpayers's back. So all right facilities strategy obviously moving forward um I agree with 100% there's not I wasn't here so the past administrators
074that are in my role I I we have to ask them there's nothing written down there's nothing there um those those boilers that went down last year and year before they didn't go down overnight um so there's there are plans in place uh it's not easy but again this fixes some of those things and we did get a million dollars in SDA money so hopefully Hopefully I'll help out. Um, Marlene Zawatka 67 Morrisab, I just have a question for the 2022 2023 where you're saying it was a 0% tax increase. Wasn't that because you guys wanted to win the election and that was a promise? Then uh 2022 2023 not co the following um sorry I'm a little sick uh Mr. Mr. Tomcomp, are you planning on renegotiating your contract with a raise in that
075budget or are you sticking to your 5-year contract? And then the assistant superintendent, is he actually going to retire or is his contract going to be extended again or will you be looking for a new person to take his position? And if that's included in that budget, that's all. [Applause] No, there's Okay. Well, the second one's a personnel question, but the first one for the 0% I wasn't Well, she'll have her time. I'm answering. Sorry. The The second one's a personal question, so I I can't answer that, but I I do have a great answer for that one, but I'm just not allowed to. So, hopefully one day I'll be able to. the 0% the Z excuse me the 0% I was not here for but historically here but historically here during elections you know
076boards do different things the the municipal council I think every year there's an election coming up is in almost 0% when they run so I mean historically cities and townships do these things so if you're going if you're going to again if you're going to say it say the full story and not just partial part of it so I mean but you were the board president then but you were the board president then so so you could answer it so answer it then I don't know She's asking a question. I don't know what's going on. Well, we have we have her, Miss Ean. Lissa, 27 Garden Court North. Uh, I want to know how did you determine which cost to cut? For example, uh, shaving maintenance costs when the maintenance is already subpar. And not
077that that's the fault of the employees. It's probably a result of the budget or their maintenance schedule or whatever. But everyone saw the conditions of the air filters recently. So, how are you determining your priorities of what to shave? Um, I also think you need to clarify your presentations for transparency because some of the job positions you listed are not new, but replacements of employees who were fired or retiring. So, it makes the validity of the items listed questionable. Uh, can you also define adequacy and is below adequacy a formal term or your own? And was the technology company you hired the lowest bidder? Thank you. I was just missing one. The extra um positions, those were not that has nothing to do with retirements or whatever. Those are extra FTEES, full-time equivalents. So obviously
078anybody who's leaving has to be replaced. These are extra full-time equivalents. So we had the principles and everyone we looked at the um the numbers in each classroom and if any any uh section was over that or under that wherever it was we had to make an adjustment. Um some schools are getting one teacher, some schools are getting two teachers elementary wise. High schools getting um a few different teachers to stay in compliance issues. Again out of compliance completely. Underqueacy is not my term. That's that's a state term. It's been around forever. Um, that's the equalization aid that we get. So, it's it's right on the money. It's basically exactly what it is. That's a term that should have been told to you in in every budget presentation in the past. Um, well, that's good.
079Then then this number was even bigger um probably years ago. So, we did a little bit better and now we're here again. So, we have to be um be really careful. Um, I'm sorry, I missed one of the other questions. I know the the computer thing was is a is based on a cooperative bid out of the schoolboard association. So that's the computer question. Yeah, but was one there was a question for that. Misha oh the maintenance cost everything basically close cut or just you know you take a percentage through the lines and just say all right we got to do more with less in these lines. You don't want to hurt programs and stuff like that. But did I miss one more? It's on a it's on a cooperative. So it's and it's it's
080on New Jersey School Board Association which the board um which the board uh kind of uh belongs to for lack of a better term as a every board belongs to that. So did I miss Mr. Sean? Did I miss a question? I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. I just did. Thank you. I just did ma'am. Your turn. Yes. Dolores Capzy, 107 Midland Avenue. Um, I was supposed to send you an email, but I couldn't. So, I just I'm going to just um restate those questions, okay? Because I was not able to get to it. Um, first and foremost, before I do that, um, the non-compliancy from what I saw on the screen, who let these teachers go in the first place that put us in a non-compliant situation? That's number one. Number two, your contract, that
081question about your contract is not a personnel issue. There's nothing legal about it except what's connected to the budget. So, it was a valid and legal question. Now, I would like to ask you to bullet the reasons for all the tax increases. You showed us very nice pie charts, but that one, let's say it was 52% that we were responsible for. I believe it was from the state that had said that we were responsible. Well, what makes up that 52%. It's nice to know it's 52%. But what makes up that 52%. Also, um, can we bullet the savings so that we know exactly where and what we're saving on? Do we have any evidence and primary sources to hold up the statistics for a 5.5 mil uh, I mean 5.5% increase? Taxpayers and citizens have
082a right to read the actual communications with each constituent who is included in the tax percentage increased. So if the insur the health insurance there had to be some type of communication specifying what was going to be raised within the structure of the insurance. We as taxpayers have a right to know that. And for every other constituent where the uh percentage increases, does the tax increase percentage equal the total constituences increases? Is it balanced? So for every single communication that you received that said, "Oh, by the way, we're raising our prices and this is the reason why." When you add all of that together, does it equal the 5.5 or are we going to hit get hit with another percentage on top of that um for the budget? Okay. Could you please post a signed
083copy of your employment contract and the dollar amount of each perk you receive? That's not a personnel issue. It's a budget issue. Can you please bullet reasons that entitle you to increases in any area of your new salary and perks that go with it? And can you also compare your salary perks and job description to Miss Siaka's at the time of her departure? Please provide a written bulleted response on the BOE website. And I have another and final uh budget related question. Why doesn't Mr. Kuzmano attend your meetings? Thank you. Are you going to send those to me like we were going to? You're not. Okay. Okay. I don't Oh, afterwards. Okay. Oh, next half. Yeah, next half. Okay. Um, the only the only thing I could say is talk about the healthcare a little
084bit because pe people are talking about that. Um, actually your the questions that you asked last meeting were posted on our website some of those answers because you you didn't you didn't contact me for those. So, I wanted to make sure you had them, but they're on where's it on the website? There there's a section right near the budget that's advertised that says snapshot of the 2526 budget rationale for tax increase and it's it's been on there since last week. Since last week when you asked me those questions I thought you were going to give me a bullet list so I can answer bullet pointed how you asked and for instance it has every line in the department of education. It'll say like budget line number 320 which is total preschool disabilities. It'll have a
085dollar amount and a percent of increase and the rationale that we had to give to the county and the county approved it and then it has it's all on the website. I went through our notes. I had you it was it was sort of like this. It was going fast. I have my notes. That's why I went to you after the meeting. I said, "Can you send me these again in a bolded list so I can get them for you?" But we just put those up there. But we put those up there. So yeah, they're on their website. Yeah. It's not It's public. Yeah. Are you able to make her a copy? Yeah, we could get you a copy. Yeah. The the um the healthcare question is important though. The the the savings on any
086healthcare that would come or be realized would be if it was for any, you know, any units, not just the teachers, it's all the units, but I know we're talking about teachers. If that was to come through, the the the impact would be negotiated afterwards. The that first vote was just to kind of pull out of the state health plan and it' be negotiated impact. If you notice what Patterson did, same type of thing. And then their union president was right in there saying that, you know, now we're going to negotiate the impact and I think they're getting $30 extra dollars uh something that they every time they cover something. So that money goes back into the teachers. So some of that kind of does fluctuate a little bit, but all of those things that
087you're talking about why we base those on different numbers come from the state and come from basically um those individuals that are advising. So if you look at the uh if you look at the increases throughout the years, there's a historical in increase index that allows BAS and superintendents to budget for those things moving forward. So I I think next year's increase to the state plan on January is going to be astronomical. So I think we might be in trouble if we don't we budgeted what we were told to budget, but I think it's going to be more than that because it's been happened historically. And as more units move out of the state health benefits plan, that means that there's going to be more of uh you know, the more of that cost has
088to go on the backs of the people that are in the state health benefits plan. So that's just something that you know, again, if if that's something we talk about and it's something we talk about, but right now it's nothing to really talk about anymore. Um that's that's really I mean that's really all I don't we have this these answers for you though. reason. Oh, the reason for the increase was So, so the way the state health benefits plan works is everybody who's involved in the state health benefits plan, that's what you pay your premium off of. So, different towns like down south, if someone's in state health benefits plan and someone gets sick, we pay part of that premium. Uh that's why a lot of towns want to do a private plan. You know,
089you take care of your own people. That's what it's about. So as more and more experience and more and more towns have more and more issues and less and less towns are in the plan to offset the cost, those those expenses get higher. So that's why every year it's going up because every year more districts are getting out. So Mr. Tomco, if we're being mandated to pay for the the um the the holds throughout the country really for people who share the same health care that we have. Okay. Where is the statutory regulation that says that we are responsible for that? Where is it? That's the evidence. That's the proof. or like where does it come from? Where can we look it up? Well, that's the contractual agreement. The contractual agreement is that we are
090in the state health benefits plan and that's the plan. You have to follow the plan. So, if I call the governor, Sure. I'm going to ask him where does it say that we have to pay for someone else's [Music] uh well sickness? Yeah. If No, not sick. Well, I didn't think it was sickness because they're already paying their own health care. What What are you talking about then? If if why we have to cover somebody else's if somebody else We're not paying for somebody else's sickness because they already have their coverage. So, I don't know. I I'm really I'm not being sarcastic. I really don't understand. It's a very Miss Chrissy, it's a it's a very long time. I would love to meet with you over coffee. We could talk about it. No, no more
091private. What's public is public. Okay. Well, then I mean I could hold the special meeting if we'd like to do that. Maybe we all need to decide that. That'd be great. Actually, we could do that. All right. I'm going to call the uh the governor because I I really think that we should know if we are really responsible for doing that. And if we really aren't responsible for doing that, that would save us an awful lot of money. I agree 100%. I think a private plan is better. So, no, I'm not saying a private plan. I'm talking about if we're getting railroaded, but if we are getting railroaded, we we need to do something about it. Office could give you a better answer. Again, that's a state plan. It's not uh anyone else Joe Delaney,
09215 Garden Court North. Uh, I wasn't going to come up, but you know what happened? Uh, a young lady just came up and asked about the 0% increase, and the response was the city council comes in with the 0% increase when they run. In the beginning of of your presentation, you said you want to work hand in hand with the city council, but then you throw a little bigs here and there. I I felt that has a dig. You know, you you said you're talking about you said about reassessment, you know, that the city is due for reassessment, which we are. That automatically raise your taxes. Just because the value of your house goes up does not mean your property taxes are going to go up. So, that right there is untrue. All right. As
093far as you saying we got $4.6 million extra in state aid and you were afraid that we're going to 3% negative 3%. Well, if that be the case, I mean, and you really did a lousy job thinking that you're going to come in with a negative 3%. You know, the best way to find out is if you think the state's going to cut your aid, maybe let's talk to our state representatives. I don't know if any board member here knows our state represent, but I do, you know, and I speak to them. I asked what is the the best way for the city to lose funding? They said, "Well, really create positions that they don't need. You think you think maybe we're guilty of that?" You know, if they see the state sees you spending
094money properly, they ain't going to take away the state aid. I mean, we've been threatened with state aid being removed from the city guard for four years. And and this year, we got a four almost a $5 million increase. That That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. God bless the state. If I was a board member, I probably I'd be calling up every state represent we have say thank you very much, you know. So if I mean and the budget I mean four.5% increase it is what it is, but just let's spend the money in the right way. You know, I'm sure there's not a taxpayer out there who see the taxes go up. If they see something they're getting back in it back in return, they won't be that unhappy to
095spend the extra money. [Applause] Is there anyone else? All right. At this time, I'd like to close uh public comment. All right. Um board member. All right. I'd like to open up the floor for board member comments. Anyone on the board? So, uh, Mr. D, roll call. Oh, motion to, uh, go into 6.1. I second it. We got a motion by Mr. Focus. Yeah. So, uh there's it's 5.1. So, uh once again, Mr. Focino, motion to go into So move, Mr. President. All right. 5.1 budget. Just a vote on a budget. We're not exactly sure the uh the item number, I'm guessing. Uh seconded by Mr. Moleo. Uh in favor roll call. And just for clarification, there's only one agenda item on this for this meeting. So that's the only agenda item we are fully
096financ I Mr. Papino. No, Mr. Gaba. I Dr. Pivek. Hi. Mr. Moleo. I Miss Sanchez. Hi. Mr. I Mr. Ramos I. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. At this time, I'd like a motion to adjourn this half of the meeting. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Farino, seconded by Mr. Keles. All in favor? We're going to open up right away. So, and we have I want to start right here. So, can can we have um can we have our honores come to the front row? Yeah, but I still they sit. They're sitting in the front [Applause] row. All right, guys. Come on up and sit right here in the front row. Sit in the front row. There you go, guys. Stay the whole time. Thank you so much for staying. Come on. There you go.
097Student of the month. Student of the month. Is there a student of the month here? Yeah, we're trying to have everybody honored in the front. Thank you, Sensei. Thank you, Master Sensei. Okay. Thank you. Um All right. All right. So, I'd like to welcome everybody to the March 24th second half of of the our regular meeting. Um, at this time, in accordance with Open Public Meeting Act, NJSA 10 through 4 through6, adequate notification of this meeting has been provided by advertising in the record. Please stand for the flag salute. United States of America to republic its One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please excuse me. I'm having some kind of allergic reaction. My eyes are bothering the heck out of me, so please forgive me. All right. Um, roll call
098again, I guess. Mr. Munos present. Mr. Focarino present. Mr. Gaba present. Dr. Piverchek present. Mr. Mleo. Miss Sanchez present. Mr. Kelesz present. Mr. Ramos present. Our student board representative present. Mr. I was going to say Mr. Mr. Cheslong. Thank you. We have a quum with Kurt. This is February. Where's Where's my Can barely see right now? I don't know where the uh please excuse me once again. Um at this time um a motion to vote on the minutes resolution 3.1 through 3.2. So moved, Mr. President. Motion by Mr. Focus seconded by Miss Sanchez. Roll call, please. Mr. Munz, I. Mr. Focino. Abstain on 3.2. I on the rest. Mr. Gaba. I. Dr. Pivorc. Abstain on 3.2. I to the rest. Mr. Moleo. Hi. Miss Sanchez. Hi. Mr. Kelesz. Mr. Ramos. Hi. Yes. Thank you very
099much, Mr. President. Welcome again, everyone. Thank you for uh affording me the opportunity to talk to you all at the budget. I want to thank you all for being here um and staying. I know it was longer than we expected, but uh thank you very much. Um but I I think we're going to honor M. You want to give? No, let's let's do them. They've been here for the younger guys. So, thank you for your patience, everyone. Mr. Felix I don't know. She's my eyes were bothering the heck out of me. I could barely read. So, as you can tell, they're turning red. I don't know what I'm allergic to, but that's why I got up. So, forgive me. I might be allergic to that jacket. The kids want to take a minute and show
100off their presentation. We're going to give them five minutes, a few seconds. Got a blood Y two three two [Music] come here. [Music] [Applause] Was that good evening? Was that their kata or they're just they're standing? No, just just part of the the program we have for the black belts. Yeah, they just graduated this uh this past a few months ago and these kids have been there for about over three years. I want to I want to thanks all the board of educations. uh thank you for invite us tonight and my student represented our school and we can say uh our town and this is a very good role model for the whole city and I've been working for the city over 25 years. So finally somebody knowledge uh our job we doing for the
101children and for the all the new generation for Garfield and I hope I can continue working and since I see new uh uh governments in the city and they got to give a good support. So we are hoping we have a good backup uh for all of us and because you know we working for the kids and the kids are the future for the town and thank you one more time for invite us over here for the award ceremony. Thank you and by my good time uh my name is Pascal Pache master instructor. Um I coming from long long um experience. I was in the Olympics 1988 representing Ecuador. Uh I was a Pan-American champion 1987 85 two times and that uh allowed me to represent my country and South Korea. So I'm over here
102try to you know pass my knowledge to the new generation of uh kids. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I got to call the name for the kid that here tonight. Uh Maya. Give me big hand for Maya please. Thank you, Maya. Jerry Boy, say you [Applause] still and Maya, she's my head junior instructor on the school now. Thank you, Maya. And I want to say thanks, Mrs. Sanchez too for uh you always uh stay behind our school and support us program. My son went through the program. He became a black belt. Love the program. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I forgot my other students. Uh listen, it is for all ages. Okay, come on up. Miss Miss Funny for Miss Funny. I'm sorry. He was there. I didn't see. [Applause] Mr. Sanchez, please present
103him with one of our one of our pins. Um, Sensei, if you could uh have everybody stand in front so we could take a picture. Okay. [Music] That was [Applause] Amen. Thank you. [Music] One more round of applause. Thank you guys. Thanks for waiting so long. Excellent [Applause] job. Um, student of the month, Mr. Mo. I don't know if Oh. Good evening. It is my honor to recognize Basara Tusca as the March student of the month. Nominated by our music teacher, Miss Reenda. Basara is an exceptional student, a dedicated leader, and a role model for her peers. She is hard-working, reliable, and always willing to go the extra mile both inside and outside of the classroom. Not only does Basara balance a rigorous academic schedule with numerous extracurricular activities, but she is also part of
104our early college program where she is earning her final college credits towards her associate degree at Bergen Community College. She is on track to graduate May 13th with her associate degree before she even receives her high school diploma. An incredible achievement that speaks to her dedication, perseverance, and drive for success. Beyond her academics, Basar is a true leader in our school community. She serves as co-president of the drama club, vice president of the national honor society, and is an active member of both the math and Italian honor societies. She is also a member of the select chorus, the yearbook club, and participates in various volunteer initiatives from math tutoring to organizing food drives and environmental cleanups. Miss Revena had the privilege of directing Vasara in the drama club for the past three years and notes
105that each year she has grown not only as an actress but as a leader and a person. This year it was as if she truly stepped fully into her light, illuminating the stage and the community around her with a newfound confidence and passion. Most recently in the production of Frozen Jr., Basara took on the role of Olaf. The performance was a testament to her talent and work ethic. Anyone who has had Basara in class knows her as a diligent, soft-spoken, and composed student. But on the stage, she completely transformed, bringing energy, humor, and heart to the role in a way that surprised and delighted both her peers and the audience. She led by example, encouraging her fellow cast members to push their limits and embrace the freedom of performance. Despite her demanding schedule, Bizara remains
106dedicated to her education, her extracurriculars, and her community. Whether it's the drama club, the chorus, or the classroom, she is always prepared, always professional, and always willing to support and uplift those around her. She is a joy to work with, and we cannot think of anyone more deserving of this recognition. Congratulations, Bisara. Good evening, everyone. I am incredibly honored and grateful to be recognized at the as the March student of the month. First and foremost, I would like to thank Miss Reenda for nominating me and being such a big inspiration in my life. Ever since she began working at Garfield High School as the coral and drama club director, she has greatly helped me grow in confidence and grow as a person. I would also like to thank Mrs. Surfos for constantly being there for
107me and for continuing to push me to do my best. Also, thank you to Miss Botton for constantly being there to help anyone and everyone and answering my millions of questions on a daily basis. It is thanks to them that I have been able to make it this far in my academic career. I am also insanely thankful and grateful for all of my teachers for their support and guidance. Thank you so much for everything you do and continue to do for all of your students. This achievement wouldn't have been possible without all of the hard work that you put into for us. I also want to acknowledge my family and friends for their constant support. They push me to do my best and remind me that hard work pays off. Again, thank you to my
108wonderful, amazing teachers. And thank you for this honor. We also have a round of applause for her [Applause] parents. Excellent job. Congratulations. Very proud of you. Um, some incredible stuff. I had the ability to uh see Frozen um and it just was an incredible performance. I can't wait to see some of the rest of the stuff you're doing. and good luck in your future. Um, student government. Frank, do you have any reports or anything or or somebody? Is there another student government? Uh, so Isabella and Jesus will present the board with this uh student report. Welcome. Good evening everyone. My name is Isabelle. I am the secretary of historian government and I am excited to be here to share some updates on what student government has been working on to strengthen the school spirit. So
109first of all um our student government Instagram page has oh thank you has been has seen incredible growth doubling its followers and becoming a key platform for keeping students connected. We've been actively promoting events like the career night and our February career week while also supporting clubs and school activities by sharing their content. This has helped create a stronger sense of unity within our school community, ensuring students are always informed and involved. If you haven't already, please be sure to follow us at ghs.studggov to stay updated with all the latest events and announcements. Looking ahead, um we're planning on uh an exciting spring pep rally filled with fun activities for everyone to enjoy. The highlight of the event will be the much anticipated student versus teachers basketball game and which will bring out school spirit
110and pride to make sure everyone has a chance to participate. We'll be creating a signup forms so students can join different events or take part in the game. Our goal is to make this a truly inclusive and spirited celebration that brings our school together. Thank you. Um, good evening everyone. My name is Jesus. I'm the treasurer of student government and I have the honor to talk about our spring dance. Um, last year it was a success. It was a great night. The people loved it and this year we're hoping that um, it'll be the same. We're we're looking for some DJs and um, we're already making some calls and we're contacting DJs. Uh so if any of you if you know any DJs or any any thing that can contribute to the spring dance, please
111do let us know. It' be very much appreciated. And um we're still working on it. We don't have a a date yet. Uh but stay put for some uh more information. Um we're going to host a poetry night. Um and the current location is the high school media center. Uh I don't know if that's going to be the the location where it's going to be uh the event, but uh we wanted to be we wanted to be for students in the community. So we wanted to to be like an open house, an open poetry night, but definitely you should come out and support. Even if you don't um want to recite anything, you could uh still come and enjoy some beautiful poetry. Um thank you so much. [Applause] Oh, and also just to give the
112Oh, got you. Is Is that right? Okay. So, just to give uh everyone an update on student proposals. So, uh I've been working with Dr. Tomco and the GHS administration on exciting water botting stations. I think it's time for Garfield to have those. Other school districts have those a while back. So, I think providing our students with free filter water um I think it's an essential. So, I'm very happy to be working on that and I'm excited to see um some progress in upcoming months. And there have been also other things that we've been working with Dr. Tomos. I'm very excited and thank you again to the GHS administration for the constant support and our students and teachers and everyone involved. And thank thank you to Isa and Jesus for presenting us with this presentation.
113That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I just want Excellent job. I I've very impressed with student government here. Um we've had many conversations. We're meeting with the board president this I think it's this week, right? So we're going to meet with this week. Um again in you know trying to get out as much as I can meet but some of the ideas that they have and then the proposals that they send full proposals like just phenomenal stuff. So, yep, we've worked on the the water stations and obviously the water's a little, you know, the filters and stuff. We have to be be careful with that. But, uh, all those things we talked about the outside stuff, the, you know, so we continue to work, but I'm really proud of you guys and and again,
114even, you know, the other, uh, reps, too. Just a lot of work being done here. So, congratulations on that. Thank you. All right, we have our school safety services team here an update that they want to give. Um, just kind of a generalized update. So, come on up. first uh you know obviously we have our uh safety services or our guards that are here and uh do a phenomenal job. Um they're all retired officers or in some type of law enforcement or something subsidiary of that. Um, but the main thing that we've been talking about this year is, for lack of a better term, customer service, right? I mean, these are the first individuals that you see when you go to a building. Uh, parents come in, they're sometimes they're myopic, they have I get
115my kid this, you know, they So, again, we've been working on some of this stuff that's important um with regard to uh just that as well as the most important thing obviously is keeping everyone safe. So, gentlemen, thank you, sir. Okay. Good evening. On behalf of our director, James Angara, who was unable to make it tonight due to a family obligation. My name is Glenn Maddie. This is Marco Joe Barendo. We're both security safety specialists at the Garfield Board of Education. Uh we're here to give a little brief report, an overview of the daily operations and our security division. I'll let Joe start this program off the first section and I'll follow up on the second. Good evening everyone. I'll just speak a little closer to the mic because we're sorry. Can you hear me
116now? I'm here. Okay. Uh the Garfield School District has full-time part-time personnel. The superintendent as well will the Garfield Board of Education have placed protecting student staff facilities and one of the district's major priorities security services personnel and responsibilities for maintaining statewide initiative regarding such as drills, fire drills, lockdowns, evacuations, event planning, access to facility control as well as dayto-day operations within the 16 district facility. The security service staff is combined of retired law enforcement officers, personnel, local, county, state organizations. Our personnel have wide range of experience as well as specific training within the background. Security members will contain to continue to train and work with agencies such as New Jersey State Police, City of Garfield Police, New Jersey Department of Homeland Security, as well as New Jersey Department of Education, school security, incentive tax
117uh tax uh excuse me, task forces. Uh the district states regarding security will continue to paramount. The district will continue to provide a safe school environment while remaining at the forefront of our school security within our area. Thank you. Okay. Currently, our manpower is 28 armed retired law enforcement personnel, one unarmed personnel, five part-time staff members, and two evening staff members. Our training includes all guards are uncertified in RPO, which is the retired police officers training, active shooter response, CPR, stop the bleed, GCN, the global compliance network, and behavioral threat assessment. In addition, ongoing state-of-the-art training is mandatory and conducted inhouse or through the New Jersey Department of Education as well as the Bergen County Police Academy. for system operations. Our security personnel are proficient in the district's camera systems and video recovery procedures. Guards
118are also trained with the use of the district's raptor management system for visitor management, emergency management, lockdowns, evacuation shelters in place, bomb threats, and cold blues. We're trained in emergency notifications to staff and police, and we vet all triple balloons. And additionally, we maintain digital two-way communications with staff and law enforcement to ensure immediate response capabilities. Daily operations. All schools are adequately staffed daily. Requests for staffing for extracurricular activities are managed via the district's school due request portal. Cooperative agreement. We maintain our state mandatory memorandum of agreement with local, county, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to ensure a coordinated response during emergencies. Operational updates. We are transitioning currently to new cloud-based camera systems for enhanced surveillance, replacing all analog radios with digital communication systems for improved audibility, and additional manpower to bring all facilities
119to two guards daily. questions. I saw the report. Thank you. Okay. Again, thank you so much, uh, for everything you guys do, all the guards. Um, again, bringing, you know, you here whenever that happened, all of you, uh, it's an incredible thing. We continue to train and, you know, change that dynamic a little bit of that, you know, um, making sure that you're, you know, obviously your most important thing is making sure everyone here is safe. So, that's important. Um uh and just Mr. Zara's had a uh we this meeting was originally the 31st. So when we moved it up he has a something for I guess I could say dinner for his son uh for as a senior whatever it is. So we just want or he would have been here with you guys.
120So but thank you very much for all you do. We appreciate you. Thank you. I want to briefly apologize for that. I know it seemed a little bit uh uh just uh one of our board members wasn't feeling well, so that's why it was a little bit of a distraction going on right now. We have uh someone in the back uh checking on her, making sure that she's okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Just one more my points here. Okay, thank you very much. Um Okay, real quick, just a few things. Uh again, um you know, just an really an incredible place. And I know I'm not just saying that because you think I need to. Um obviously with a new superintendent coming in, especially a superintendent that's not from the city. Um and from
121the outside, there's, you know, there's there's some back and forth a little bit, different ideas. I have some ideas. Obviously, we want to get the stakeholders involved. Uh we had some really great things that when I first came here that, you know, things happen. We had a you know, parent teacher. Um, God bless you. Parent teacher consolidated uh group that we started that we thought was getting off to a right track and hopefully that gets back. We get to meet again on that. I'm sure they're still meeting but uh we haven't had any headway with that. We talked about um music, increasing the music, enhancing the music program. Um we did some of that's that much as we could as soon as we got here and could do that. Again, I don't think you realize
122that you know the teachers really had a you know with the administration schedule some of those things. You know, Miss Bellinger did an incredible job. Dr. Kusmano putting that program in. Um we've done a lot of incredible things. The re-registration is a huge undertaking. Um and again, I don't know where that's going to wind up. Um July 1, I'll be reporting to you all. Please, parents, get your stuff in. Re-register your children. Uh it's really important. Uh junior ROC, all these incredible things. Women's empowerment programs for Girls on the Run coming uh in September. Some I think we're going to talk about that a little later maybe. um Easy Ride, which is a which is a uh a nonprofit organization that provides rides to, you know, people and it's ride share. But our students came
123up with a fundraiser that we're going to we're going to possibly do because we have um citizens in the city who need rides and to subsidize those rides costs money. So, our students are going to help raise money for that, our interact club, and just all just incredible things. The play was phen like I said. The musical was phenomenal. Um the the the concerts before that were incredible. Again, I say that now because the board reorganizes again soon. Uh so again, this is an ending of usually when I end a board year, which we did in December. We're kind of ending a board year again because of of the election coming up. Um which to start there is April 15th. Uh please get out and vote. I'm telling everyone to get out and vote. It's
124important. It's your it's your right. People fought for that right years and years ago. We teach it all the time. um get out and exercise your right to vote. There is no vote on this budget. The budget was approved tonight. Um I appreciate the board looking at that. Um and and really, you know, hitting me with some really tough questions, especially in committee. We we had, you know, five hours of committee meetings back and forth and different parts of that. So, uh I have to say it was a very thorough process. You guys did an incredible job. Um and I appreciate all the of the support, the majority support here on that. and we're going to make sure that money is, you know, is spent spent wisely. Uh there is no there is no vote
125on that contrary to to belief or or where you think you're going to vote. Um it's not there, just so you all know. I keep getting questions on it. Uh even some board members uh asked me about that um not too recently. So So again, let's make it extremely clear. Um the budget that was just passed will definitely enhance the academic prowess of this this incredible place. Um, I'm getting to see it firsthand as I'm I'm in the classrooms looking some of the things that teachers are doing. Just read across America which week week, which I know some of you were also reading. Thank you for coming in and reading. Um, just great stuff. Um, we're working on new scheduling or a different schedule, a little attenuated schedule. Um, so that'll be coming out. The
126the goal is to get all of our students to schedule in all their hands before we leave um uh high school at least. Uh, moving forward. Uh we do have some different uh ideas um for some positions and whatnot. Uh some things that I see that we're missing here um with regards to um compliance and other things that haven't been in place. Uh and when I say compliance, it's not a want, it's it's a necessity. It's supposed to happen, right? There's two things that a that that a board does um that's their job. It's create policy and hire a superintendent. That's their their really two major goals. They don't govern in the schools. They don't do any of that stuff. the two things they do. Statute is what legislators create and they do that as
127laws. Okay? And for us it's usually 6A and 18A, sometimes 2A, which is the criminal code. Um, got to watch some of those areas too with other compliance. We have to make sure we're in compliance. This budget that you all approved tonight, um, allows us to to go in compliance, which I think this this community or this city needed for some time now. And I I I can only apologize uh for where I am now that it hadn't happened prior to that. But uh I think we found a way of doing that and and moving some of the monies around. Um and getting back to those legislators who was mentioned before, they don't give us money. You think they do, but they don't. Um that's all set by formula. Okay? You could ask, we could
128call, we want. It sounds good. Yeah, we'll get you some money. They need to switch that formula around. And they do they do lobby for that stuff and different bills and during elections all these bills going and then you never hear about them again. and all that other stuff and and usually it's public interest but the reality is is formula is formula and originally we were in trouble we were definitely in trouble here uh formula flipped I don't know if it was because of the gubernatorial election coming up or not I mean we could say whatever we want um but it did help us in our favor thank god so uh so moving forward we're going to take that and run with it uh next year I'm telling you already it's we're we're we're already
129going to be tight but I think I know uh some areas that we will be able to keep the budget uh hopefully flat or stable without losing programs or positions. So, um I do need to talk about two two things that are really important. Um so, if you give me a couple of seconds, I would I would really appreciate that here. Um first, I just want to say we we added SA on this agenda, we're adding SAT courses, okay? So our students can kind of, you know, we through title monies, we have a program where students now can sign up for SAT courses and we I think we have like 50 students right now, 48 students. So that's an incredible number right away. Uh it's great for this community. I know SAT courses are $100
130a session usually. Uh so this is great using some of those funds that we've had um with title monies to do that. So I hope all of our students take advantage of that. But that's a plus for this board and I appreciate your support in that. Also, girls lacrosse had their first scrimmage the other day. Just just a fantastic uh thing to see them out there. Uh we have we actually have half the um half of the team's ours. I guess we co-oped with Saddlebrook. So, half the team's ours and it's almost 50% 50/50. Um that's something here hopefully. Um you know, we want to get it. We want something to build like that. Especially this program for girls. If you've ever seen girls lacrosse, it's an incredible game. Come out. Um we'll post the
131schedule. Uh it's probably it's posted. I'm sorry, but I'll get it out for you guys. Um I would love to see um the town, the recck department help help with that a little bit as a feeder. Uh we need and they're doing an incredible job with some of the other stuff. So we we need to make sure we get this on the docket too so that in a couple years we have we have a really tough um tough girls varsity team. Uh which I'm sure they're going to be tough this year anyway. Um but again, this is the type of sport that if you start young and you know uh we have the fields now for it. We definitely have the ability to do that. um you know and and uh you know I think
132it's important thing to continue to add these programs for students that want to play. So obviously that's an important thing. Um it's it's really really uh you know I'm going to tread very lightly with this because I I don't I don't want I have to say it. I just don't I just don't know why it happened. Um but I did send something out with regard to the parking. um up at the field. Um I'm very concerned with the safety of the students, especially the middle school students that walk through that through that area. Um forget about the reasons why or why it happened or if it didn't happen or if it was supposed to happen 10 years ago. I mean, I'm I'm imploring everyone to work together on this to if you haven't driven by
133the morning and and seen that, um someone is going to get hurt and it's it's not about anything else except that's going to happen. Okay? So, and if you think it's not going to happen, then I would hate to have this conversation after it does happen. So, I am telling you and again it the the history of this has been very long time 2013 that area was given to the board um via resolution. The board never accepted the resolution. So, technically it's not their uh property, but they've been using that for I don't know at least five years, let's just say. I think it's way more than that. Um, but at the end of the day, again, there was no communication. It was just something from the police saying, "We're going to start ticketing the
134area now. You can't park there anymore." Um, there wasn't even a lead in. There wasn't even any of that stuff. So, we could all talk about why it happened or how it's happening or what it's what the reason is, it's dangerous or whatever it is. But the reality is this. If we can just all sit down in a room and talk about it and hold that in obeyance until that so that all of our kids are safe, all of our drivers are safe. We had an issue the other day with a with a driver in the city, a young driver who we've all been young drivers, right? Hit the gas instead of the brake and hit a pedestrian. Okay, so these things happen when young young drivers are looking for parking and there's no parking.
135It's very dangerous. Okay. Um again, we need to sit down and have the communications. Uh you know, I agree um that it's not happening. I'm trying to I said it last meeting whether you like me or not, it's not about that. It's business and right now we're talking about the safety of kids. It's very important. So please please parents I implore you uh ask me questions about that or ask what's happening. We we have to make sure that um what's been working for a very long time continues to work so no one gets hurt and that's the only really only thing that to to say about that at this point. Um you know very very important that we continue to talk about that. Yes. a cause of concern. The other thing is um this board
136I want to talk to this board about something that's on the agenda with regard to IT infrastructure. We just put it in the uh the budget. It's there. Um this is a very important thing. We've been here now I don't know I've been to many meetings here right so far almost a year's worth of meetings. We've had students get up here talking about the IT infrastructure. Uh we've had people in the audience that are that get up and talk about the IT infrastructure. Well, here we are. We have an easy vote. It's not cheap. We we were able to spread it over a five-year plan. The students have talked about it. The the Congress has talked about it. This should be unanimous vote. Should be unanimous vote tonight on this IT infrastructure. There should be
137no other reason about it. It went through cooperative bids. It went through your own association. Okay. Um regardless of of how you do decide to vote, um this is something that is needed here. It's something that everybody talked about. Okay. Um, so that's my expert opinion uh with regard to that. I wanted to make it very clear here that that process was done perfectly. There was nothing wrong with it. Uh, this company has done it before. Again, it's a cooperative bid. Uh, and it's definitely something that was needed here. This is the same these are the same individuals that were here and made the fix when I first got here with regard to the active directory that the board uh permitted uh emergency funds to do that. and that's how the kids originally got on
138when I first got here. So, we need to continue this. It's it's again, this is something that everybody's been talking about. So, we shouldn't even have these um these dilemmas when we're talking about how we found money for it, how we did it the appropriate way. Uh and again, let's not let rhetoric get in in the middle of it um with regard to all that. So, um, moving forward, I think it's important that we all understand that as we continue to enhance the district and we do a lot of those things. Um, there are things that just were done differently or weren't done in the past and moving forward, this is where it has to be, um, you know, this is where it put put some place. I've been here now observing um, understanding what's
139happening. Uh, it's interesting. I'm doing this a long time. I've never had two um election cycles this close together. Uh regardless of what town it is, that that stuff gets a little dicey as you get closer. Um and it's okay. And hopefully all that will settle down when all this is over. Uh and we can really concentrate on on the kids uh like I've been doing uh with this board uh since I got here July 1. Everything that we put into play in this agenda right now is for this board to kind of just say, you know, this is our our, you know, our meeting together where we need these things to move forward. So, I appreciate the work that you've done in committees uh this month. I know it was a lot um but
140uh but again, progress. Thank you. The only thing I'd like to update the um the the staff and the students and also the community about is we are making excellent progress on the Frank M. Dawson Jr. Gymnasium. We have secured all the vendors. The first thing will be the painting has been started. It's it's actually the vendor has been secured. It will be started. We are hoping the April break and we've also uh put on the board to approve the wall mural. Um in addition, we are very excited that the um athletic complex, we have the um batting tunnel that's going to be uh approved at this meeting and the back stop extension so that the balls will stop going over the fence hopefully with this new extra I think 10 foot extension. Um and
141that's going to be approved at this meeting. And then finally, um the last thing that was in the budget was to finance the to approve the finance company to get the ancillary lighting for the athletic complex. So once once the vote goes through for that, um that's part of the budget. And then we're going to go out. We have an a vendor that's again in the co-op for lighting. I will be presenting that with the purchase order after this approval for the next meeting. and we're going to move forward on that as best we can. And all the other work orders, we are putting them in priority order um as we should. And the last thing is we will be getting a second round from the SDA for another million dollars in capital projects. And
142that is why I can say that the, you know, add to the line where you said the maintenance line had been trimmed. It's because we're getting this additional funding. And that should probably be coming between September and October. I'm filling out the paperwork now on all the projects that we're going to be looking forward to doing. So, thank you, dear Rich. Um, at this time, uh, any committee reports? I know we just heard there was extensive amount of them. So, any reports? Okay. So, all the reports thing. So, at this time, um, I'm looking for a motion to go into personnel 7.1 through 7.18. So, move Mr. President. Motion by Mr. Porino, seconded by Mr. Gaba Mitch Ro Mr. Minos I Mr. Focarino I Mr. Gaba I Dr. Pivar I Mr. Moleo I Mr. Keles
143I Mr. Ramos I motion carries all right motion to go into finance 9.1 through 9.14 so moved motion by Mr. Focal local Mr. Bos I Mr. Focarino abstain 9.1 9.2 9.3 I and the rest Mr. Gaba no 914 and I the rest Dr. Porchek hi Mr. Mr. Moleo. Hi, Mr. Keles. Hi, Mr. Ramos. I motion carries. Motion to go into education 11.1 through 11.25. Motion by Mr. Mleo. Second. Second by Mr. Kelesz. Discussion. I didn't hear what you said. Discussion. Uh discussion. Go ahead. Yeah. Um on motion I'm sorry, resolution 11.23. Uh I'm concerned and I just I expressed my concerns uh during the work session regarding the wear and tear uh if we were to follow through on that particular uh agreement. Um, so I would like to have the board consider uh reconsider
144that that motion. Uh, in addition uh actually I should have done this first. I'd like to make a motion to amend that contract for 11.23 to include an a monthly enrollment reporting to the superintendent. We said yes in the back to that. We already agreed to that. So with regard to that do you have an existing contract that contracted my understand? Yes, that there is an existing contract that uh which is not that program that that contract must please don't interrupt me, Mr. G. Most people don't know what you're talking about. There's a motion on the floor. I'm responding to the motion. Okay, that is what's happening. Do we need any other clarification? I know what he's talking about. He spoke about resolution 11.23 for the clarification. It's it's not on the agenda. No, it's
145not. All right. 11.23 is an agenda regarding agenda item regarding the use of the field um by a specific club. Correct, Mr. Focarino. Correct, Mr. Guys. Mr. Moarino had proposed a uh amendment to the resolution asking for a weekly update or some some type of update monthly update with regard to the use uh regarding the field due to concerns for the wear and tear. My response is at this point is there is an existing contract that has been signed by both parties. Obviously, we cannot unilaterally change the terms of that contract. However, after speaking in in work session with the superintendent and having that issue brought up by Mr. Focarino, it is our understanding that that will not be a problem and we will have an addendum for the next meeting signed by both parties.
146Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. We apologize for confusion. Yes. And I apologize. I I thought everybody had an agenda. That's why I apologize. So, there's supposed to be a QR code somewhere that we were supposed to scan. I don't know where that's at. Right where? Oh, yeah. So, once again. All right. We we apologize for not thoroughly explaining that. Okay. Well, I apologize. All right. So, uh moving forward, where will we at? So, I'm I'm assuming, Mr. Focarino, based upon that discussion, um you're going to move that remove that request. Well, there nobody seconded it. So, yeah. Okay. So, continuing on. Uh, roll call, please. Mr. Minos. No. For 11.18. I the rest. Mr. Focarino. Uh, no. On 11.23. I on the rest. Mr. Gaba. 11.3. Number two. I Dr. Pivar. Hi, Mr. Mr. Mo.
147Hi, Mr. Keles. Hi, Mr. Ramos. Hi. All right. Motion to go into facilities 13.1 through 13.2. I make a motion. Second. Motion by Mr. Mo, second by Mr. Keles. Any discussion? Okay. Mitch, roll call, please. Mr. Minos. Hi Mr. Focarino. Hi Mr. Gaba. Hi Dr. Pivorce. Hi Mr. Mleo. I Mr. Kelesz. I Mr. Ramos I. Motion carries. All right. Lastly, uh motion to go into policy 16.1 through 16.2. Uh yeah, policy 16.1 through 16.2. I apologize. Make a motion. Motion by Miles. Seconded by Mr. Gaba. Roll call, please. Mr. Minos, I. Mr. Focarino. I. Mr. Gaba. Hi. Dr. Pivorc. Mr. Moleo. Hi. Mr. Kelesz. Hi, Mr. Ramos. I. Motion carries. All right. At this time, I'd like to open up the floor for public comment. Um, we already know the procedure. Miss Marina just ran
148to it. So go a race to the mic to it. Um, can I just ask you a question first? Hold on one moment. Please announce yourself. Marlene Zawatka 67 Morris Garfield. The board docs. You guys all have to read them before you say stuff, right? Like a yay nay. So these two things, did you guys say yay tola or agatha or here's Celeste or Shannon? That's on. So I just want to know what was the yay agatha. So hold on. So if we could do this properly, if you have a question, just please ask it from the mic so the public could hear. Well, my question is you guys don't read the board docs because you approved that. But um my question is for resolution 9.14 with the Minds Eye Technologies. I'm questioning it because
149this was a company used in Belleville, but when I Googled it, it says this company is temporarily closed. The phone number does not work. So, I don't know how you guys gave them a contract for $2 million when it seems the company doesn't exist. And wasn't the owner of the company your running mate for office, Mr. Tomco? Did you run for counsel with the owner of this company? Minds Eye Technologies. Okay. Um, other questions. Um, with the hiring of the new park ranger, will the fields be open to the public as previously promised? Because there is a park ranger hired. Um, with the Vistula encouraging student participation in soccer, would that will that decrease their fees for Garfield students or will it be free for us since I'm assuming field use might be discounted for
150them? And that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Tom. We just wait till the public start to respond, please. Could I go? Yes. Okay. Arlene Patiri, 184 Midland Avenue, Garfield. Mr. Tomco, as far as re-registration, you're making it sound like this was never done before. We have done this every five years, and it worked out perfectly with two women. one that took a stipen for doing it and the other was a full-time registar. So, let's get that clear. And as far as our guards, they do an excellent job. But I'm wondering why do we need a guard in the board office when the bank doesn't even have a guard and you have to be buzzed in? That's a question. Not that I want to see a guard lose his job. Bring him back to a
151school. I mean, really, you don't need a guard. Um um and let's see. And as far as you saying about the having the election change, you sat up there and said, "I don't care when it is, but yet you spent close to $40,000 fighting the city." The city was doing that because the taxpayers needed to vote on a budget if the budget went over. Well, you were able to keep it down, but let's see. Throughout the year, I'm sure there's going to be a shortfall or an error or whatever you want to call it. Um, where we let me see where I am. That that Oh, and as far as the parking, there is no parking in any city around schools. You've been around apparently because as a truency officer, I went to other schools
152to train other schools how to be a truency officer. There's no parking anywhere. So, we don't have to go there that the city took it away and what's going to happen. Anywhere you go, there's no parking. Um, and as far as the resolution 11.1, who is the contract with? can't answer that now because if it's with the soccer Oh, okay. Not a problem. But if it's with the soccer, Mr. Munz, I think he belongs to that club and I think he should have recused himself on that and not been able to vote. And then wait, I'm not finished. Um, and then as far as I think it was a little unprofessional, Mr. Tomco, when you had told them in reference to the internet that you feel this should be a unanimous vote, you have to
153stay impartial. It's up to the board members. And please board members remember he works for you. You don't work for him. And let me see, there's one other thing. Uh Roman St. Superintendent's parking. Oh, and one other thing. Mr. Tomco, I heard you wrote a couple of books. Why don't you donate them to the Garfield library? Because they're not in any library in Garfield, Saddlebrook, Wrington, or Loi. Thank you. Check. Excuse me, Mr. President. Mr. Fino, I'm sorry. I have a question. Um, the first speaker brought up a qu a comment. I understand it's part of public comment. I just want clarification on what the first speaker had said pertaining to Mind's Eye not being an existing company. Can you clarify that for me, please? So, I think Mr. Tomco wants public speaking, Dr. Tomco
154will respond to all questions and if they're not they're not answered at that time, you can ask that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. D. Uh Richard Derig, 71 Herman Street. Um this is for um Kathy uh Duridge. Um, we had spoke about this a year a year year and a half ago about putting extended guard rails like 60 foot of guardrail around the the benches for the softball on each side of Seml and on the side of Palisade because that's a very busy intersection and I was concerned about the safety of our children that are sitting there waiting to bat or in between innings and that was one of the main things. Also, there was um parents were sitting on the outside of that fence on the sidewalk, which to me is very dangerous, and I
155called for uh to put a a gate right where the stands are, and it would be a minimal cost to put that gate there, and it would alleviate that that issue. I know the guardrails are a little bit of money, but it is softball season. I'm glad to see that um Mr. Boswell helped out with the overhang because the neighbors were complaining about that, the the foul balls being popped up. So, I uh I appreciate that. Um about the budget really quick, I just think that it could have been shaved a little bit more in my opinion. I think that we're spending a little bit too much on the secondary law firm which is up over 100% from previous years. And I think that that needs to be addressed as well as non-statemandated jobs. Like
156these jobs need to be looked at and evaluated and see if they're truly needed in the district. Nancy cuts up 484 of Ambessum Avenue. I have seen over and over again in the recent days of themies taking place. In 2009, we initiated at Garfield High School thematic learning communities which were even more in depth than what I see with themies now. Right now I see themies are basically pathways and I am hoping that they will be given the true uh consideration that they deserve because I feel if we had continued with them but we did not because the Abbott secondary education initiative kind of disappeared and so did the ourmies here. They were very important and would have led kids on a definite pathways to their careers. I am hoping that we are taking a
157very serious look at this so that once again they do not disappear. But with that I have an extreme concern because it's going to rely on the teachers that we have. Garfield has very strong teachers and it really scares me to see the possibility of them looking elsewhere when they don't have the benefits that they need. They're going to look, they're going to go somewhere. We don't have great salaries here. And what's going to happen if they leave? We're going to see new people coming in asking for astronomical salaries. So, we're really not going to save money when we have to pay them more when we could be taking care of those that we have. We have the teachers in the early college program. Bergen praised us for the amount of teachers we had that
158could carry out that program. And I do want us to give recognition to those teachers who are working with those kids. We need to credit not just the high school teachers everywhere. You heard Danielle talk about it. That's been the foundation of our schools. That's been the strength. And I have seen many kids leave our school districts and have high success stories. And I want to see it even grow and get better. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening, Nancy Classen, 458 Land Avenue. Um, before I start, I didn't see anything in the budget, and I know it's because the teachers that you're hiring because we are not in compliance. I'm going to ask that you look at your music educators. Um, I believe there was one let go two years ago that was not replaced. and
159with the six elementary schools and I believe four elementary teachers and then the two that are here and Miss Franca will be leaving and I know that you said that she would be replaced and in speaking with Miss De Mo the high school um they could really use you know another teacher possibly maybe a shared teacher between the music uh with the middle school and the high school to cover, you know, general music classes. So, good evening. On March 19th, the city of Garfield had a music in our schools month concert held at the Garfield High School. At this venue, the high school and middle school band played together. The high school choir sang and the middle school and certain elementary schools got to sing with them. Also, the musical students for this year's production
160of Frozen, which was fabulous, performed. I will say it was definitely a lovely showcase of the arts. The parents were beaming who were there, and it was truly magical to see a high school senior singing a more popular song and all of a sudden the younger students singing along with her at the same time. Sorry. Um, I come to these meetings month after month promoting the arts within this city and baby steps are being made and there is potential that is pretty remarkable if we just stop for a second and really look at it. I will say I was disheartened because not every elementary school was represented and I did not see any current board or potential board members for the election that attended. So you missed out on an amazing opportunity. And when the
161high school musical production started and the littles K to five broke out in song and interacted with them, um parents were beaming. Some were in tears. I was upset because my younger son in third grade was not in included in this. His school was left out. So I think in the future we need to try to make these events more equitable. Um speaking on the band as well, there is potential there to grow and I think it needs to happen not in baby steps. Not in baby steps. That needs to happen rapidly. Um I would I would really like to congratulate um sorry I lost my place. Miss Lester, Miss Peterson, Miss Francika, Miss Revena, Mr. Ebles, and Mr. Gets on a lovely performance that let the parents see their kids perform. It was truly
162a magical event, and I hope to see you all at the next one. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else, please? Dolores Capzy 107 Midland. Before we go any further, I don't know if you've been reading the FBI reports that have been being put out with these QR codes, any links that are in them. They've been finding that the hackers have been getting into the links and then getting into through uh people's personal accounts through their phones. So before we go any further using uh technology that AI might be hacking through, we might want to just doublech check with our IT department and make sure that we're safe. Okay. Um the other thing is if you don't mind, I just want to thank and acknowledge the uh the Garfield security team. They're not only
163exemplary in their service but and dedication but the excellence that they bring to every single school event and and and and person not just the students but persons in our district is not repeated in other districts. I don't know if you're aware of that. They are phenomenal and I would like to see them honored somehow because they've been doing it quietly for years and I mean decades. You don't find this level of of um knowledge and skill in other districts. It's not there. So, I think that maybe if we can somehow come up with something to to uh honor them and have a maybe in the summer, whatever it is, where people can come outside, maybe go up to Belmont Hill and and we could acknowledge them. There's a grand stand up there. Um people
164can just come and and appre show their appreciation. Okay. And as far as the IT goes, can we have a list of or explanation of exactly what's being done with this IT? We've been talking about it 1.9 mil, but what are we getting for 1.9 mil? What's going on? Okay. Uh at the last meeting, I had asked what is the acceptable and customary practice for response time as mandated by the local, county, state, and federal levels. Mr. uh Tomco, if you could please respond to that. Also, uh, any public business questions, topics that we bring up at a meeting should not be held, I'll meet you privately. There are no private meetings. Anything that is public should be kept as public. Um, if you can, and I know you can, it's within parliamentary procedure. If
165you can build into the agenda a public concern response whereby the superintendent answers each question made by a citizen during the prior meeting. You state the citizens well I wouldn't state the citizen's name. I would use their initials and I also have a problem with coming up here and giving my name or anybody's address because there's a lot of crazies out there. So maybe if we come up with a situation, a process where if you want to ask a question, we could submit our name uh and phone number, not phone number and address. And maybe Miss um I'm sorry, I don't I don't want to mispronounce your name. Derek, Derek, maybe you could just put a number on that I would be the seventh speaker or whatever, but you would have my name rather than
166it being broadcast throughout the entire world. Um, I think that we could uh state the citizens initials and their question before answering it. The other thing is um for Mr. Tomco, you just mentioned uh the ReadAcross America program. Uh I I don't know, but 30 some odd years in Garfield, we had Read Across America. It was nothing new. Also, in writing, if you could bullet your vision, if you could bullet your vision of innovation for students at all levels, pre-K through high school, I do not want anybody else's ideas. I want your ideas. I would also, it's funny that these kids were here today to receive an acknowledgement because it was something that I was thinking of. Um, can we have a five-year integrated plan for an afterchool free program that where where students we
167can enhance students safety, physical and emotional development and creativity within a social structure. For example, I wrote this be prior to self-defense classes, swimming, singing, ballet and jazz, dancing, painting, drawing, learning a new language, and the like where kids don't have to pay for it, but it's after school, but we're still educating them with something that we can't offer during the day. Okay, I'm done. Um, also, um, I just want you all to understand that again, we're not stupid. We see through you. Thank you. Doing a lot of things already. Daniel Marcelo, 66 Crackell Street. Um, so I just want to understand why every month I've been coming to these meetings for quite some time. There are never any committee reports. It's a little concerning that there's work being done yet the public really doesn't
168have any idea of what we're working on. And in the name of transparency, quite honestly, if there's no work being done, then that's a lot of months of no work moving forward. So, if we can have committee reports that actually are fruitful, that'd be really helpful. Um, you know, the other thing that I've heard a lot of, and I know that Dr. Tomco, you sent out an email to um the community and to teachers and staff, but a lot of the community didn't get that because they don't have kids in the district and they do come to these meetings. So, I don't know if there's a better forum for the general public to be able to understand the content of those emails that come out when it is broadcasted and addressed to the community. Also,
169in regard to that, um, politely saying it, I think that we are kind of going tit fortat between the council and the board of ed and it's getting a little frustrating as someone who's sitting here and listening to it. You don't need to agree. you don't even need to like each other, but as a a community member that has both an interest in the council and in the board of ed, it's getting kind of tiring to see the tit for tap. A mentor who actually taught me told me, "If you believe in what is right, you will always say and do what is right." And I think we're starting to forget that because it seems like we're constantly trying to d throw a jab at the other side. Thank you. [Applause] Anyone else? Everett E.
170Garnto Jr. 51 Jewel Street, Garfield, New Jersey. Before I start, I'd like to uh congratulate the female student of the month month. I don't remember her name, but congratulations. Basara, I'm sorry. Her name is Basara. Disara, I want to congratulate her on her accomplishments. Um, I also want to uh piggyback off what Dolores said in reference to our security. I want to commend Mr. Jimmy Zenara and uh Mr. Maddie for the superb job that they do with our security personnel. I know for a fact that our uh most of our personnel is second to none within Bergen County. I know so because when I was here for seven years, I put most of these on. And the reason why they're so professional because all of them are ex police officers and the majority of them
171are from Garfield. So they know the community, they know the kids, they just they know everything and they know everything about our community. Um, and like she said, Dolores, they the kids look up to them, the parents look up to them, the teachers appreciate what they do in their school. So, I think they should be commended a lot more than what they are. Um, that being said, let me get into what I want to talk about uh in reference to uh the board. I want to I'm going to just I guess to Mr. Tomco and our president, the new sports complex, why isn't it yet open to the public? I know when I was here, one of the things that we were going to do was going to open it up to the public for
172the morning hours to walk as well as the evening hours to walk at the very least. You know, we've now been taken over by an entity that's monopolizing our fields. It's it's horrendous. I go by Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I see these kids. And if anybody that knows me, I am an big advocate for children in sports. I love it. I think it's great. But for our kids, the Garfield community, 90% of these kids that use this field aren't even from this community. You go ahead in the parking lot, you'll see uh honor student or Woodridge, honor student of Hasbro Heights. They're not from Garfield. This is an entity that came from South Jersey cuz I was in the meetings. It's a money grab. They're trying to find the next ple, you know, and they're they're
173brainwashing the parents here, charging in astronomic prices, you know, huge numbers to train their kids. And it's not even Garfield kids. If it was Garfield kids, I might think differently of it, but it's not. I think we should open it up to our residents. We're paying taxes for it. They should at least be able to walk there. Um, another thing that was on the agenda, why are we having a a a park ranger to monitor our uh athletic? Why to watch the the soccer people? What is that all about? I mean, you don't have to answer now, but that that's another thing. And you know, I don't want to see that job taken away from that individual. But why is it there? Our children aren't on that field. It's that entity that's monopolizing our fields.
174Um, you know, Mr. Tonco and and the young lady that spoke uh before me, Danielle. No, I knew I knew her name, Arlene, but thank you. Um, I didn't want to mention the name. Security reasons, right, Dolores? I'm kidding. Um, you you had mentioned that, you know, the the parking that was taken away from the city, from the school district is making it more dangerous for the students. Explain how less cars in an area makes it more dangerous for the students. Now, if you're speaking about them driving the streets to find parking, that's that that that that's not your concern or our concern. It's the police's concern and it is a concern to a certain degree, but come on. How dangerous is it? How dangerous is it to find a parking spot if you're a
175decent driver? I mean, you're blowing this up out of you're blowing it out of proportion. You You definitely are. And as far as the tit for tat, you're the you're the culprit. You're you start a lot of it. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but you start a lot of it. Just today, you you put three or four things on the council. You had to do it. You had to do it because that's you. Um, you know, you you you claim you want to work with the city and me. Why would I want to work with anybody, I'm not going to get into it, that's done certain things that you did recently against me? Why would I want to work with anybody that came after me the way you came after me? Explain that to me,
176Mr. Tomco. And again, I'm not going to get into it. But you know what I'm speaking about. Mr. Tomco, another thing. Why was I told when I tried to acquire video for that first meeting that we came here sticking up? You got to be kidding me. May I I got a couple more things. Can I May I please finish? I got a couple Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate that. Why? When I inquired about obtaining obtaining a video specific for a specific reason in that back room, I was told there is no video. But I know you obtained video from that back room. Why was I lied to? That's you know, you can answer that too whenever you uh um and again, I want to know why why are you guys letting this entity monopolize
177our fields? It's just not right. I mean, people that ride by see it. They're talking about it. The residents, well, why can't we walk like you promised they're coming to me because I said that and that was what was supposed to be. Can Can we possibly think about doing that? Please open it up to the residents. And I'm almost done. I promise. And again, I brought it up earlier, you know, in reference to the chemistry teacher. And I and I'm just going to be clear. I did not hear from any teachers union or anything. I heard it outside outside outside this district to be honest with you. Um there are teachers that are science teachers that would be willing to get whatever credential extra uh credentials they need to speak uh to teach the chemistry.
178Now you said you're going you got somebody that you hired already. I I would like to know. I'm sure it's out of district cuz I believe you did say that. Uh, coincidentally, is it from Belleville? This person. That's what I'd like to know. Thank you so much. [Applause] Uh, is there anyone else? Joe Delaney. Uh, 15 court. Yeah. quick uh with regards to and I agree with you with the tit Daniel. All right. And it's it's not right. I mean uh with regards to to what was spoken about the parking being taken away. That resolution was passed in 2013. I was in favor of it. I wanted to give you the property. Other council members wanted to sell you the property. We end up giving it to you. There was four about four things that
179the board of ed was supposed to do. All right? And they did none of them. They didn't even adopt the resolution except in our resolution. All right? And then one of the things they're supposed to do is park the buses over there by the field instead of where the buses are parked right now. You tell me what's more safe. Buses parked where they're at right now where there's students going in and out all day long are parked along by the track. You don't have to be an engineer to figure that one out, you know. So it so it don't do not blame the city council for the board of education's malfunction what they did regarding that and I was also and I was and then when you you you bring up the change of the
180election that it was untimely we moved the election in January January the first meeting we had and it wasn't our first order of business all right and you the board of ed decided had to fight it for two more months to continue it. Had you accepted right in January, you have more time than than you could have to prepare the budget for it tonight. So, it was by you pushing the accounts, pushing that resolution, not accepting it that that uh caused time. But, and I also got the uh the first political uh flyer today, Mr. Muny, your name's on it. So, I'm going to address you about this. All right. And with that literature, a little bit of similarity there between both the email and the literature. I don't know if you had the same
181writer, but but it it's, you know, it states it states where the where the city council is looking to take power of the board of education. I left the board of education almost 30 years ago and I never want to I never and I enjoy the board of education. I never want to take control of the board of education. All right. It was only until after what I seen this current board of ed doing that I decided to come back to board of ed meetings. You haven't seen me here in the past 20 something years. But what I've seen from the last board of education election where yourself and Miss Sanchez and the other candidate stating that it's education not politics. Two of the same people are the same people that put board of education
182employees and their salaries on a flyer last election to win an election. All right. So, so remember you know what you put your name to before it goes out. Okay. Anyone else? Lissa son, 27 Garden Court North. Um, I'm I'm really glad to see the concern about the students walking around the school because we've been complaining about that around other areas of all the schools for years. So, I hope you take that same energy and maybe work with the police, the crossing guards or whatever to get more coverage around everywhere else where I mean, even a kid got hit recently. That actually happened. We're not waiting for it to happen. It did happen. Thank you. Uh Kevin Kane, 13 Lincoln Place. Um, I want to two things I would just want to talk about. The
183first thing I do want to piggyback off of what Joe said is the board of ed's not running for council anymore. They did that last election. So, I wouldn't keep bringing up council, council, counsel. We're not running for the board of ed. I have kids in the school system. We fight to make sure that the board of ed is doing what's right because we care about it. I don't want control of the board of ed. Nobody does. We have our own problems in the city to deal with. But if you keep bringing up the council council, I'm looking at you because Aaliyah disappeared at some point in time. I don't know where she went to. Um, and I just saw her yesterday and she came up acting all nice knowing that there was a mailer
184out about the council and bashing us. And I can only imagine what else is in the mail because we saw how last election went. Um, I usually don't get like this, but when my name is brought up over and over again in referencing to the council, it's going to get like that. Um, second question is I'm a very big advocate to make sure things are done properly and and I just had a question of I heard that a lot of children were taken out of the classroom or questioned about coming to the meetings by uh Dr. Tomco um and walking out and they were addressed as thanking them for doing a peaceful protest one day and then questioned about what was going on the next day. So, I just wanted to know what was that
185about and why children were brought into an office without their parents there to be talked about stuff like that. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone else? No. I'm really sorry I forgot. Um, I just want to ask when when you uh drive into the uh parking lot and the buses are on the side by the um high school, there's that little uh step, those steps that go up and then you can go up to the big steps and then go into the auditorium from the side. Have they've been that way for decades? Okay. But is there any way we can find some savings to repair replace those steps because they can't be repaired? First of all, there's a pipe as a handrail. There's there's only one pipe and it's on one side. The steps are
186literally I don't have big feet. My feet don't even my foot doesn't even fit on the step because it's too short and they're crooked. Besides that, they're powdering away. So, I forgot to ask before and I meant to do it at the last meeting, but is there any way we could find some savings to to uh so that we don't, you know, somebody doesn't get hurt and then we don't get sued and it's even more than if we could have found a couple of savings and fixed it. Okay. Thanks. Enough time to answer you guys. It's getting late. There's a lot there's a lot of questions on the table that need to be answered that are going to be answered. Huh? That's up to That's up to the president. Last one. Last one. All right.
187Last one. I don't even need my glasses for this. This this one question is um You got to go to bathroom. Good. You want me to wait for you? Want me to wait for you? Mr. Tomco, this question is uh to you. Um I want to commend you for uh updating the uh infrastructure for the IT, but my question is did this go off for bid? Whoa. No, I just want to know if it did go out to bid. Um, and my second question, it's it's the part of the first one. When something like this goes out to bid, are you uh would you be in violation of any codes or any kind of law by taking the highest bid? because again um I'm hearing that there were other bids and the next lowest was
188a million1. Why would we go $800,000 over the next bid? Thank you. uh Mr. Quillis, I have a question that I about the Yeah, you talk to the board members. You need a motion to close public comment. So, you want to do So, I'll make a motion to close public comment. So, I made a motion to close public comment. Hi. Thank you very much. Thank you for all those questions. Bear with me for a second. I'm gonna I'm gonna just go out of order for a minute. Um, I'll stay in order, but uh first I'm going to be very clear. I'm going to answer these questions as they came to me, meaning I'm going to answer them with the answers that I'm going to give you as provided from based on uh what is happening
189here. Okay. Um some of the the comments with back and forth and stuff like that, you know, I'm I am uh I'm a a very strong believer whether you believe it or not that if if parents um board members whoever ask me enough questions that it has to basically come out and I talk I talk um the way I talk. But first, let's be really clear, really, really, really clear for everyone in this room and everyone out there that's watching. No one writes for me. I write my own stuff. It's very clear, okay? So, I mean, I appreciate I know I'm not getting I'm not Okay, let's but I know I'm I'm just I'm Listen, I'm not taking any shots on any I'm really going to answer your questions, okay? So, I've been doing this
190a long time with you all. Uh I understand election cycles. I understand it's the is the meeting before the election. So, I'm I'm a big boy. I get it. So I'm going to answer your questions as they came to me but I'm just want to be very clear to everyone here that I write everything myself. Um so in saying that let's start with some of the questions which are are uh you know coming back. So let's start the um the first questions with mindsai and it's going to be bouncing around. So I'm going to answer some of your questions together I guess. Um I went out to eat the other day googled the place I thought it was open but on there it had the wrong time right because those businesses say temporary close sometimes.
191So, I don't I don't really know what it says on Google. I've never Googled that company. So, obviously, um that's something that has it has to do with Google, whatever. The company is does exist. It's been here already. They've done work here already. So, just to kind of put that out that way. Yes, they also were in Belleville. There's nothing wrong with Belleville. There's nothing wrong with Elmo Park. I was there, too. I was in Denell. You can look at all those places. Okay. Um this was through there's a state monitor in Belleville. This is through a state contract. It was also through New Jersey School Board Association. They're a cooperative bid. That's what happens. They do the they do the bidding and and they award the bid. That's how it goes. Same thing like
192a state contract. So all that was is covered. Um to answer the mayor's qu um if I can call you may mr. Garno's question. Um I don't know um of the bids. I can get you that information, but again it's through a co-op. That's how it all works. Uh again, school boards association. This board, every board, believe it or not, in New Jersey belongs to the school board association. So it's out of there. That's only one co-op this bid was in. I think there's several of them there. Um, I never ran for council. I ran for senate and I didn't run with anybody on there. Just so you know, I never ran for council, but thank you for for thinking of that. Um, also the park ranger. I'll put that all together. The park ranger
193was on tonight. We finally found somebody to to take that position. I called it a park ranger because I don't want to call it park security. Um, you know, complex security, whatever it is. I don't This isn't someone with a weapon or anything like that. Doesn't have any ties to that. These will be eyes basically in the complex so that we can allow the public to walk after dinner. I didn't know about the morning thing. That's something we need to talk about with the board. Um but basically to open up that spot. The ranger will just be a set of eyes making sure that everyone there is supposed to be there. Making sure everyone there is, you know, safe or at least um the bathrooms and all those things are open and what we couldn't
194do that until we had someone there. uh we didn't think a guard was was was uh you know that was a spot for a guard. Uh then the winter came. So with this approval tonight and I appreciate the approval tonight, we are going to be opening that up as soon as you know the weather's nice now. We could probably open up as soon as possible once this individual gets onboarded and uh basically fingerprinted and whatnot uh because of the approval tonight. So great question. That's that's where we are with that. We're going to open this up as much as we possibly can um for everybody here. Um um never I never said that this was the first time ever like that there was re-registration. I'm sure it was done here before in the past. What
195I'm saying is that with re-registration comes a lot of hurdles, right? There are um we may lose some students. Uh it really is stressful for parents sometimes because they have to get like a deed or a lease. I did this years ago. So, but again, it's for no other reason, but the push came from the um the board to make sure that everybody was here, especially for the charter schools, uh special needs. So, we did a re-registration. Everyone's doing a great job. The people prior to these people did a phenomenal job. That's how we we got registr registrate registration working. I'm not saying nobody ever did or did not. Um, so let's just I just want to be clear on that. Um, the guard of the board office I think should have happened since guards
196were brought here. I mean, just like every other employee is uh it's important that we protect those individuals and myself. Uh, I mean, a guard up there that's how I mean, I don't know why there wouldn't be a guard there. I don't That's a good question. And I don't know why the bank doesn't have any anyone down there. They don't need it. That's the bank's responsibility. But every other site has a guard. Um you know, I'm not saying that uh it also um the guard upstairs also uh is in charge of downstairs. There are sometimes um arguments downstairs registration. It happens. So I I think it's a great idea. Um I I think it's working out well. Uh I I think that was I I think that was a no-brainer in my opinion, but again
197um we could we could agree to disagree. Um, sorry. Oh, miss we let's talk about this election uh fees for uh the court fees. This board has been incredible with kind of just staying the course with this. But again, really not going back and forth even though people are saying I'm just telling you the truth here. This is you could look it up, put the pieces together. This is not This was not the board suing the council. And forget about how we're going to do this. The council went into a special session to stop the board from voting on a resolution. The council went to special session to stop the board from voting on a resolution. That attorney then went to a judge, did an injunction, and I think it was the day of or
198maybe the day before, Mr. Giser can kind of correct me. We got the injunction not to vote. any board member Dale sorry any board member or any person of a separate entity in my opinion sitting as an X-facto member of this board by the way that's why I can talk about all these things this board should have the right and authority to at least vote vote on any resolution it puts up there vote on it after the vote then go to court if you want this this initial suing or whatever you want to call from the from the council stopped an actual vote. How does anyone and anybody running for the board per se or anybody on the board here particularly shouldn't even consider that being allowed? We are separate entities. The I couldn't even
199imagine the board coming to me and saying, "Hey, let's stop the mayor and council from voting on something." No, let us vote on it first. So, what happened? What happened? I'm not saying that the judge was right or wrong. What I'm saying was let's let's be very clear. The reason why we went to court was to fight so that we could at least vote on this. That's the reality. No, it was the same judge. This is where everything's getting, you know, and and I have to commend this board. We've been very quiet about what exactly happened. And you all just brought it up as a question, so I'm answering it. Go back and look at it. That's exactly what happened. Okay? And at the end of the day, the reason why we didn't even hear
200this in court is because it was it was untimely. And that's and that's the truth. And you and every listen, you can all disagree with me. It's fine. But what I just spoke was exactly the truth. This board went to council just for the opportunity to vote and we finally got that. We had to have a special meeting to do that and most of you were here for that meeting. So that's the truth. So again, you could say what it was, but that's what it is. And and I'm going to guess the fees that we had to pay, which was again unfortunate. We couldn't even just vote on a resolution. That's all we wanted to do. Okay. I don't know if it was going to pass. We didn't have a chance to vote. How does
201one entity in town stop the other entity? Special meeting. You guys had a special meeting. The mayor council had a special meeting just to vote to have the attorney. Now, my my curiosity is I don't even know what those fees are. I don't think he did that for free. But again, that's something maybe we can talk about another time. Um I'm not worried about it. I'm just bringing it out there. Okay. Thank you. Um, I agree that the no parking around the schools too is is something that no one does. I totally get that and that's not that's not an issue. Parking the buses there, great idea. Well, if if that would ever happen. Um, all these other things we talk about. But all these things you're talking about now here about nobody even said
202anything. I didn't even know there was a 2013 resolution that was passed by by the the mayor and council back then. Uh, until I had to actually see what was going on. I didn't even know that that wasn't our property. I had no clue. There was no It was It was, "Hey, we're ticking everybody. You can't park here anymore." This is what I'm saying. Whether you agree with me or not, I'm sure all of you have been down there watching the chaos. I'm sure you've all been down there, so I'm not going to say you haven't been, okay? But if you've been down there watching the chaos, then what you should do right now to protect the kids is say, "Let's hold it in oance. Let's sit down. I don't know, maybe you want to
203charge a fee, whatever it is, you could do that as a as a council." But it it was pulled it was pulled from us mid mid year without any conversation. That's all I'm saying. That's that's what happened. has nothing to do whether it's right or wrong. Nobody's had a conversation about it. And for all these years I this is I I mayor I've listened to you. I've listened to you. It It's time to listen to me now. Um very very simply put there should have been a conver I get more than five minutes because there's 10 people here. Um there is very simply put there could have been at least a conversation somebody it didn't even have to be in our account anybody just just talk to us about it. This is what we're going
204to do. This is what we they've been part the teachers and the students have been parking there. You know, we had a scrimmage the other day. People couldn't park there. There's a bunch of stuff happening. I'm just saying please, please, please look at it. You don't have to believe I'm telling the truth or not, but it's the truth. Um, I'm an X facto member of the board. I don't vote on the board, but I'm part of the board. So, I get to basically say my piece just like any board member. So I could I could I could basically talk to the board and give any respect or um not respect, sorry, give any uh opinion I have. So when you asked that question, Mr. Mater, that was for that. Um all right, next. The extended
205guardian. Yes, Mr. Derek, thank you very much. We had many conversations about that. We put that in that's going there with with even the back stops. Mr. Derek's Derek has done an incredible job on that. Um you know, we keep talking about jobs and all this other stuff. Let's let's be very clear. We're not talking because because it's important for these to to in my opinion if we're going to go back and forth or the perception is that let's make it very clear. We're not talking about extra jobs. We're talking about you all are talking about people in the jobs not extra jobs because for example some of these jobs have already existed absolutely existed. So so just just uh let's be really clear on that as well. Um Miss Katzup thank you for the
206learning communities. want to talk to um Miss Demo about that. I was I wasn't really thematic community. So uh and Miss Bellinger about that as well. Um the music program is very dear to my heart. My my father who passed away 20 something years ago was a professional musician. So I grew up with that. It's very important. I know there's there's a thriving public, you know, interest here for that. Um I know some of the other um the wire boys and girls clubs. I know that they're doing something. Um, uh, the president here has contacted me with community officer so that we're getting music makers involved with the community officer now. Um, is that Mr. Stewart? Mr. I'm sorry, Officer Stewart. Um, they're trying to put some music production together. So, we are doing that.
207It's just taking us a little bit time to sorry, get in with that. It's a little dry here. Um, and and all those things. Um, the board and I on Wednesday wanted to go. We had our committee meetings that night so we couldn't make it. We there pretty late. Um was very upset. That was the only because that was the only meeting we could really talk about the budget and and everybody get together. So uh we would have been there. We all talked about it there. Um so again I I apologize for that. We were actually in two separate rooms obviously because the quorum so we were kind of moving in and out as quick as we could but because of how the committees are, you know, and we we we had to meet in
208those. But uh but yeah, committee reports I we'll we'll start uh preparing those. Uh, I think that's something that's my responsibility anyway. Um, so we'll do that. Um, but yeah, I mean the M and uh, Mr. Keel has talked to me about music since I've been here. Um, we were talking about putting in um, like a magical program and some of those other things and uh, those are important things and again we have somebody retiring unfortunately, but I think uh, the future looks really bright and uh, you know, we're going to try to add a teacher maybe through title funds if if they we have that um, based on some of the things we were talking about. So that's why it wasn't in the tax levy. So, so hopefully we'll do some of that stuff.
209Um, um, honoring the guards is a great idea. Thank you for bringing that. I, you know, it's something that we should definitely talk about. Um, the IT explanation, Miss Capzy, correct? The IT explanation. So, we talked about Active Directory already. Okay. Which, which Minds Eye did help for us and help us with and and all things came through. switches, subscriptions, just just years and years of infrastructure not being updated uh is where we're at right now. Okay? This is not an uncommon thing in schools that have other needs. Okay? It's not it's not an uncommon thing. Listen, let's be let's be real. When when when you guys were going through COVID, you didn't have a onetoone initiative until COVID, right? The CO money helped us, right? It's no one's fault, right? So, you're so you
210didn't have the infrastructure at that time to support anything because you didn't have the the the machines. Okay? Okay, we're only talking 5 years ago. It's a reality. Okay. Then you added what's called, for lack of a better term, a pipe. So I think board three or four years ago probably spent a million dollars on a great thing to happen. Okay, that was speed because everything was slow. Everything else, again, it's no fault of anyone. We're just where we are. And when our kids get up here and start doing those things, we have to fix those things. So there, you know, there's stuff called the -ray and there's other things that we can do to try to offset some of those monies, but we won't know that until we actually do the do the projects.
211Thank you. Means I'm speaking too much. Um, Missy, there's also again the acceptable response times. Usually I like to get back to people right away. I know you're talking about private meetings, but I always say to people is regardless of if we meet on the side to talk about other things, you could always bring it to to the meeting and talk about it. If if you want to write it out or or say it, that's fine. Um, regardless of what everyone thinks or whoever sees me as, which is fine. At the end of the day, when we all go home, I worry about this place, right? So, if you have ideas that I can't write down or you then then just get them to me and regardless if it's private or public, um, there's no
212acceptable response time. There's no federal law. There's none of that stuff. Um I I was waiting for your um for your questions so we can answer some of those. Um you have a bunch of great stuff tonight, too. So hopefully um we can get those in. Hopefully I keep seeing you at meetings. Um you know, this is comment only. There's really I'm not supposed to be answering any questions, believe it or not. But I think if we all sat here and I didn't answer any questions, nothing would get accomplished. Um ReadAcross America, nobody said that was new. I mean, I just was saying how great it was to go. I didn't say you said it either, but it was great. We had a lot of people here reading. I mean, that's what I hope everybody
213in this room would read at some point. Um, there's nothing wrong with fostering reading for kids. Uh, all I was really doing was saying how great it was to see everybody there. Um, and I I could bullet those visions for you. It's not a problem. We do have after school programs already that you were talking about, like we brought chess wizards in there just for those reasons. The karate karate club, as long as we, you know, fairly distribute that so not one club is making money. let's say in town or whatever it is, we do a bidding process. It's a great idea. I also don't want to step on the toes of the Y or the the Boys and Girls Club. I think they do something like that. We have a program called Girls on
214the Run that we're starting in September. It's a phenomenal program. It's curriculum based. It's about girls leadership uh and girls get out and they run and they do exercise. It's really an incredible program. So hopefully some of our ladies will uh will do that as well. But again, we could always use more after school programs that are funded because we can't put again stuff on the backs of people when we're asking for $18 a month. Absolutely. I agree. Um, okay, real quick. Sorry. [Music] Um, the tit fortat part that was brought up before, um, you know, again, I'm going to answer stuff in a community forum. That's that's why if I get the questions, but I appreciate what you said. I hope you say it at the council meeting as well in public like you
215said here. Um that would be the that would be right. I mean it would be right. No, why why is that wrong? Can't Why would that be wrong? I don't understand. Well, if it's if it's a back and forth that that she said it should be said there as well. Um okay. Yes. I I answer insert all of them there. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that one. I have that. Yeah, I have that on. I'm sorry. I have that at the end. I'm going to end with that. No, that's okay. Sorry, that's my fault. I I All right. Sorry, I lost my train of thought here. Um, the mayor, mayor, you brought up some really great points. Uh, I really do want to work with you. I know you don't think so, but uh I think
216it's important to this place. again, even if it's on the phone and we don't say hello to each other, but we just talk about stuff. It's really important. The um the shared service agreements, I've been talking to the board about this since the day I got here. Um the this board in the past that that's um made this incredible building, which is not we have no say over it's the SDA who, you know, and you can't build a parking lot or whatever. I you know, I we need to find a a solution to that. Um we need to talk. We do. Um, but again, you know, and I'll and I'll acquies and and I could be a big boy and apologize for a lot of stuff. So, hopefully we can all do the same thing.
217Um, security, all those things. Thank you for all that stuff. Uh, the kids do look up to those security officers that you had had a saying in doing. You're you're absolutely right. Um, again, nobody on this board has ever said anything about past decisions that were made because all of our our, you know, all of our attention is moving forward because we can't really do anything about that. Um and there's nothing that and and again there's a foundation laid right so regardless I don't know what the situation was three years ago or five years ago I don't know if there was money available I don't know you know I think when you planned the HVAC project you wanted to put HVAC here you know I mean and whatever happened happened you know I would love
218to get HVAC here again I would love to bond for HVAC with you guys you know um but again I don't know if all those things are possible um but definitely some stuff we talked about the we talked about the Ranger right so we we talked about the ready uh already Um, again, I need to bring up the um I need to bring up the part again about the cars outside. Um, regardless of whoever thinks it's a political move or not, just go down there in the morning or or you know, park outside and look outside what's going on. Um, again, regardless of what the outcome is going to be in June, whether you want that back or not, I'm I'm imploring the council to allow us to park there again until we can sit
219down and talk it out for the sake of the kids and the faculty and the congestion. That's all I'm asking for. Um, not saying we give it back to us. We'll talk it out, but but again, we had no way of, you know, Sorry, I'm trying to answer, but people are talking, so I don't know if they're going to hear some of the answers. That's okay. Um, if you haven't been down there, again, please go down there. Um, we talked about the bid. Um, I don't I don't know what the video you're talking about in the back, but I I didn't get any requests for that. So, if you want if you want to talk to me about getting the video, just let me know. I I be honest. I don't even know what you're
220talking If you're talking about the Okay. I I apologize. I didn't know you asked for a video. So, um, definitely didn't ask me. So, Oh, okay. Okay, sir. Yeah. if you I'm just let me know. Um the science teachers, we talked about that. We have some individuals here that night that that that will be incredible chemistry teachers. We'll get there hopefully. Um I don't know what other towns are doing. I I do know that there's sixth period um there sixth period and things like that. Um, you know, these these la the last two are really interesting because I'm try I'm really trying not to sever any other ill will feelings as we get to an election or anything like that. That's not that's not what this is about. But again, when people say stuff and
221you because you all know it, right? If you don't answer back, sometimes it's it looks like uh, you know, that we're doing something wrong or we're hiding something because everybody loves the word transparency, but not too many people in my position are transparent. So, um I think it's I think it's uh I think the problem with me being new with new eyes is that people haven't heard some of the answers or some of the things um in the past from other administrators and I don't know why that happened or or if it happened. Um but I'm not making this stuff up when we talk about the compliance issues and all those things. It's right in code. Um were we successful in the past doing it? I don't know. Right. I got some concerns from our
222teachers that we all know are beloved teachers and we all talk about them. So, hey, we got some concerns there. So, I my job as the chief school administrator is to tell this board that this is how we're going to fix it and and by by voting tonight um you know uh we did that. Um again, I'm not um you know, Mr. Delaney got up here um and said a few things tonight. Um, I'm not I'm not blaming any any council member or the mayor for taking that property back again. Um, I just don't know why it happened when it had to happen. Um, what if maybe I'm missing something why it had to happen on Monday, like why it had to happen now in March. Um, if that's true, just let me know why
223it had to happen now and I could explain it to people that are asking me. Um, but again, nobody's blaming you for taking it. If you guys want it, that's fine. But right mid year is very difficult to again we just had someone get hit by a car. Um we that's not the first time we had another kid in the beginning of the school year get hit by a car coming out of the um out of the high school uh parking area. Um so again I'm telling you these are real issues. So so you guys are most of you are here tonight so please consider that um for all that. Um, and I really, you know, it's funny. Mr. Kane is the only person I really haven't really, you know, when I first got here,
224he said he wanted to meet with me and talk and stuff like that at my what I guess some of you feel was unsuccessful soup scoop of the soup meeting or whatever like that. So, that's not that's not true, but I we could talk about it after if you want to. Yeah, but there that's fine. And post my reply, too, though. Yeah. Make sure. Please. Yeah, please do that. Um, so regardless of that though, there's two things I want to talk about with Mr. Kane right now. What he just said, um, the conversation that I had with the students, uh, based on, uh, a meeting I was having with the student government, which I have all the time with them, okay? Um, that conversation about the peaceful protest, I'll tell you what it is because
225it's funny how everybody found out about it like right after it happened. Um, was I actually commended them for doing that. Um, it's not the first protest that I've had as a superintendent or a principal. Okay. Uh, it's actually their right to do that. Um, what we did talk about was um, you know, the the proper chain of doing that and and what they did and that and that's what we talked about. No one told them not to do it or any of that stuff. I don't know how it got flipped around when we got out there. Um, but that's not what happened. and we talked about many other things uh during that meeting and and and I'm my hope and not that you would ask those students that those students would tell you that
226because I think we have a good report and and we had other individuals in there as well but that's that's not what happened. Nobody would ever stop their right to vote and a comment um for you for for anybody to either intimate that is is is borderline lialist. So let's be really careful with that. Okay, because these are minors. So also also I'm allowed to speak to them actually. Also, you're not also to be very very clear uh a comment was made uh with regard to or intimated uh last meeting and I kept my mouth shut, but uh with regard to people, you know, not owning property or voting or whatever it is or you're running for board, you're not it was intimated that way. You could all figure it out. You can look at
227the meeting or or listen to it or or because it's somebody taped it and put it online already. Um I have to be honest with you, our our kids our kids are our biggest voice, right? You want to listen to them. I want to meet with them. I meet with them probably more than any other superintendent has. Um my communication with them was incredible. Okay. Um but I have to tell you something. They don't own they don't own they don't own property either. They don't they don't own property, right? They're they're not taxpayers. I don't know. Is their voice not important? I think it is. So I don't know why that came up last meeting, but you know, again, Mr. Ramos and I are meeting with them. I don't know if past presidents have done
228that or not. Um but we are doing that and that's the important thing. So be really really careful when you say stuff like that, okay? Because again, um, what I'm trying to do is understand where a political atmosphere has gotten to this with with two two elections now, right? Um, because we all know the goal election cycle. I knew it before I got here, uh, how it goes. Now we're in the second one. And hopefully when everything settles and whoever wins these seats, hopefully we could all work together so that some of these things can move forward. Uh, but that's really up to all of you that have been uh that have been bringing up some of these things that continue to come up with only half stories or or and that's why I'm trying
229to put those things out there. So, if anyone has any other questions for me, you contact me in my office. Um, Mr. Kane, if if that is true, I I'm thinking about now. I apologize. Um, no, I don't want to read it. I want you to post it. Um, so everyone could comment on it. So, post it. Uh, but post my reply on there, too. Yeah, do. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Right. And then something else happens. We'll post that too. It's okay. You you'll we stay after. We'll talk after then. Um but then if you want to meet, you can come and meet with me. It's fine. So um but in saying that, uh again, um I'll still say progress because things are moving along. The budget tonight is a big plus here. Uh again, trying
230to fix all those things uh that we need to do to stay in compliance and stuff like that for our kids. So, thank you. Progress. Oh, sorry. Did I miss the question? Who was it? I'm sorry to answer that question. Oh, okay. Yeah. Really quickly, I want to address my affiliation with SCV Stouloola, which has been brought in a question. To put simply, it's very limited. I am not employed by them. I'm not a stakeholder in SCV Stouloola. I do play for their senior team, but the senior team acts as a separate entity. They don't receive any funding from the youth organization. Uh, so I don't think any of that meets the threshold. And sorry, that was it. Sorry. Not true. Yeah, that's not true. Thank you. It's not true. you know, just because I
231know somebody, you know, I know a million people in town. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I was gonna answer that. Put any words in anyone's mouth. Okay. Next. Okay. At this time, I'd like to open up the floor for board member comments. Ask a question. Board member comments. Uh I I just want to ask Mr. Delaney a question. Not to be contentious. I'm just looking for clarity. Course I can't. Okay. I I'll ask you afterwards. I'll ask you afterwards. Reno. No, they say I can't. It's a como. Following up on uh my inquiry. Now I have two inquiries because I just heard that Minds Eyee was the highest bidder. Am I Is that what I heard? Is that factual? It's a cooperative bid. So there was no other bids on that or no other quotes. I'm sorry.
232The way a cooperative bid works is they go out a state contract or through the cooperative and the cooperative does all the bidding. That's how it work. That's how you that's most of most of our contracts are either state contract cooperative bid. If you're looking for something over the threshold, but it's a small job, then you need three quotes and you have to go through a whole procurement um process. Okay. So there were no other quotes based on this inquiry. I don't know what else the quotes from the co-op. No, I could get that for you if if the co-op header other I could get that if they're co-op head if you don't mind. The co-op awards the bid. So that's how that's how it goes. That that's why you go in co-op so you
233don't have this back and forth of who has a lower bid or not which is actually not legal. So what I'm sorry were there other quotes requested and we've received or not at all or they were all the same? I'm just trying to understand, you know, this makes me a little concerned about my vote. It's through a cooperative bid, okay? Which follows the laws, the bidding laws in New Jersey. And when you go through a cooperative bid, there's a entity called the co-op that does the bidding for you. So if there were other quotes or not, doesn't matter. That was the that was the quote that was accepted through through whatever the cooperative. But did we receive any other quotes? No, it's through it's through a co-op. Okay. So the co-op handle it. That's how
234it goes. Yes. Yes. Okay. No, that's the just just and I'm not talking to the public. I'm going to talk to the board right now. So, it's No, actually, you don't pay for the co-op. The co-op the co-op the co-op gets compensated through the vendors. So, again, regardless of of the semantics around it, but you go to a co-op so that none of this is an issue. the co-op. It's It's like when you buy pencils and you use I This is I I'm I'm not going back and forth. Yeah, we could we can get you that those quotes or the posting of it. If you want me to post, I can do that. So, there is additional information that that's behind there. There there's through the co-op, I get all the co-op information. Yes, correct.
235Okay, Mr. President, I request to change my vote for 9.14 to abstain, please. We have to do it by formal motion and have a second and have a roll call vote to change Mr. as well. Just to be just to be really clear so everybody knows though, we had a finance meeting when we talked about this. You talked about this as well. Just know to be really clear that this is the first time you're bringing this up because I could have had this information for you before you voted. Well, this is the first time I'm hearing this information. So, what information? It was a co-op from the public. We we No, not from the public, but we discussed this in committee. No, no. I'm saying this the first time I heard information from the public
236that there may be other additional information pertaining to this that there may have been other quotes based on well I don't I don't know how there are other quotes if you said unless the public unless the public went to the co-op and got the quotes but you just said there's additional information pertaining to this bid and okay you don't have it so I no I'm just being clear that you didn't ask for this though I'm sorry you didn't ask for this prior to right now just just I was not aware that okay I just addition background information so I along with it because We're relying on it. We need the service. Got it. Okay. Now, there's additional information that I don't have. Okay. Made a motion. Is there a second to allow him to change
237his vote? I'll second it. There's a second by All in favor or all against? Roll call. He wants to change his vote. So, I just want to abstain. That's all. Specifically on what item 9.14 is 9.14 just okay Mr. Munos I Mr. Fourino I Mr. Gaba hi Dr. Mr. Roek. Hi, Mr. Mo. Hi, Mr. Keles. Hi, Mr. Ramos. Hi, the record. An abstension, please. Abstension. Yes. Okay. Any other guess? It's the technology 9.14 MindsEye Technology LLC. Okay. All right. Uh, any other board member comments? I do have comments. First, I want to congratulate the Taekwond do athletes. They did a fantastic job. Congratulations to the student of the month. And I also want to recognize the four retirees and two resignations. I want to thank them for their service and I appreciate uh what they've
238done for the district during their tenure. Thank you. Thank you. Any other board member comments? Mr. Yes. I um Mr. Gornto, uh yes, that facility should be open and as soon as there's safety protocols put in place, I totally agree with you and that's going to happen sooner than later. Hopefully, uh sooner than later, but that is on the works. We want to make sure that there's a safety protocols in place. As you heard, to Danielle's point, she wanted to hear committees. We did have the security guards give a explanation of what they do and what goes on. Uh we do have committee meetings. Sometimes the uh uh the secretary announce them or already mentions it and sometimes that's why we don't mention it because we don't have committee meetings every month. So I just
239want to respond to Miss Danielle. We don't have meetings unless it's an emergency and we are informed about that. uh to Miss uh Capzy. Well, you asked about committees and I just wanted to let you know we don't meet every month unless there's something going on because we got to give them time. No, it depends. It depends. Like for example, you know, we we we talked about the the boilers. This everybody knows that the schools are old and you know things happen in this system and we they were damaged, they got fixed. And to her point, yeah, this was fixed 30, 40 years ago and somebody put it on. But things happen in the school system and as we go forward, we be proactive in trying to fix things and that's what we're doing. To
240miss uh cuts up, yes, I agree with you with themies. I am for it and I hope that we can continue and that's the vision that this board has to continue with themies. Uh to Mr. Mo, I went to the show to the frozen show and I got to tell you, everyone that's listening to the community, this was an amazing show. Kudos to everyone that participated from the teacher to the student to the to the stage. I got it was 300 people there about 250 300 people. What an amazing show. Please continue that. That that was an example what Garfield can provide, what can we do, what our students can strive for. It was amazing. I'm sorry I wasn't able to go to that show. We had a board meeting. It was I mean uh
241a committee meetings and it was almost 5 hours there to 9 something at night. So I want to I want to let you know why I wasn't there. I am a proponent for music because I think it's important uh because music is another language and I think everybody it you know if you're not good at sports then music is an opportunity. Um, I do I do uh build relationships with my assemblymen and um uh Mr. Wimbley or the as the congresswoman. So when I see issues here, I do talk to them. So I just don't want you to think as a board member here, you know, we already volunteers here doing what we can for the our community, doing the best we can, but I go beyond that. I try to communicate with the congressman.
242I try to communicate with the state assemblyman, which is Mr. Wimbley. uh and uh we we want to make sure that we can get all the help for Garfield. That is what we strive for. That's what we want, you know. So, I mean it we there is people that are are are curious and and and and capable and communicating with the outside. We're 35th district and uh we have a we have a responsibility to to at least reach out to them for all the help we can get from state aid. So, that's important to Mr. uh Delaney's point and I I'm glad he br it up because I do I do talk to him. Um congratulations to the Taipondo. Uh that is amazing. Continue that. That's that's great for the community. And uh once again,
243thank you for coming. We are listening to your concerns. Uh we are the board. Mr. Tomco is not the board. We vote according to what we we read here. He doesn't tell us what to do. We we are we are the board and we vote according to what we got. No one's telling anybody what to do here. So, I do want to make sure that's clear. Uh I want to thank uh the mayor for being here and council members because it's important that we do work together and as we can see there's some issues going on and hopefully we can solve them for the betterment of this community. So hopefully we can take that uh and and solve those issues and continue to move the district forward. Thank you for your time. Is there anyone
244else that would like to I want to say something if I may. Um this is probably my last meeting. Uh it's because I have family issues help from my mom. But with that I wanted to acknowledge uh Mr. Derek uh who I thought came up with a very good suggestion regarding the guardrail. I think it's paramount student safety is absolutely important. That should be done. In addition, Mr. Toronto, if what you're saying is correct about students from other areas coming to our field, I think that needs to be rectified. So, thank you for bringing that up to this board. I just hope that it in closing that there's going to be more harmony between the board and the council and that you guys can work together because you know we're not going to have progress
245either as a community andor as a uh school district unless there's harmony and I just hope that that happens. Thank you for letting me be on the council. Board, excuse me. Sorry. Anyone else? Thank you. No other comments. All right, I see that everybody's tired, so I'm not going to say much. Um, thank you everybody for coming out. Uh, hopefully you guys can get home, get some rest, and not stay stressed out about all this stuff. Thank you for coming out once again. Um, at this time, I'd like a motion to adjourn the meeting. So moved. Okay, let's try that again. Motion to adjurnn the meeting, one person at a time. So moved. Motion by Mr. Kelesz, seconded by Mr. I thank