001P the meeting to order please please stand for the flag move I pledge allegiance flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the Cedar Grove board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be advertised by having the date time and place thereof posted on bulletin boards in the district published Andor transmitted to the Verona Cedar Grove times and the star Legend newspapers tap into online news filed
002with the township Township Clerk and posted on the district's website could I have a roll call please board member Grande here board member marzulo here board member pic here board member Keegan here board president Dar here whor good evening everybody nice to see such a large crowd tonight okay uh at this point I'd like to open the meeting to um for public comment on agenda items only seeing that nobody has signed up this evening I move to close that portion of the uh meeting and we have some exciting things tonight so I am going to pass it over to superintendent for our presentation system thank you madam president uh and good evening SE Grove School Community um on behalf of our board our school administration we couldn't be more excited and proud of all of
003the students who are with us this evening we followed up a very successful fall athletic campaign theaters and performances with an even more successful winter campaign and so we're so excited that you all came out this evening that so we can honor you for your for your many achievements um what we'd like to try this evening is a little different than way we've run it in the past um for the larger teams that we're going to bring up to honor I'm going to ask for two things one I know this is difficult but if the audience would try to hold their Applause till the end we'd appreciate it and then second to our athletes and performers when you come down the aisle if you come in front of us here and greet each board member
004so we can give you a handshake and honor your accomplishments but then also follow along here and come up on stage because after we get either the full performance or the team together we'd like to get one big group photo and then also give you one loud of Applause Round of Applause that you have certainly all very much earned um so hopefully we can uh run it that way to get it kicked off I'm going to hand it over to principal englas and we'll go from there and board members I'll invite you to come out in the front here and we'll start our Awards thank you stay here okay yes I just have to they're going to get you want to get certificates sure the back there's more students good evening everybody thank you for
005coming out to recognize so many of our students Cedar Grove High School had a tremendous winter our Sports our musicals our academics we are just having a great great 2025 so I just want to say thank you for that thank you to you thank you to your children so we're going to start by acknowledging the cast and crew um of our M uh winter musical something rotten for those of you who do not know something rotten follows the story of Two Brothers as as they try to outshine Shakespeare by creating the world's first musical honestly I had no idea how this was going to go I mean how fun can Shakespeare be however I was completely wrong the musical was light energetic and so incredibly funny I watched the entire show with a giant smile
006on my face as I was immersed into the tale of omelette the musical it was so evident that the cast and crew worked tirelessly to ensure this production was perfect their dedication teamwork and passion brought this story to life in the most entertaining way I want to say a special thank you to our director Miss Jennifer jessen our assistant director Jackie lewitz our art designer miss Emily vogle our Tech designer Mr Tyler cotch and set designer Mr Andy fistner for their hard work and vision in making this production such a great success at this time I would like to start with the seniors I would like for you to all come down with your advisers to be recognized first and get a group shot and then I Will Follow by calling the rest of the
007casting crew come on down seniors okay just come this way we'll come around go stand on this you okay they came down the wrong side here Johnny congratulations he came down the wrong side not to self will'll come down this side from now on there you go Emma you go arum kayin Delina Gabby and I miss Johnny in the front Miss J Mr fistner miss vogle and miss leitz yes [Music] he's he's going to shut that off hold on okay there we go how about a nice round of applause for the seniors their legacy will always [Applause] continue guys if you would stay there we're going to call the rest of the cast and crew down to receive your certificates come down this way please oh [Music] boy good job buddy congratulations congratulations congratulations hold
008it congratulations congratulations doing conratulations conratulations everybody hi how we doing [Music] congrat thank you for coming congratulations to Chas for your smile Andel you made it okay no you made it buddy J and one more round of applause for the entire cast and crew of something [Applause] rotten stand yes want [Applause] advisor getting there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and at this time we're going to recognize our winter student of the month um at we're there's only three so when you come down if you can stand with the Board of Education and we can get a nice picture with you together so um as you know our student of the month is really these are awards that aren't academically based they are nominated by teachers um based on the theme for each month so in January
009our theme was passion first we asked our teachers to look for a student who shows the termination is always challenging themselves the student is hardworking and is involved in so many extracurricular activities she's always volunteering her time whenever someone needs her along with her involvement in numerous activities she has taken on various leadership roles at Cedar Grove High School all while maintaining a positive attitude and handling all of her academic responsibilities she is a positive role model in the peer leader program and is in tune to the needs of her fellow peers and those they oversee her passion for this program and others is outstanding standing please congratulate congratulate Hershey Jala Waller of being named January student of the month Hershey come on down [Applause] [Music] [Applause] s conratulations in February the theme was we
010were connect we are connected we looked for a student who is consistently leader both in and out of the classroom a student has been observed building relationships and working collaboratively with their peers this student is a natural-born leader she organizes and delegates work that needs to be done for the class of 2025 she is well respected among her peers and she has the ability to guide them with Grace she is an asset to the success of the senior class as she assists with fundraising and organizing so many class activities and events especially pep rally and the re-energized lip sync she a sweet kind and caring student who works incredibly hard to get things done and to energize and excite the people around her congratulations to Danny D'Angelo for being February student of the [Music] [Applause]
011month thank you in March March's theme was 100% accountable we asked our teachers to nominate a student who promotes positivity and who is proactive who takes personal responsibility and is actively seeking growth by building on their strengths and skills this student carries herself in a professional manner and is dedicated to the tech crew and sound for the entire Productions of Cedar Grove High School when when asked to help help she never hesitates she is always open to suggestions and incorporates them into her work when faced with a challenge she handles each situation with patience and wisdom she comes in early to help with equipment and do what's best for all the Productions this student is an extremely hard worker and a leader her professionalism and dedication to this school and her peers is respected and
012appreciated congratulations to Gabby contras on being March's student of the [Applause] [Music] month congratul very well students would you mind coming congratulations [Music] [Applause] at this time I'm going to turn the microphone over to Mr Stan who's going to be uh recognizing our bilingual students with for the literacy thank you sorry I was waiting for her telep congratulations to our seniors on earning the New Jersey seala by literacy this achievement is more than just of recognition it's a testament to your dedication hard work and ability to communicate across cultures by mastering more than one language you have set yourselves apart in a world that values Global Connections and this seal will serve as a powerful asset in your future whether in college on your resume or in your career your bilingual skools will open doors
013to New Opportunities and give you a Competitive Edge in any field you choose to pursue more importantly this accomplishment reflects your commitment to embracing diversity and strengthening cultural understanding today we celebrate not only your linguistic abilities but also the bright future ahead of you congratulations once again this is just the beginning of many successes to come she's not here unfortunately Mario Chell Mario is receiving in Italian this student is getting in two languages so SOS she's getting it in Spanish and Italian first in our district congrats Gabriela contas in [Applause] Spanish congratulations congratulations Edward Matos in [Applause] Spanish congratul done and Jonathan William in [Applause] Arabic congratulations the students would you mind coming in front coming to the middle here with us thank you you all your certificates up that would be great great thank
014you [Music] guys at this time I'm going to turn the microphone over to our new counselor Mrs Pontius where she is going to talk about our 2025 unsung [Music] hero good evening everyone I'm very pleased to be able to speak to you about our unsung hero award this evening in partnership with the New Jersey school boards Association the Essex County School boards Association is proud to continue the tradition of honoring an unsung hero from each High School in Essex County this prestigious recognition celebrates the exceptional contrib utions value and significance of our students to our high school and local community these are students who have made a lasting impact but may often be overlooked by traditional student recognition programs and who are vital to making our schools and communities Thrive I am privileged to be
015representing Cedar Grove High School in honoring the character integrity and academic Excellence of our contribution to our unsung hero Nicholas jovanelli AKA Nikki upon learning about his various Valiant volunteer experiences and even through my first interactions with him I knew he was very special from working at our school as a custodial helper during the Summers to being a junior firefighter and EMT and recruitment Committee Member for the Cedar Grove Township and dedicating his time to the Montclair ambulance unit as a workstudy intern Nikki has proven himself to be our unsung hero as the award honors outstanding contributions of students that are often overlooked I would like to share a snapshot of Nikki and why he deserves this recognition Nikki expresses that his purpose in life is to help others and share that if he can
016just make a difference in at least one life it would be all worth it especially in helping our youth for example one of the most rewarding experiences of Nikki's life was when he attended to two Elementary age children and a rescue event where the adult was in crisis during this event Nikki successfully tended to the children's well-being and transported the students to the hospital for medical evaluation it was extremely important for Nikki to ensure the emotional and physical well-being of these children in need please join me in honoring Nikki for this recognition and wishing him the best of luck in his future endeavors thank [Music] [Applause] [Music] you thank you conratulations [Applause] [Music] at this time we're going to turn it over to Mr for our athletic accommodations or what is it accomplishments yes it's
017been a long day accomplishments thank you good evening I would like to roll right into our winter athletic recognition of our championship teams from this past winter season it was an outstanding winter season and I want to congratulate all of our coaches athletes and families on a great season it's certainly not all about wins and losses but I am proud to stand up here and say that four out of our five competitive athletic teams this winter took home a conference or state championship first up is our competition cheer team who for the second straight season won an NJ cdca cheer and dance division group one state championship the team competed in competed in 11 competitions this season taking home four first place finishes they play second in the UCA regional tournament in December and placed
018Ninth at the UCA High School National Tournament in Orlando Florida congratulations to coach McCarthy and her squad for finishing the season off winning the njcdca cheer and dance group one state championship the team is Gabriella Dimas Victoria Venta Maggie Tumi Tiana tar [Applause] darpino Alina [Applause] Kon Daniela basil Angelina tangora Ava [Applause] Ros Ava mauchi Hannah [Applause] Carol Isabella cadillo Adriana Lopez [Applause] Vanessa [Applause] Robinson Kayla di MAA Mia surano Natalie D'Angelo meline [Applause] Miller coach McCarthy and Coach Jobe your njcdca cheer and dance group one state [Applause] championship get one picture girl good thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] problem next up is our Clifton United triop ice hockey team who won the big North conference Patriot division championship the team had a record of 11- n on on the season with a 5-1 record
019in the BNC Patriot division to brag a little bit our Cedar Grove players accounted for 69 of the 99 goals on the season 67 of the 119 assists on the season and all 508 saves on the season the big North conference Patriot division Champions are Chris cubeta John monana Thomas Kitaro [Applause] Michael Leno Leo [Applause] marzulo Ryan Montana and Eric ring and our Cedar Grove coach representative coach will Leonard [Applause] our big North conference Patriot division champions well done guys next up is our boys basketball team who had an outstanding season under coach TJ Jones and won the super 's conference National division championship the boys basketball team finished the season with a 19-6 record and was an impressive 13-1 in the SE EC National division it was the first boys basketball conference Championship since
0202014 I want to congratulate senior Nick Russo one more time who became the 10th player in cghs history to surpass the one 1,000th Point Plateau congratulations [Music] [Applause] [Music] Nick right now there are three out of those 10 people standing in this room right right coach uh Mr Al the the SEC National division Champions are nicoo [Applause] [Music] Chen Matthew Quan Nick Russo bour bernandez [Applause] Tristan [Applause] Coronado Owen [Applause] Green Jay Hagadorn Germaine Russell will [Applause] tager Marcus Quan Ryan Miller Alex [Applause] sjck and coaches TJ Jones Steve Goodman Charlie and Ian [Applause] our SEC National division Bo CH uh boys basketball champions [Applause] B room B room [Applause] last last good work and lastly our wrestling team who for the second straight season captured the super essis conference Liberty division championship the team
021finished the season 16-8 in a perfect 5-0 in the SEC Liberty Division and now have finished 11-0 during the past two seasons in the division the team had six wrestlers advaned to the NJ Sia Region 2 tournament and two wrestlers Connor Kerney and Roco Caputo advance to the njsia state [Applause] championship the SEC Liberty division Champions are Connor Kerney Santino Catalano Pierce esol [Applause] Michael canarelli Jerry delesio George Dar Richie gallotto gerarda Mercy Jake sariva [Applause] Pika Anthony Sheridan Nick catini Bryce [Applause] K Luke O James Pano Nico [Applause] zunic Dominic Dori Vincent [Applause] lella Chris Miller [Applause] ARA [Applause] Pendleton right there I'm sorry Aiden [Applause] Vargo Roco Caputo [Applause] and head coach Mike [Applause] ramini one sec SEC SEC one sec one sec one sec one sec one sec I'm not done yet
022I'm not done yet lastly I would like to recognize one last wrestler this year as a freshman Roco won the essis county tournament championship at 106 PB weight class and the njsa district seven championship at 106 pounds Essex County championships in any sport are very hard to come by and he and he became the 10th wrestler in Cedar Grove history to win an Essex County CH Championship congratulations Roco capudo your SEC Liberty division [Applause] Champions s your your you pitch in from Sheridan you pitch in this way turn your bodies nice [Applause] [Music] time um say to trans position uh we can or you want to do committees I'll just address the group and does that sound good I just want to say one last thank you to everybody for coming out this evening we'll
023pause for a couple minutes for those that want to stay you're more than welcome if you have to exit obviously we understand again to all the students in the room tonight we just want to reate how proud We Are of all of you for your accomplishments have a nice evening thank you thank you thank you thank you presentation oh yes yes ni good to see you good very good good John in Boston he couldn't make it today luy lucky guy right I like it thank you so thank you you so much thank you fantastic and they're off Angel we're going to do the presentation first um Robbie have more than yeah thanks Angel Robbie had the the two court [Music] myself probably we shot everything deep se6 yeah right but that then back then it
024was a real tough conference too play these conf conference we play Madison Sumit Springfield the provins gold gam tough games then we thank you so much confence play all good teams all right we got two people okay Angel are we broadcasting we are okay thank you so much um and Madame President would you like me to jump in yes please okay uh again good evening SE grow School Community we're transitioning from our recognition uh component of our board meeting this evening into the preliminary budget presentation for the 2526 school year uh in building this presentation this evening we wanted to first start off by taking a look at our overall current current state related to our enrollment across the district and then also to focus on our goals let me Begin by talking you through
025this first slide this first slide captures the current enrollment in our schools uh this school year as of March 10th um in all of our grades you can see the total enrollment currently in our schools is 1547 and then it's broken down by grade uh all the way down to prek there are a couple aspects to our enrollment both this year and projected for next year that I do want to highlight for the community this year because I think it's very important that some of this data informs our planning so recently we completed uh our kindergarten registration for the 2526 school year in doing so we already have 67 kindergartens registered for South End and 49 for North End in order to maintain three sections of kindergarten in both the schools because of our space
026challenges we are going to need to contact the non-legacy students from Hilltop who are presently registered at Southend and talk to those families about register them at North End and my commitment to the Community this evening is we are going to make those commun that communication and those contacts happen prior to March 31st of this month in doing so we're pretty much at capacity for our kindergartens in both schools um and if we were to get an influx of additional kindergarteners in either uh either Community we would need to strongly consider opening up a fourth section to maintain healthy class- siiz numbers and doing that at South End that would also require us to take the art room offline and we'd have a similar situation of crowding at both the Southend and the North End
027school and then lastly the other data point I wanted to highlight for the community on this slide is specific to The Five-Year birth rate the projections going out over the next several years are suggesting that by 2028 our overall enrollment Will Rise by over 120 to 140 students topping out 1640 it's really important as we go forward in the coming school years uh that this enrollment data informs our ongoing planning and you'll see some of the strategies embedded in our goals attempting to already address what we anticipate to be an increase in enrollment in the coming years this next slide is an update on our current District goals we presently have three board adopted District goals our first goal is the theme of student growth and achievement and I presented back in the fall this
028action plan to the community to demonstrate what our strategies were going to be to achieve each of our goals tonight I want to update the community about where we are in terms of our progress towards those goals and the most easy way to understand the update that I'm providing is if you look at the far right column you'll see a highlighted uh a timeline and you're either going to see a highlighted green box yellow box or red box if the box is highlighted green I'm communicating to the community that this driver essentially has been accomplished if it's yellow I'm communicating that essentially we're on track towards achieving this driver meeting this goal and in the cases where we have R I'm basically communicating to the community that we're no longer on track and when we
029get to those examples I'll provide an explanation for why these first two drivers very significant commitments we made across our schools going back to last summer to implement brand new curricular res resources for math from kindergarten all the way through algebra and this was a team effort from the board to the leadership team to all of our teachers this has been a huge priority that everyone has been committed to implementing this school year I can't say enough about how seriously our teams have taken it um and how big of a shift this has been for our teachers in particular in terms of math instruction to support this initiative we brought on board um a professor to provide job embedded professional development in our classrooms for our teach teachers he has continued to be in our
030schools has been and overall feedback and observation about that work has been positive relationships are positive and healthy and it's Our intention to make continue that professional development for our teachers into next school year as well I can't say enough about how big of a drivers these two were to drive ultimately Improvement and student achievement and one of the things you may recall from my presentation on njsa scores last fall was that there seemed there is opportunity for greater levels of achievement in the areas of math generally and science as well um so I'm going to now move uh to the second page here this is still goal one a couple of the drivers I'd like to highlight uh I should start by talking about the red there uh that should catch your eye because
031that's a driver that's no longer on track that driver when we planned it out in the fall was Our intention to prepare to launch brand new Ela resources across our two elementary schools this September upon further uh consideration and considering the amount of commitment the new math program is taking um we are not going to be prepared to launch a brand new Ela Series in September however I want to ensure the community uh that we still have a lot of exciting resources in our elementary schools for teaching Reading Writing literacy across the board and to verify that just this past week I conducted a listening tour in both South Southend and and and North End schools to meet with the teachers throughout the day to hear from them about what their needs are and what
032they would like to see to feel more supported with resources and they did help us think through some things that we'd like to start investing for them in September so while there will not be a brand new full-on reading series for September this upcoming school year we are going to make investments in literacy resources across the Elementary grades um in the coming months so I just wanted to explain that red there um let me also talk about the third driver down uh this is on track and it's actually very relevant tonight's board agenda up for first read for policies are is an artificial intelligence policy and academic Integrity policy that relates to this driver and essentially what this policy is directing me to do is to work with our leadership team and our teachers to
033create an AI plan and to that uh this Thursday today is our our next professional development afternoon and we are bringing in an AI expert to begin to present to our teachers at both the high school level and the Middle School level about the ways AI can be used to enhance instruction enhance differentiation enhanc efficiencies and the ways it shouldn't be used so we're going to start that education uh and support for our teachers this March and that will obviously continue into next school year as we develop our AI plan um so I wanted to highlight those areas I'm going to go to goal two now the theme of goal two has been communication and public relations the idea being that it's very very important to maintain the highest levels of trust in the community
034between our schools and stakeholders in the community by having ongoing and transparent communication to that end we made some commitments at the start of the school year the first driver there has been achieved we've launched a brand new website over the last couple of weeks we'll continue to invest in the functionality of that website over the next several months so that we can more easily push out notifications on cell phones and through texts uh but right now our website is 100% functional and we're going to be um training our staff and educating our families about how to both use the website and the mobile app to easily access access information about our schools the second driver there I believe is on track I would consider the website to be a Public Relation strategy and then
035the other two we're preparing ing behind the scenes to publish two newsletters this school year uh one each quarter of the two remaining quarters and then next school year ideally it would be four and we're excited to use those new news newsletters to even more robust ways to educate the community about what's happening in our schools on a daily basis and I'd be remiss not to mention the third driver there about an alumni engagement strategy this is on track we've made some really exciting progress here most specifically again on our website very proud of the alumni that we're spotting on are spotlighting spotlighting on our website presently so I hope you have a chance to take a look at that then lastly uh the third goal the theme of this goal facilities finance and security
036um the driver here that's green is essentially this presentation this evening the budget the preliminary budget we'll be presenting to the community this evening I do consider to be strategic and it does um talk about making annual Investments a percentage of annual investments in capital projects that we're very excited about uh we're also committed to investing integrated internet interactive technology the focus for the fall is going to be in getting those boards installed to some degree here at the high school uh that's why I consider that to be on trap and preparing for a referendum initiative uh to solve for the congestion and lrp you'll see as we go through this presentation tonight we're making commitments to accelerate that plan planning so that we're prepared to actually have a referendum in the community for to
037vote upon a year from now March 2026 so that's my update on our goals let's transition to our budget and before I hand it over to uh Mr Burnside our ba to talk about the details in the budget I did want to provide some background into some of our overall strategic approach to building the budget first of all it's fiscally responsive responsible for us each year in building a budget for the next school year is to to look for efficiencies ways that we're rightsizing our district to ensure that our staffing is appropriate um to what our true needs are so that we're investing as much of our funds as possible into our classrooms and our students the right sizing initiatives for the 2526 school year um identifi two areas uh where we could find some
038efficiencies one uh the budget for next school year does reduce um our speech positions by one full-time equivalent position one FTE and then we're also going to be engaging over the next couple months in a restructuring of our leadership team which will lead us to eliminating three supervisory positions to create one Elementary director position and one secondary director position which will then also create some opportunities to backfill some vacancies in total those two initiatives create some significant savings however we can't always be just in the business of right sizing and cutting we have to be also making Investments at the same time and so the budget that's being presented tonight makes some important investments in technology that I've already highlighted um makes investments in capital Improvement projects specifically are working we are working almost around
039the clock to put in place um a plan for a new multi-purpose B baseball turf field here at the high school uh I'll be updating the community about our progress in the next several months for when that will happen we've talked about the healthc care pathway I mentioned the new Elementary literacy resources we're going to continue the mass professional development we are also going to introduce a new professional development partner to our teachers this Thursday to focus on co- teing into next school year and Beyond that'll be an ongoing similar design to the math PD where it's job embedded and I mentioned the newsletters and then we are committing in this budget we're budgeting for an election in March of 2026 and so we're committing to an accelerated referendum planning process this last slide I'll
040do before I hand over the mic um a budget of this size um and and and comprehension does does not just come together in a matter of weeks um please know that the leadership team was engaged in this planning and goal settings as late back as December of 2024 and that continued through February uh we transitioned uh a new business ad administrator into our district over the past month to six weeks he has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get up to speed on the budget uh and I can't say enough about both Mr burnside's Commitment and the whole commitment of the business office these last several months uh while we were in some transition to be able to be in a position so that we can submit this preliminary budget in a way that
041aligns to our district priorities and our district goals uh tonight March 18th we are providing the Ten of budget after tonight it gets submitted to the county for approval and then we're back in front of you in April uh to to give the final presentation on our budget for the upcoming school year um and that's April 29th that that's the public final budget hearing all I apologize if I overt talked there was a lot there I'm now going to hand the mic over to Mr Burnside and he'll walk us through the numbers if you like I'll click the sides for you you got thank you Dr turnamian so we're going to start tonight's uh presentation with um well my part of the presentation anyways with uh operating Revenue impact um the two main sources of
042the district's Revenue are the local tax levy and state aid the proposed tax levy increase is 1,496 550 for the 2526 school year now this is a combination of the allowable 2% cap increase as well as the allowable healthc care adjustment of 2.4 4% or $763,000 um the healthcare adjustment is given to us to go above the 2% cap because our health care costs have increased by approximately 14% no not yet the audited fund balance you'll see up there um that's those are our funds as of June 30th 2024 that we must carry into the 25 26 school budget this budget also includes $400,000 withdrawal from our maintenance reserve and the district does implement procedures to maximize interest earning opportunities and re does receive some tuition-based students um we will not be receiving any semi
043next year you'll see it goes from 8,28 down to zero um we didn't meet the minimum threshold told of having 40 eligible students um so that projection did was not met um so this is your operating Revenue that's currently being budgeted for the 25 26 school year at $4,398 th000 next up is our um Debt Service uh this this we're currently receiving we're going to we are going to receive $ 4,492 in debt service Aid um Debt Service Aid decrease slightly this year compared to last year but that's due to a combination of Interest ear on bond funds and the closing out of some older construction projects These funds were used to offset future Debt Service payment and this is considered tax relief next slide um this is our re Revenue Source distribution pie chart
044it shows that approximately 78% of the district's budget is by is financed by the local tax levy and 7% of the district's budget comes from state aid now when you look at these numbers this is important because when the state looks at our local fair share it calculates how much a district can afford to contribute toward the adequacy budget this number is calculated by entering a Town's equalized value and aggregate income into a formula if the state doesn't believe a community is collecting enough tax revenue they may decrease our state aid we're in good shape here we don't have to worry about that okay so this is going to be our expenditures or as I I like to call them the budget allocations for instructional programs um you'll see the projected increase from the prior
045year is approximately $282,000 and that's going to include your regular programs your basic skills ESL um Media Services and instructional staff training special education the projected increase from our prior year is $374,950 and that's going to be mainly attributed to our out of District tuition but you can also see that it covers um child study team and extra AR Services as well employee benefits this is one of the most significant increases from the prior year this is our health benefits and this is going to go up 1,160 215 so not everything is going up so we do have some some good news for our Support Services there's a decrease of approximately $52,400 and this is mainly due to efficiencies made in school and general Administration and our operations and maintenance you see a slight decrease
046but it's relatively flat All Things Considered um and this is going to be a little bit of breakage and related to changes in Staffing and this is what it looks like in a Ply chart this is kind of amazing to me that we have a lot of equity across our expenditures so this is where I just want to prove to everybody we do indeed have a balance budget our revenues do equal our allocations so our budget's going to be 39,6 78422 for next year so these are some of the uh highlights of our budget challenges that we went through this year um obviously our our our most significant increase is the combination of payroll and benefits uh the increase is approximately $1.57 million Transportation has been rising it at about the same rate as the
047CPI each year um by law uh our contractors are not allowed to increase any more than the CPI index um our out of District placements are projected to slightly increase this year or next year uh that's going to be approximately $148,000 and currently the tax cap in New Jersey is 2% and this increase this year was not enough to cover our salary and benefits so that that was a pretty big challenge um we were able to take take advantage of the uh allowable adjustments for the healthcare and the bank cap and inflation and contractual obligations from some of our vendors Contin continue to increase on top of the salary and benefits so this is a breakdown of our celery and benefits and as you can see um it's approximately 79% of our entire budget is
048obligated to salary and benefits um so this is this is kind of interesting I I always like to do a 10-year history of our tax levy increase and so is Dr T we both recommended it to each other um I guess one of the highlights here is I noticed that sticks out to me is three out of the last five years have been a 2% tax increase without any adjustments so this is a breakdown of how I'm going to roll into our our tax impact analysis um you'll see that the operating budget is approximately 4.7% increase and then you have our debt service which is has gone down a little bit now remember the reason that went down was because we had a little bit of tax relief from the projects that we closed out
049and some of the interest that we earned on the bank account so all the way at the bottom the overall total tax impact is 4.37% and this is our tax uh impact by category there's our 2% tax levy we've got our 2.4% healthc care adjustment um the bank cap came in at. 3% and that's how we get to the total increase of 4.7% so this is our breakdown of debt service I'm not sure if everybody's seen it um these are the last three referendums that we still have on our books and this is what shows our uh interest and principle for our our annual Debt Service payment of 2,314 213 and right now we're still waiting on some um information from the county but our estimated tax impact is going to be a $263 annual
050impact and that breaks down to a $21.69 monthly impact and this is all based on a value of a home at 478,000 $1 and that's my part of the presentation nicely done right nicely done um Madam President we can open up the questions or however you'd like go for the board I me name yeah there's any or we'll just hand it back to you if you like does anybody have any questions or discussion regarding budget Eric yes excuse me we would be able to get a copy of the line items right I'm sorry what was that we'd like to have a copy of the budget oh of all the line items all right yes um I always like to do that after the county has approved it okay great just in case there's any recommendations
051from them thank you okay all right I just would like to Echo uh Dr T's statement before we really do the board appreciates the time and the effort um you walked in like maybe six weeks ago does it feel like it's been forever um and right in the middle of um budget season so we really the board acknowledges the work that central office and um everybody has done the administrative team so we really do appreciate that thank you and my fellow board members and thank you it definitely is a team effort I we can't do it ourselves yes so thank you okay all right get the slide down behind you what's that slide uh Angel you want to to turn this off please thank you all right let's move on to some committee reports feel
052like that was hours ago all right so we'll start at curriculum and well we'll start right down on the end with uh Mr pallic regul instruction thank you Mr dor in the area of uh Personnel uh yourself myself and draman had met on March 10th um in that report there is basically um was covered during the budget presentation uh there are also a number of items that will be on the agenda that are normal business I I would highlight that there are some adjustments to some job descriptions to make them current and be more reflective of the actual positions those individ idual hold and they will be forthcoming on today's agenda and uh also the on the 10th Mr dor myself and Dr Tam meet met as part of the education committee and as was
053spoken about earlier in this evening um interestingly enough there will be uh policy presented on it AI which then also is in coordination with the plan that has to be developed by the District um we discussed that at our meeting the importance of the professional development initiative that's going to be forthcoming this Thursday uh to think about how AI can be a positive factor in the instructional process but also can be something that needs to be monitored and how that can happen and um we spoke about at that meeting how wonderful it was to have this board recognition this evening and talk about the groups that were being recommended and there was also a some discussion on a corrective action plan that's being presented this evening on some collaborative um all title grants that a
054federal monitor had come in and cited and we have a corrective action plan and that is um from previous years that will be on an upcoming agenda not tonight okay [Applause] yes okay thank you Mr F thank you Mr Grande sure we uh we did have a a finance committee meeting uh Lou and myself attended Dr T was there and and Mr Burnside also um similar to to to Paul's presentation you know we a lot of the items that we discussed are on the agenda tonight um we got we were able to preview the budget um so we you know we were able to walk through that uh in advance um some other items just to to kind of highlight again without at the risk of being redundant with the with the normal course materials
055um uh we discussed the approval for the uh spring athletic transportation services um we also discussed the 3000 uh in excess of $3,000 the generous Grant uh by the North End FSA for the second and third grade field trips um as well as the a little bit about the the uh the audit on the the title two um uh grants as well in that corrective action plan we touched upon that as well in the uh in the meeting and then lastly uh potential additional spend related to the field field Turf um and its design again which is also on the on the agenda great good stuff Happening Here Mr marzulo do you have anything no I I tended the uh the meeting with Mr bronde and as he mentioned all well okay moving forward Miss
056Keegan um last week I attended a policy meeting um with Mr Grande and we' discussed the AI policy that's being put for forward um and the academic Integrity policy as well um I want to commend Dr T and the leadership team in the district for working so diligently on it to make sure that it fits our district well um and meets our needs needs and um we're confident that the professional development on Thursday is going to help everyone move forward comfortably with this whole process yes okay and um as you see we don't have our student representative today uh tonight they were unable to attend but they did share with me some updates uh so I'm going to read them for them for them currently they're in the process of organizing the money from uh
057the lip sync battle that has been regenerated it has come back to life it was a huge success look at that that's what she wrote it was a huge success in terms of fundraising um they're also working on planning on a spirit week for the month of April leading up to Spring Break and they're also there's hope to wait we're also hoping to help with the PEP Club run a annual spring pep rally so lots of good stuff coming on in the near future especially spring break which I think we're all looking forward to that um okay so at this point Dr T you do not have a update you just all in your anything additional would you like to add before we move some business here tonight one thing I could add just real
058quick to the community to be on the lookout for and if you hadn't had a chance yet to look on the App Store and to download our mobile app uh we'll start pushing out more information in the coming weeks so that more families can start to become more familiar with the mobile app so that's out there more information's coming just wanted to highlight that and maybe the sign the high SCH sign oh and super every we're all super excited we thank the board for their support uh the business office obviously the leadership here at the high school um for the brand new electric sign out front uh it's you know just driving up to approach the school you get a ton of information um that we didn't have that capacity to do even up till
059last week so and I'd be remiss not to shout out John Bannon um director of buildings and grounds for uh his work to to also make that happen so yeah very exciting great thank you all right so at this point let's move some business under the business administrator's report can I have a motion for G1 through G13 second any discussion roll call please board member Grande yes board member marulu yes board member pic yes board member Keegan yes board president Dar yes motion passes under the superintendent report under General Administration can I have a motion for H1 through H5 please so moved second any discussion roll call please board member Grande yes board member marzulo yes board member pic yes board member Keegan yes board president Dar yes motion passes under Human Resources a motion
060for i1 through I second any discussion roll call please board member Grande yes board member marzulo yes board member P yes board member Keegan yes board president Dar yes motion passes under special services a motion for J1 so move second any discussion roll call please board member Grande yes board member marzulo yes board member pic yes board member Keegan yes board president Dara yes motion passed at this time I would like to open the meeting to public comment on any uh School related items seeing that there is nobody wishing to speak I move to close that portion of the meeting and announcement of future meetings our next meeting will be April 29th uh Clos session or executive will be at 6:30 regular meeting is at 7:30 and it will be here in the auditorium and
061then the following meeting will be May 13th with the same times both the next two meetings will be here in the auditorium um at this time um a motion to adjourn the meeting all in favor all right meeting adjourned have a good evening everybody thank you