001In accordance with the open public meeting act public law 1975 chapter 231 sunshine law copies of the public meeting notice were sent to the courier news the news tribune the star ledger the Franklin reporter tap into Franklin Township Franklin Township clerk manager district schools offices and associations bt presidents and posted on the district website. >> Thank you. The I speak loud. The board of education of the Franklin Township School District in the county of Somerset adjourn into a closed session meeting to discuss the items which fall within an exception of our open meeting policy and permits the board to have a private discussion since it deals with specific exceptions contained in NJA 12B. Matters rendered confidential by federal law, state law or court rule. Individual privacies, collective bargaining agreements, purchase of lease of real real
002property if public interest could be adversely affected. Investment of public funds if public interest could be adversely affected. tactics or techniques utilized in protecting public safety and property. Pending or anticipating litigations, attorney client privileges, and personnel employment matters affecting a specific prospective or current employee. Be it that the board would now go into private session to discuss matters rendered confidential by individual privacy and attorney client privileges including personal matters. Any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential would be made public as soon as practical. minutes of the private session would not be disclosed until the need of confidentiality no longer exists. All appropriate person who may be discussed in the private session have been adequately notified. We anticipate the action to be followed by an executive session. We are now going to
003close session. No. Um, do I have a motion to go into >> So moved by Bill. >> By Nick. All right. >> So moved. >> Hello. >> Oh. >> Yes. All right folks. We are back from executive session. Be it that the board since we are back any discussion held by the board which need not remain confidential would be made public as soon as pro p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p practical. Minutes of the private session would not be disclosed until the need for confidentiality no longer exists. All appropriated person who may be discussed in the private session have been adequately
004notified. All right, since we are back from close session, Brian, can we do roll call one more time? >> Mr. Deglio >> here. >> Mr. Grippo >> here. >> Dr. Hopkins >> here. >> Missio >> here. >> Miss Maris >> here. Mr. Parker >> present. >> Miss Rafi >> here. >> Miss Welch >> here. >> Miss Wilson >> here. >> Have a qu. >> All right. Thank you, Jennifer. Uh let's do the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance 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. >> All right. Can I have a motion to for action to adopt the agenda? >> I'll make the motion. >> So moved by Mahair. >> Second. >> Who second that?
005Uh Clara. All right. Seconded by Clara. All in favor? >> I. So move. >> All right, let's go into our student report. So these ladies could go do some homework. >> Mission statement. Did we do the mission statement? >> Oh, we can. You mean No, we didn't. No, that was the um >> Let the let the let the ladies do their report and then we could go into back to the mission statement. Go ahead, ladies. >> The mics are Oh. Oh, now it does. Okay. >> Good evening. My name is Ailen and I am one of the student government BOE alliances. >> Good evening. My name is Emily and I'm one of the student government all lines BOE alliances. Here are some things going on at FHS. The class of 2029 is raising for their
006senior events to create your own snack box at the end of April. More information will be on the 2029 Google Classroom page. We are so happy to share the results of the New Jersey FBLA State Leadership Conference. 101 Franklin High School students competed overall. Those who place in the top four in their event have qualified to represent New Jersey at the National FBA Conference in San Antonio this June. We are so proud of all of our students. The student government is doing a fundraiser for the NJSL ASC state charity K9 response crisis. The class of 2029 will be holding an afterchool volunteer event for the Elijah Promise Soup Kitchen. The sign up form and more information will be in the 2029 Google classroom. On Saturday, March 21st, 2026, Mr. Mr. J, Miss Dro, FHS social
007studies teacher and Miss Welch, BOE member are were volunteer judges at the regional New Jersey History Day competition held at St. Elizabeth University. On Thursday, March 26, Franklin High School will be hosting its first ever Women's History Month event from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. for FHS students and families. Entrance is $10 at the door, and the event will feature community comedian and alumnist Aaron Jackson glow shops on several topics such as real estate, saving, and flight training. And we'll also feature a a men's cookoff. Don't miss out. >> On April 8th, the counseling department is hosting a junior night at 6:00 p.m. in the auditorium for juniors and their families. We will be going over important steps to support juniors in planning what's next after high school. Topics covered will be college applications, financial aid,
008letters of recommendations, and more. >> Thank you. Thank you ladies. All right, before we go into the um bud budget presentation, um Bill, can can you tell the audience about our mission with the mission statement? >> I got it. I got a dead battery. All right. The mission statement of the Franklin Township Public Schools embraces the diversity, its diversity, fosters excellent educational innovation, and empowers all students to achieve their highest potential. >> Thank you. All right. Um, it's now time for the preliminary budget presentation. Dr. Will Valley. >> Thank you, sir. Everybody hear me? >> Perfect. I promise not to sing, although I feel like I'm about ready to. Um, tonight is what's called a preliminary budget presentation. So, what'll happen, if you have questions, please jot them down. This is not a budget hearing.
009The budget hearing is next month. Uh what happens after tonight, if the board approves the preliminary budget, it gets submitted to the executive county superintendent. The executive county superintendent and his staff will review non-instructional lines and look for um uniformity within the budget and then eventually they could request changes, but ultimately we seek their approval, which allows us to advertise it. Once the budget's advertised for a certain period of time, then we host our budget hearing and at our budget hearing, then we do a presentation very similar to this one, by the way. And um at that point, the public asks questions right after, the board member asks questions right after that. And then there's a vote on the budget, and if it so passes, it becomes the budget for the next school year. So,
010reason I tell you that again is because if you have questions along the way, please jot those down because you're not going to have an opportunity to ask them right away, but you will be able to ask them in that first public comment period because that first public comment period since this is an agenda item is for agenda items only. So, you'd be able to come up make a comment or ask a question. Uh, for those that are new, the format is you ask your question, everybody gets to ask questions or make comments and then at the end we can respond to some of that. But let's go forward. I just wanted to highlight the board members here and especially those who are part of the I don't know is this funky thing work? No,
011I guess not. Uh those with asteris uh you can see Lori Maris and Mayare. Um Lori and Mayare are members of the finance committee along with Mr. Parker who was the chairperson of the finance committee who worked alongside of us as we created the budget and of course Dr. Hopkins uh is the board president. He attends all those committee meetings as well but and then we have every all the other board members that are listed there and the appropriate committees were helpful along the way in keeping uh keeping us to our board goals. These are the budget managers for the district. Um we it's a big it's a big district and with that comes a lot of folks who have their hands uh as part of managing andor building the budget. Uh so you have
01210 building principles, you have 14 content supervisors all manage their piece of the budget. I.e. if you're the social studies supervisor, you're managing the money spent on social studies for the entire district. And if you're the elementary ELA, English language arts supervisor, you're doing the same for the elementary folks. So you can see a listing of all those folks that have not only input on the budget, but are resp but are responsible for helping to manage the budget. The goals for tonight, we're going to review the budget calendar briefly. We're going to breeze through the budget goals and I'll explain that in just a second. We're going to receive board of education input and then during the public comment section, like I said, write your questions down and hold them until the public comment section.
013Um, we're going to review estimated revenues. My friend, Mr. Frerieded, our school business administrator, will do that. He'll review estimated tax impact and then we'll tell you what our next steps are. Here's the budget calendar. You can see we start the budgeting process way back in October. And it's important to understand that because this doesn't happen in a vacuum. This happens way back in October when Mr. Freed and his talented team meet with the budget managers and kick things off. We craft our budget goals. We recommend them to the board. The board holds them against their uh board goals and the strategic plan to make sure that everything is in alignment. And then we're off and running. We work through November. We work through December, January, and February and get to the point where we
014are. After the governor's budget address, they give us the final bits of information uh that are needed in order to build the budget. And then we prepared for what's called the preliminary budget review, which is happening this evening. We submit it the day after or the day after that. sometime this week. Hopefully after the preliminary budget is approved, it'll get submitted to the county and then we'll have our board hearing in April. These are the budget goals and I'm not going to read these to you. And by the way, this will be posted on our website. The entire um presentation will be posted on our website following tonight's meeting. But you can see there are five goals up here that really drive the budgeting process. And you'll see they're hyperl, that's the blue underline. They're
015hyperl to what board goals each of these budget goals tie to. And when you click on that hyperlink, it'll take you to what the board goal is. So you'll see that there is connection between what the direction the board gave us those 45 people building the budget and their goals for the year. The same is true with the strategic plan. We have a board approved strategic plan and this is how our board goals tie to the strategic plan. And again they're hyperl not going to take you there but when you get this in your in your hands online you'll be able to do that. So the challenge is every year there are challenges within a budget. How do we meet these budget goals while supporting and growing programs while staying within revenue limits? Very difficult
016when you have health care costs rising at unprecedented levels. So the state health care, if you're following any of that closely, the state health plan rose by over 30%. And we're no different. We offer similar plans, which means we had a huge increase in health care costs as well. We have anticipated increases in transportation costs, much greater than than than inflation. If you put all of our transportation together, and I'm including, you know, sports and field trips and getting to school and back from school, um I actually would estimate that we're somewhere in that 5 to 7% increase in transportation. I am going to thank thankful though that the board had the foresight to lock in a 5-year contract a couple of years back. If we didn't have a five-year contract, I could only imagine
017if we had to go out to bid this year for transportation services, how much of an increase that actually could be. If you filled your car up lately, you know what I mean. Buses run on diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is about 550 a gallon in the last 3 or 4 weeks, right? So that would give a transportation company the opportunity if we had to go out to bid to raise that even higher because it would be cutting into their profits. We're locked in thankfully because we wanted the stability of a longer contract. We took the chance when we did that if you remember because hey costs could be down but they're not and they don't typically go down. So, we rolled the dice and came out on the right side of that. Still a huge
018increase. You know, that's a big line for us. Multi multi-millions of dollars that are going to go up 7%. Same with healthcare. Like I said, multi multi-millions of dollars going up 30%. That's, you know, quite an increase. An increase of approximately 7% on the estimated charter school tuition. So, we understand how that works. We pay tuition to the charter schools for kids that choose to attend the charter school. So it becomes an economic expense for us. We pay that. It's an added district tuition that comes from our operating budget and goes to feed their operating budget. We're estimating a 7% increase. The state actually estimated much higher. I've been here for a number of years. We've been here as a team for a number of years. So, we've tracked the actual increases that we've experienced.
019And even though the state was asking us to budget about 1.9 million more than what we're actually going to budget, we're budgeting about half of the $3.1 million increase that they told us we had a budget. The state that is. Um, and that's because we do have that history where they don't seem to realize the amount that they estimate they're going to take. So, we've got permission from the state because we have that long history of showing an overestimation not to have to budget that much. So, I'm pretty comfortable and we're pretty conservative at 7%. But 7% on $20 million is a lot of money. increase in salaries greater than 2%. Uh again, I think the board did a great job negotiating the last contract and the fact that we had lots of vacancies. We
020had uh uh lots of holes in our roster. We've been able to fill that, but that came at an expense and our salary increases overall are greater than 2% when you add all of our groups and we employ over,50 people in the district. So you can imagine that's a big big big number that puts a strain on our budget. And then the other challenge that not many people realize is last year we we had to apply for the extra levy in order to balance our budget. We know that that was a lot. We didn't apply for all that we were eligible for because the board decided to use some of its savings, some of its revenue, uh, or some of its, um, reserves, its bank account money to fund the budget. That's no longer there.
021So that leaves a $4 million hole in the budget that has to be plugged as well in order for us to continue with those programs that that bank account money was funding. So those are all the challenges. That's what makes budgeting increasingly more difficult, especially when the cap is so low and the expenses are rising so high. So how did we meet our budget goals despite all of that? Well, I'm going to give you a glimpse at some of the programs that we're continuing. And by the way, we're continuing all of our successful programs. There's not a program that is being cut if it's been successful for us. Um, we do have a slight shifting in staff. We're we're we're going to bring on some new and different staff in the place of some staff
022that we're able to trim down based on enrollment. Um, so with that said, let's talk about supporting district initiatives that ensure physical and mental well-being of students. Under mental health supports, we've learned that Bridgeway is no longer offering psychological evaluation services. Um, that's for kids that end up in crisis for one reason or another. Robert Wood Johnson will now be handling that for the county. As as a uh um result of that, our fees will increase. So, Bridgeway offered that service at one time for the county. Now, Robert Wood Johnson will be doing it and we'll be paying more per kid as a result. So, that's an increase um that we have to support. We're continuing the use of our licensed clinical mental health counselor uh counselors at all our grade levels. We have one
023at the elementary level. We have one at the middle school level and Dr. Solomon, correct me if I'm wrong. Two at the high school. I can't remember. We have two at the high school. Two at the high school, one at the middle school and um one at the elementary school. Uh we're expanding the elementary mental health supports and hopefully now we pay an outside company to provide the mental health counseling that I just mentioned our idea and they have a cut off on the number of kids they can service and you know that somewhat makes sense right they're hiring folks they're telling you we've got a cap at X we think we might be able to do a little better with that so we're going to slowly try and take that over. We think it
024will save money and provide more service. Um, but we're not there yet. However, we do want to try and add a part-time person that we would employ in a similar way to the service we use now and then maybe eventually be able to expand over time on that physical facility safety. We're going to add additional school surveillance equipment. We're going to upgrade visitor management systems. We're going to maintain our class 3 program and that comes at a cost this year because they're under a new contract. So that increases our expense to put an officer in every school. We're going to comply with the new cell phone bell-to-bell use law. I don't think that's going to be a huge expense, but it's going to be an expense just the same. We have some wellness initiatives going
025on all under that goal. Number one, we're going to operate open and operate finally our Zufall Health Center for students. Uh that's on the middle school campus and Zufall Health will be uh providing the service in that facility at no cost to us. Um but of course there's a cost to operating the center. Although be it slight, it will offer a good opportunity for us to meet the needs of our students who uh who need that service. We're going to expand our services with Integrity Partnership Health to promote staff wellness at our uh staff health center and we're going to continue with sustainability New Jersey wellness initiatives and that really covers all and that's in all of our buildings and we usually do that via various grants. We have climate culture work we're doing in
026our schools. We have a school counselors and school-based SEAL teams with the ongoing integration of programming around and that NJSCI is a survey that measures climate and culture in a building and then Dr. Logan and his team take that information and put it into uh use it to put plans into action to address the things that are identified by those surveys. We're going to continue district-wide days. Uh, and that's social emotional learning days and school by school implementation of SEAL programs. We're going to expand a new pilot. Um, it's the spoken word therapy program. It's been hugely successful for us. Um, and we are going to work to build that out a bit um to help with climate culture in our schools. Under specialized programs, we're going to expand some programs. So, we have a
027thriving medically fragile and autism program in our district, and we're looking to expand that to service more kids. We're going to maintain our preschool programs. We have about 95% of our classrooms integrated at this point, which is the suggested state model, and we do that through a state grant. And that's a grant that if you heard the budget, uh if you heard the governor's address, she talked about in her address. and we're going to continue to capitalize uh servicing our students eligible for early childhood three and four year olds. We're going to expand high impact tutoring. If you did hear the governor's address, you heard heard tout our success with high impact tutoring. She specifically mentioned our program. Um Dr. Dr. Lren and his team have been working hard to uh offer high impact tutoring
028which is a very aggressive onetoone tutoring kind of program. Um and we're doing it with grant money but that grant money comes in and becomes part of our budget. So uh we're excited that if you heard her address she's expanding the grant opportunities there and you know since we were touted as a poster child for those things we're going to try and capitalize on that. We're going to continue with the expansion of our bilingual programming. So, uh, Claremont Elementary School is adding another grade level so that they'll be prek through 4 in the coming year and then the following year they'll be prek through five. They'll have a bilingual home room as well as PGM having a bilingual home room. One session in each of those two schools will have bilingual home rooms. And the
029need is there. and and and honestly in order to service the amount of kids we have we needed to start to build that program out about some 3 four years ago and we're going to expand the use of depth depth and complexity framework so that's a again Dr. Logan and his team have been working on uh implementing these frameworks as a pilot in our schools and it helps teachers to differentiate instruction. So it helps to meet those kids at the higher end of the learning spectrum while also meeting the needs of those kids in the middle and maybe at the lower end and offering the supports that are needed. So all kids are challenged. Um we've had some good success with the pilot and we're looking to expand it further um because we do have
030a wide range of students in our classrooms and this has been a good support for our kids. New initiatives really excited about unveiling the Franklin Middle School Warrior Next Tech Academy. So our next tech academy proud of the work that our two administrators right here are doing Dr. Arala and Mr. Seagull in leading this initiative and all the other folks that have worked on it. We have 75 students lined up to be in or will be lined up soon. We're in the selection process right now and and they'll be housed in the Hamilton Street campus of Franklin Middle School where they will be a school within a school and it'll be a STEMlike academy using immersive technologies to um further their studies in the area of uh regular comprehensive subjects and disciplines as well as
031STEM related programming all in connection with as you'll see later on uh SHI which is a local huge technology company that will be offering uh the opportunity to mentor our kids as we work with them in the program. We're going to introduce cosmetology studies at Franklin High School and we're going to do that in partnership with Raritan Valley Community College. So, uh we initially wanted to introduce four cohorts. It looks like we're going to be able to at least initiate two and there'll be about 40 students who will have the opportunity to uh be taught by an RVCC um professor in and and begin their studies in cosmetology. We're going to offer an integrated JROTC opportunity for students at FHS. We have a junior ROC program that is award-winning program. Um, and lots of general
032education students have always been part of it. This is now going to be opened up for students with special needs to be included and integrated into that opportunity as well with full supports so that they have every means to be successful. So we're excited about that. It'll be a first year for us. Goal two continuing part of that is professional development. Uh Unite PD that is teachers teaching teachers and we initiated that this year. We're going to look to continue it into next year. It's been popular. It been a wonderful program. Um and and and we're looking to continue to grow that effort. We're going to continue with our multi-ensury reading support. Uh that's Orton Gillingham training by name, if you will. Um you heard a lot about the science of reading and all the
033efforts in that area and um Orton Gillingham certainly helps and supports that. We're going to provide PD with a focus on problem based learning. Uh we're working with Intel Corporation. Uh you've probably heard of Intel. We're working with Intel Corporation on that. And uh we're going to look to uh focus most of that effort with our Next Tech Academy teachers. Um but hopefully expand upon that in future years. And as we always do and as we are responsible to do, we're going to continue to provide content specific training in all disciplines. Goal three, and I promise you we're almost to the numbers. Goal three, new partnerships. That partnership with SHI, as I said earlier, is going to help us to open our next tech academy. Uh and again, professionals in the world of STEM will
034be mentoring our students, our sixth graders as they're studying and working um to further their education as it relates to uh engineering, AI, uh all those STEM related fields. We're partnering with Intel, as I just said, to provide professional development and curriculum for the Warrior Next Tech Academy. And we have our agreement, these are new, have our agreement with RVCC to provide all the materials and all the curriculum for a career and the teacher for a career path cosmetology course at FHS with the hope that students will then move on to RBCC, if so interested, gain their certification and an associates degree at the end of the program. continued partnerships. We have a great partnership with the YMCA aka we use a lot of private pro providers in in the Franklin community uh in order
035to host our district preschool students. Uh Zoo Fall Medical, we work with them now. We're going to continue to work with them in the future, meeting the health needs of our kids in our school-based health center that is on the Hamilton Street campus. And we are going to continue our partnership with Integrity Health, who provides all of the services and pharmaceutical services to meet the needs and wellness of our staff members. sustainability initiatives. We're going to initiate an EIP project plan and that's based on a recent energy audit. For those of you that maybe aren't familiar with an energy audit, they just like your house except, you know, we've got lots of big buildings here. They come in, they audit all of your energy sources. They look for ways in which you can save and
036then they help you to develop a project plan that to make some adjustments that are based on the savings. Um we sell solar credits. I don't know if you're aware of this, but um we have our own solar panels on the Claremont Elementary School. So, we actually sell those solar credits um and take that revenue to pay the panels off. Eventually, hopefully, we can bring that revenue into the budget down the road. And both at Claremont, we get electrical savings. And in our other buildings that have solar panels, we're part of the county PO. Um so, we're getting only the electrical savings there. Um but that is coming to an end, but we've been able to, Mr. Freed and his team have been able to negotiate a successful deal that will allow us to continue
037to take advantage of the electrical savings um on on through the PO even though some of the panels are aged and getting ready to come off. And we're going to continue our teacher and school leader support of all of our sustainable Jersey learning initiatives to promote environmentally responsive practices. Uh we have 10 school-based green teams now and they work as the engine for promoting these initiatives and most of them if not all of them by now have won grants to support their work and most of them if not all of them by now have been recognized by the state for the good work that they're doing. Last slide I have uh are the personnel changes and I wanted to make you all aware of this and a lot of this is shifting like I said
038this not a lot of new money but maybe some money that's being shifted um and that is to add that additional bilingual teacher at CES to continue the growth of that program. So that's adding a fourth grade bilingual teacher. the immersion lab teacher at Warrior NextTech Academy. That's a um again, we're building that space out as we speak. And our NextTech Academy kids will be often utilizing that space to support their learning and that teacher will help facilitate the use of that lab. the licensed clinical mental health counselor, that part-time person we talked about. Um the special ed teachers, there's five of them there. And the par profofessional um to support the growth of the autism program. Again, all of that, some of it has direct budget impact, some of it comes from moving around
039teachers. Um, and that takes us to the numbers. Mr. Freed, hold this one. Good evening folks. Steven Freed, school business administrator. So I am going to run through our revenue and appropriations on a projected 2027 budget. So this is um a snapshot of the the the levy. So our 2027 tax levy with the 2% increase um is projected 183,074681. With that we're asking to take the the healthc care adjustment of 11,31634. And this is an allowable adjustment that the DOE um uh allows you to use to to offset you know uh insurance costs. So this varies from year to year and in this year the amount was 11 million because largely because of uh the state health benefit plan is increasing around 31%. So they, you know, project that most districts in New Jersey are
040going to have a similar increase. And when the rest of your budget is capped at 2% and they know that this is typically this, you know, the the single big, you know, single largest budget line item, uh, they allow you this adjustment. This is one of the few qualified tax levy adjustments. And so the total 2027 tax levy would be 194, 391, 315. And that makes up 88% of our revenues. So just to put that into context, when you're in a district like Franklin where it's almost entirely funded by the tax levy, you know, 88%. uh if you were to not take this year, you know, the healthcare adjustment only take the 2%. You know, that would have to mean that everything else in your operating budget, all of your expenses would only go up
0412%. And we know that that's not the case. Charter schools are going way up, health benefits going way up, utilities, just about everything. So there's only two ways to make this budget balance and that's increasing revenues via this healthcare adjustment or massive cuts, you know, in appropriations and finding $1 million in cuts would have been an enormous task. So this is where we're at with the tax levy. Moving on to our capital reserve withdrawals this year, uh a modest capital reserve withdrawal of 125,000. This is to outfit the classroom, the next tech academy that Dr. Ravali was talking about and um so capital reserve is a parking place for unspent appropriations. So you know when a budget year ends and you have your financial audit, they certify to what all your revenues and appropriations and
042expenditures were. And if you have any unspent appropriations, and you hope that you do, you plug that extra amount into uh your different reserve accounts or you could use it as a revenue stream in the form of budgeted fund balance. So, because we haven't uh plugged any money back into those reserve accounts um in the last year, we decided that we're not going to take large withdrawals out to do different construction projects. But that's not to say that we've depleted those accounts. We just feel it's responsible since we didn't put a large deposit back in. We're not taking the large withdrawal in this budget. And so this is a summary of our local revenues. Again, on the top, that's our uh tax levy. Next line item is the budgeted fund balance, the number I was
043talking about. Those are zeros all the way across. It was zero in the budget year we're in now and it's zero in the budget we're proposing. Um just for history sake in 2024 and 2025 we took about 1.5 million and uh so we we've weaned off of using that as a onetime revenue and we you know uh that's a positive thing. Uh tuitions these are uh receive tuitions for students who live out of Franklin but come to Franklin schools. Um, we're projecting this to increase to 190,000. That's where our enrollments are at right now. And we're projecting they'll be around the same next year. Capital reserve, as I illustrated, we're only taking 125,000 out. Maintenance reserve, we're not taking any. And unassigned surplus, we're also not taking any. uh miscellaneous interest income. We're we drove
044down the this projection around 400,000. Uh this is largely interest income and we generate a lot of that interest income on our cash balances and because we used our reserve cash balances, we're generating less interest income on lower balances there. So I drove that, you know, that balance down. Um so our total local revenues are um increasing 5.7%. Just and just for comparison's sake u in the prior year uh local revenues were increasing 9.06. So this is less of an increase than in prior year. Some of our other revenues are total state aid. Uh this is our categorical aids. Um categorical special ed transportation and security aid. Um our categoricals went up 970,000 but netted into that u increase is a $527,000 reduction of tax levy incentive aid. It was a one-time uh grant that
045we were given last year as part of our tax levy um application. They gave us around $527,000 as an incentive to do the application and so that was available to us last year and not this year. So state aid is going up uh 2.11%. Extraordinary aid we're projecting this to go up to 3.3 million up 550,000. This is based on the fact that the the latest uh extraordinary aid uh grant award that we were given was 3.3 million. So we think that we'll be at least in the same ballpark for extraordinary aid and and extraordinary aid is used to defay the cost of out of district tuitions that we pay for our private schools and public schools. Uh the semi- aid that's a special ed special education Medicare initiative. This is a number given to
046us by the county. I think we typically clear this hurdle um of our revenue projection but we don't develop it. They tell us what to budget and this is a reimbursement for health related service provided to Medicaid eligible students. So total general fund revenue is projected to go up 5.57% uh for the budget year. Um special revenue fund. This is our grant fund. This is our title funds and our IDA funds and our PEA funds. Our our PEA uh grant is up around 400,000. But for the rest of our our grant standard practice is to budget only 85% of our current year allocation. So the net of all that is a reduction of 689,000. and the debt service fund. This is our uh bond and uh our bond principal and interest payments that I pull
047right off our amortization schedules. And so that payment is a decrease of 121,049. So the total operating budget um we're estimating to be 246,584,575 or an increase of 4.59%. So looking at the tax rate, this calculation is on a calendar year because the municipality, Township of Franklin, works on a calendar year. So we have to annualize our fiscal year budgets that are on a split year to be on calendar year. So, these tax levy numbers, you won't be able to tie in to my other tax levy numbers because we're uh you know uh July to June and they're January to December. So, uh the calendar year, which is the second half of this period we're in right now, second half of school year 2026 and the first half of school year 2027, uh tax levies
048193, 717, 670. the net valuation taxable. This number comes from our municipal tax assessor and they are saying that our ratables uh are going up 650,425,700. So when you divide out this math, the tax rate is going up 0.05%. And the impact of that on the average assessed home is also from the tax assessor. The average assessed home value is going up 17,055. School tax rate number that's from the prior slide. And multiplying that out, the annual average, the annual tax impact to the average home is $6,393 or an increase of $481. And just to illustrate that last year's budget, the increase to the average homeowner was $673. And this budget we're projecting is an increase of 481. So a slight less increase than last year's increase. The next steps are um this presentation and
049the agenda item that's on u the board's agenda for approval for the preliminary budget. If it gets approved, I submit that to the county office tomorrow and they give me any comments or feedback or any changes that they'd like to make and I uh incorporate those changes. And then uh at the next month's meeting, we have our uh formal uh budget hearing where we do another presentation and vote in the budget and it becomes finalized. >> Any questions? >> A good doctor. Yes. Thank you, um, Stephen and, um, Dr. Rivali. Now, to my fellow board members, uh, any questions, Jennifer? >> Not this time. >> Okay, Claire. >> None for me, >> Nick. >> Nothing right now. >> All right. Uh, Bill. >> Bill. >> Yeah, I'm with you, Dennis. You just got to my
050brain's got to connect. >> Well, you can I don't know. >> So, um for the sake of the public because sometimes people leave when we do our public comments. We have three citizens here from the public tonight. One I invited from St. Matias Church to hear our budget and two are her friends. But where's the public? When people complain about a budget of this magnitude, they have no idea, you can't get this on a website. You've got to be here to hear this presentation. And you both of you, Joe, uh Joe, Dr. Ravali and Mr. Freed did a tremendous presentation. And you know, I say that in front of the professionals that are here because congratulations. In my opinion, every professional should be here. Every administrator should be here. I got to watch. I don't
051talk out of school here tonight. But this was a great presentation and it's an education. I mean, I I sit here and as my father used to say, my buttons are popping, baby. That means I'm proud of what the district has done with all these programs with the 1100 staff members, thousands of students. This is not a joke. People come up to me and say, "Oh, the taxes are raised." Well, you went to some critical issues. We're a busing district. We're not Southbound Brook where you throw a stone at your school. We're a busing district. It's like a railroad station. It caused buses all over the place. We've got two the couple of charter schools that sucks the life out of here sometimes. Uh the health program uh the the health services that we provide
052our staff are necessary and the budget goals. If you listen to those budget goals tonight, like I was kind of scratching my head. I've been around for a while and just to listen to the goals that we have in Franklin Township is impressive. They're very impressive. Mr. Union guy, you guys have a you you should be proud of yourself. This is a wonderful district. And I am surprised that my friends and so many thousands of friends I have in Franklin Township, they're not sitting here. This is This night is the centerpiece of the life of a district. You're presenting the budget for all of what I just said for next year. So I congratulate you. There's no questions. I mean, I could sit here pick little things apart like, you know, buses. Yeah, they're little
053things. But there's not I don't have any questions. I just want to commend you, Dr. Ravali. This is your last uh preliminary budget hearing. Thank you for your service. And um that's it. So, I'm not going to say anything in public comments. I'll spare you tonight. Thank you very much. You can clap. All right. Um, it's just odd how this works out. We go, we have our finance committee last to uh comment with questions and um I'm going to reserve what I have to say about the finance committee um to the end. But uh uh Lori, >> I just want to say thank you to everyone who had a hand in pulling this budget together. This is a huge task and I just want to say thank you because I'm despite the fact that we
054need to watch every penny. I see us investing in every facet of our students. every student despite no matter what their interest level. We've got uh investments in CTE this year. We've got investments in ROC. We've got the next tech academy. We've got investments in gifted and talented. No matter what your students strength is, there's something here in Franklin for them. And I'm just really gratified to see that. And I thank you all for making that happen. Thank you, Lori. Mah, I >> I don't have any questions, but I just want to commend Dr. Ravali, Mr. Freed, because numbers are not easy to understand and I know that as a finance person and just it was just impressive for somebody with how to break the numbers and for the budget and have it to be
055easily understood. Thank you. >> All right. and the the the chairman. >> Gentlemen, just a couple of questions uh really quick. One on uh reserves and priorities uh for you, Mr. Freed, and the other uh Dr. Revali on adequacy and fair share. Um Stephen, can you give us a quick explanation on on how uh not taking out of our reserves is a net positive for us uh and the fact that we can still support um things like, you know, student health and you know, our STEM and our vocational capabilities. Uh sure not taking out of our reserves um is a good thing right because you know we have a mult you know there's a bunch of categories of reserves the unassigned reserve is the one that I talk about the most we took 1 million
056um in 2025 and the 1.7 in 2026 that is like your rainy day fund that you you know don't often touch and all the excess surplus that you generate in excess of that that goes into your different reserve accounts like capital and maintenance and emergency and whatever clears those hurdles goes into budgeted surplus which is a revenue stream. So, you know, it it gives me comfort and it should give everyone comfort having a cushion there and we only go there when we need to in extremely difficult budget years and and that that's what we've had you know in rising inflation environments. That's what we've had and we've went into those reserves and you know with determination I I I want to at the end of this year plug money back into those accounts and you
057know at the end of this one we're building right now. It's important to me because it's inherent to the health of the budget having healthy reserves. >> Thank you. Um Dr. Revali, last year there was a huge gap in our state adequacy. Can you tell us where we are now? >> Yes. Uh we're still below adequacy. And for those that don't recall that conversation last year, the state actually takes a per pupil amount and they use that per pupil amount and then they throttle it up. Uh high school kids cost more than elementary kids and a high school kid who has special needs costs more and then a high school kid with special needs who might be English as a second language and they keep adding to that. So that then accounts for the diversity
058of your of your population. and they multiply the number of high school kids you have, the number of kids you have, what all those different unique needs, and they come up with what they call an adequacy budget, what they believe as a state would be fair, a fair amount of money to spend on your students. We're still below um and that does get plugged into the state uh formula um for state aid. We we are still below uh 4.2 million is what the latest download shared with us is that we're still slightly below what the state considers adequate spending for a diverse population such as ours and what our overall budget should be. Um and then fair share is the amount not me the state fair share is the amount that the state calculates you
059should be burdening as a taxpayer in your local community. So i.e. they they come up with that based on um property wealth and earnings earning overall wealth in the community. And there's a formula for that. And then they tell you um what percentage of that adequacy budget you should in your local community be shouldering based on that calculation. We're still below there as well. Um we're about 6 million below the fair share calculation. So we're about 42 4.2 million below the adequacy calculation and about 6 million below the fair share calculation. And that does have an impact on the amount of state aid that you may gain in any one given year. >> But we've gotten closer, right, since last year. And >> yeah, last year we were double digits away in both categories. Um,
060both categories we're double digits. The extra levy obviously helped to close that gap a bit. Um, so uh, yes, we were much further away last year. We're closer in both categories this year, which should help in future years um to maybe maybe help on the aid side of things. >> Good. Good. Well, look, thank thank you to you and your team for the time, the effort, um and advancing the district goals, um you know, rising expenses, inflationary pressures, war, uh increasing healthcare costs. Um I mean, you guys have addressed the replenishment of our reserves. So, thank you. Really appreciate that. reduce taxpayer burden to an extent. Um continue to maintain strong health support for the students and overall student wellness which is a huge plus. Um continue the development of STEM. You know uh Dr.
061Hopkins I know that's big for you capabilities. And then something that I I I really love the expanded vocational and technical educational resources. Dr. Logan, thank you very much. That's that is tremendous. Um and I know it's a preliminary budget but you know we're not there yet but we're we're better than we were last year. reflects thoughtful progress by your team uh and a clear commitment to balancing uh the budget uh the fiscal responsibility and and with student needs as well. So, thank you very much for your team. Appreciate it. >> Madame VP, >> no questions for me. Just thank you for that thorough um budget. >> All right. Um a couple of top things I want to highlight and um number one uh Dr. Vali u Mr. free. Um, thank you for the presentation,
062the time and effort that goes into this. Uh, as a fly on the wall in all these committees, um, the finance committee, I want to thank you for asking those hard questions um, and having um, the the liaison um, Mr. free seek out those answers to help build this budget. One of the things that I want to share with the public though is that um some of the things that some may forget or may not realize what goes into a budget um a uh of the district itself. Sometimes we forget that the charter schools are part of this budget itself. So any increases that the charter schools ask and the state approved that impacts the district budget. Number two, um like Dr. Rally said that I believe it was last year or maybe two years
063ago that um uh we we we locked in the contracts with the buses like Bill said that we are a busing district. So, just imagine if we go out to um to bid for the the bus and contracts today with the diesel prices as is today. This budget would be a lot more a lot more. And uh it's nothing we can't run away from the healthc care increases and uh with the zoo far and some of the other cre the the clinic for the employees that was established um we um those particular items help decrease the cost of the health care in the district also. But without those items that um particular number would go up too. But keeping in mind we do take the stakeholders. When I say stakeholders we take this very seriously.
064All of the people in the district who has kids presently in school either or don't have kids in school. when we um vote on things and when we um ask those hard questions in committees, we take all of our stakeholders in mind and we um definitely keep the the the the amount of money that our stakeholders is investing into our precious students. And uh and lastly, like all of the the folks here said in the presentation um presented for itself that the goals that the board has set out that we have touched upon, I think uh every uh area within our district in the sense of trying to um have our students to become productive adults. We hit on the next tech academy from the academia um point of view. I'm big on I'm a
065military guy. So the JOTC for our special needs is huge. We we are celebrating 250 years of America. So how patriotic is that? How about that, Bill? They could put the flag on their uniform. hospitality. We are um regardless of what avenue our students choose to go down, what road they choose to go down, the high school itself is providing avenues for kids to take advantage of. So once again, excellent presentation. Kudos and we'll see what the state has once they scrub this budget and we'll see you next month. All right, let's move on with this agenda. I guess uh Dr. Vali had to hustle back to his seat unless he know for his son superintendent >> me. The only thing I wanted to do was say thank you to all the budget managers as
066well as Mr. Freried and his staff and the board for your support. It's Oops, Mr. Banano turned me off. You must be timing. >> Have to buy new microphones to put in the budget. >> Can't afford it. Um, yes. So, again, thank you, Mr. Freed. Thank you to your staff. Thank you to all the budget managers, some of whom are here. Uh it's never an easy task when you're, you know, living on a 2% increase in inflationary times. It's super difficult to be able to maintain really positive things for our kids. Um do the right thing to keep um faculty moving forward and uh uh and again, board support is important and I appreciate all the work that the committees did to help us get there. So So thank you to all. Uh, and I
067did and I'll end with this just a reminder that spring spring break begins on Monday and it is a week long. So, we are back in school the following Monday. So, it's um Oh, actually, no, wait, Brian. It Yeah. Yes. Begins on Monday to Friday >> this year. >> That's right. >> Oh, right. >> And uh I thank you for that reminder, Mr. Banano and our lucky Hamilton Street folks get an extra day because we're forced to close that campus uh due to some downwires in the recent windstorm. Um so they will be in on uh for the minimum session day that was cancelled on March 30th. Uh making up their day. The rest of the district will be closed uh as far as schools go. And then all schools will be closed Tuesday through
068Friday. So just a point of clarification. Wanted to make sure we were clear on that and have a wonderful break, upcoming break. That's it for us. >> All right, the um I'm back up with the president report. Can I have a moment of silent? It is with great sadness that I ask you to pause for a moment of silence to honor three former employees who recently passed away and who embody the warrior spirit. First, Lorraine Sappilera, a beloved and longtime elementary teacher who has served the district for 40 years. Second teacher, Anna Demente, who served the students of Franklin for over 50 years, serving as a mentor for staff and advocate for student advocate for students. And finally, Len Rivers, a former Franklin High School head football coach who led the team to a championship
069season in 1984 and 87 and who later served the district as a human resource recruiter. All three of these warriors inspire our students and have made us proud. Let us take a a moment to remember them and think of their families and friends during these difficult times. Let's have that moment. Thank you. All right. Next, student filmmaker. The 24th annual Garden State Film Festival is coming up later this week. And I am happy to say that one of our Franklin High School juniors in the aspect of video CT program will have her film shown in the festival. Kennedy Price created the film over the summons as part of the black girls film camp. We are very proud of this accomplishment. Finally, the Zoo Fall Health Center ribbon cutting. Finally, I am happy to announce that
070the ribbon cutting on the zoo for fall schoolbased health center located on the grounds of Hamilton Street campus of Franklin Middle School will take place on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. We will we will be sharing further information on this event in the health center in the near future. All right. Let's move on now for uh can I have a motion for comments from the public? Agenda items only. >> So moved by Nick. >> Second by Bill. All right. We are open for all in favor. All right. Okay. We are now open for public comments. 5 minutes only, agenda items only. And as always, as um stated at the beginning of the year, Dr. Solomon is the timekeeper. So be mindful of your time. And um when you step to the podium, state your name and
071give us your address. Seeing no one from the public to come up and speak, I move to close the public session. >> Second. >> Okay. >> So move and second move by um Bill and seconded by Erica. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. So move. All right. we go on to our committee reports and um let's start off with policy and um give us a summary what what happened in policy um this month. >> Good evening. The policy subcommittee met virtually on Monday, March 9th, 2026. The meeting started at 5:30 p.m. in attendance were Mary Clark, Bill Grio, Dennis Hopkins, John Rabbali, Clara Wilson, and myself. The committee proposed revisions to policy 5841, secret societies. The policy prohibits the formation of student organizations that are not open to all students. The committee noted
072that this change would allow the policy to remain aligned with the current law and reduce the need for future revisions whenever regulatory language is updated updated. There being no further business, the meeting concluded at 6 p.m. >> Thank you. All right. Um Nick, you up with personnel. Okay. So, the personnel committee meeting took place on March 17th, 5:00 p.m. Myself as the chair, Lorie Marris, Jimmy Parker, Dr. Dennis Hopkins, Dr. John Rali, Brian Banano, and Colleen Develin. We went over the personnel report uh that was presented that included recommendations for appointments to the positions of supervisor of special education prek through 5, supervisor of ESL and bilingual education, visual arts teachers, paraprofessional and substitute staff and the report recommendations for additional assignments, extracurricular appointments, spring sports Staffing, leaves of absence, transfers, and resignations were also
073reviewed. The meeting ended at 6:10. All right, before we go on to our next uh committee um report, I think it's just right on time to uh we have two of the new hirees here and um I'm going to ask them to step to the mic and um introduce themsel and and um tell us what they are doing. First, we're going to start with Miss Janet Warbeck. >> Good evening. Good evening, uh, president, members of the board, superintendent, cabinet, staff, and community members. Standing here tonight feels both humbling and incredibly special. More than 20 years ago, I walked into Franklin Township public schools as a first grade teacher, full of energy, hope, and a deep belief in what children can achieve at only six years old. To return now decades later in the role of
074supervisor VS and bilingual education is an honor that is difficult to put into words. This moment is meaningful to me, not only because I'm returning to a district that shaped my early teaching career, but also because I am a multilingual learner myself. I know firsthand the challenges, the uncertainties, and the support that must be in place for students like me to grow into confident and I'm sorry, confident, successful English speakers. That lived experience guides me every day and it fuels my commitment to ensuring that our students feel valued, capable, and fully supported. I am especially proud to join a district that is already recognized by the state as a model program for ESL and bilingual education. That distinction does not happen by accident. It is the result of dedicated educators, visionary leadership, and a community
075that values the brilliance and potential of its multilingual learners. I am honored to continue that good work and to help strengthen it even further. My commitment is simple. I will be a strong advocate for our multilingual learners and their families. And I will work to ensure that every student, regardless of the language they speak at home, has access to the opportunities, support, and highquality instruction they deserve. Thank you for the opportunity to serve a district of this caliber. I am grateful for your trust and I look forward to partnering with all of you as we continue to celebrate the rich cultures of students and elevate their success. Thank you so much. >> And um Mr. Um, Corey >> Cohen. No, >> they can show the All right, sir. The mic is yours. >> All right.
076Good evening, Dr. Rali, members of the board, cabinet members, and our community members. First off, I want to express my sincere gratitude to the board and the cabinet and Dr. Valley for your confidence in me. I am truly honored by the opportunity to serve our district in this new capacity as the elementary special education supervisor. When I was first hired almost 11 years ago as a math teacher, Mike Deanna, the principal at the time, asked me if I knew what made Franklin so special. And before I could answer, he told me, "We support our teachers here." I felt that support immediately. On my first day that January, I met Dave Whitman at the doors of HSC. We were both new. He as a vice principal and I as a teacher. When we realized neither of
077us knew where his office or my classroom was located, Dave simply said to me, "Let's go find them together." Those two moments define my introduction to Franklin. They taught me early on that this district isn't just a place of work. It's a community that moves forward together. That sense of belonging is why Franklin has been my professional home for over a decade. Over the last 11 school years, I've had the privilege of growing from a math teacher to a dean and now to a supervisor. This journey would have not been possible without the unwavering support of my family, my colleagues, and the administrative teams across the district. While there are too many individuals to thank by name tonight, please know that I am deeply deeply grateful to everyone who has cheered for me, mentored me,
078and opened doors for me along the way. I look forward to carrying the lessons I've learned in the classroom and as a dean in this next chapter. I am eager to get to work supporting our students, family, families, and staff in the special education department. Thank you so much for the opportunity. CONGRATULATIONS. >> All right, let's move on. Let's move on to um communication. Anything from communication? Um Jennifer? >> Uh yes, we went over some of the recent community outreach. Um I'm sorry. We met on March 9th. Um we went over some of the recent community outreach efforts, especially for the next tech academy. um the New Jersey SEI survey and obviously a lot of outreach for the superintendent search. Um there was also discussion about the middle school placement letters which should be going
079out soon. Um and a variety of events that are coming up such as the future educators boot camp um the warrior for life sneaker ball that will be this weekend um and the open houses for the middle school um in April 15th and April 28th. Thank you. >> All right. Um, CI curriculum, uh, Erica. >> Yes. Um, the curriculum instruction committee met on March 9th, um, virtually at 6 p.m. Um, present were myself as chair, uh, Jennifer Welsh, uh, Clara Wilson and, uh, Dr. Hopkins. Um, as well as Dr. Login, Dr. Valley. Um Eric Seagull um supervisor of um science right to know and workbased learning K through 12 and in a Washington director of research and planning assessment and accountability. Excuse me. Um some new business discussed. The committee discussed the following proposals for
080board consideration. A grant application in response to the New Jersey Learning Acceleration Program High Impact Tutoring Grant made available through um New Jersey DOE. If awarded, this grant would provide $160,000 um dollars to address student increased um academic needs and accelerate learning by implementing the high impact tutoring program. Um the committee also discussed the Warrior Next Tech Academy applications and selection criteria. The meeting concluded at 6:29 p.m. >> Thank you. All right, Claire, are you up with safety and security? So, we met on March 12th at 7 p.m. We met virtually. In attendance were myself, Jennifer Welch, Erica Inisencio, Dr. Hopkins, Dr. Solomon, and Dr. Ravali. We um discussed the discipline HIV and suspension reports from February. We also discussed um or Dr. Solomon gave an update on the status of the safety and security
081audit um that's going to be happening starting in June of 2026 and ending in January of 2027. Um we also discussed the very exciting Beltabell cell phone ban for next school year. Um Dr. Solomon reviewed a presentation regarding this uh Delta Bell cell phone ban which is the mandate issued by the New Jersey Department of Education that will take effect next year. Again, um we also went over the high school graduation, middle school moving up ceremonies in terms of safety and procedures regarding that. Um we also went over the district trainings and where we are with that. The meeting concluded at 8:10 p.m. >> Thank you, Bill. What's going on in facilities? >> Okay. Uh we met on March 23rd and Mr. Freed provided us with a powerp packed agenda. Uh it included myself as
082chair, Nick Deglio, Jimmy Parker, Dennis Hopkins, Dr. Vali, Mr. Banano, Steven Frered, and Ryan Ellis. So everybody was there and um we went over a change order that had to take place for Zufall that included uh some project work to supply some new exhaust fan thermostat connections. Uh Zufall project updates were given also by Mr. Ortiz uh of where we're at with that getting ready for the ribbon cutting. The Chilla project updates, Mr. Ortiz gave the committee project updates about chiller replacement projects at Franklin High School and Franklin Park School. Facility use was reviewed by v various people that have uh applications in. And then there was a discussion on facility improvements with Mr. Freed, Dr. Ali shared topics that were discussed at district facility meetings with architects and financial advisors etc. An energy report
083is always exciting by Mr. Ellis who presented the committee with the status of the Claremont school solar system. So it went through quite a bit and that meeting was over around 7 o'clock. >> Thank you Bill. And last um finance Our discussion revolved uh mainly around the budget. Um we have we got a longer version of the uh preliminary budget presentation that you received. So we were uh we we had our questions and uh we went through that uh we discussed all of the bills um for the month uh that were taken care of and that concluded that meeting. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Let's go on to new business. We're moving um starting with R I'm sorry. >> Yes. So I'm I'm making a motion to move R1 monthly report M1 uh
084minutes of board meetings. A1, adoption of the 2026 2027 preliminary budget. A2 travel and related expense reimbursement. A3 affirm harassment, intimidation, and bullying decisions. A4 women's history month. A nine. >> No. Why is it >> should be A5? >> I see. Okay. A5 um week of the young child, April 11th through 17, 2026. A6 donation. A7 revised policy second reading. A8 revised policy first reading reading. A9 facilities use. B1 warrants and payrolls. B2, financial reports. B3, monthly financial certification. B4, contract approval. We are at B5, change orders. B6, purchasing manual. B7, receipts of bids. Um, that's bid number 202701, commercial appliance repair, hot cold. B8, award of bids. B a bid number 202701 commercial appliance repair hot and cold. B9 receipt of bids playground project for Franklin Park School. B10 award of bid uh playground
085project for Franklin Park School. C1 out of district students 2025 2026 school year. C2 field trip destinations. C3, field trip applications. C4, application, New Jersey learning acceleration program high impact tutoring grant cohort three. P1 workers compensation settlement. P2 personnel report number nine. And I believe that's it. That's everything. >> All right. Thank you, Madam PP. So, we have a motion on the floor to move R1, M1, A1 through A9, B1 through B10, C1 through C4, P1, and P2. Can I have a second? >> Second. >> So, move and seconded by Bill Brian. Can we have roll call on this? >> Mr. Degley. >> Yes. But I will abstain from M1 C. I wasn't at that meeting. >> Mr. Grio, >> yes. >> Dr. Hopkins, >> yes. >> Miss Inosencio, >> yes. >> Miss Maris, >>
086yes. >> Mr. Park, >> yes. >> Mr. Rafi, >> yes. >> Miss Welch, >> yes. >> Miss Wilson, >> yes. >> So move. All right, we are all Where we at now? Comments, I believe. Hold on. Give me a second. >> Yeah. All right. Can I have a motion to open comments from the public on any topic? >> So moved by Jimmy. >> Second. Second. >> Seconded by who? >> Okay. Moved by Nick, seconded by Jimmy. All in favor? I >> I so move. All right. As um stated earlier, um those who choose to come up to the podium, state your name, address, and um Dr. Solomon is your timekeeper. Seeing no one coming up for the public comments, Mr. President, I move to close the public session. >> So moved by Bill. >> Seconded
087if by somebody going up. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Go ahead. >> Sure. >> State your name and address. And um as stated, Dr. Solomon is your timekeeper. >> My name is Yanto. My address is uh 128 Selby Court, New Jersey. Yeah. Uh my question is for this budget because I don't know how the budget to come up. Uh so for my first question is where's uh is there any limitation for the budget which is based on what what is the bas to come up this budget I know one is come from the needs you come up see what is the cost what is increase but however I want to know is any limit to set for the budget. What you base for the limit? So first question is any budget or limit for the
088budget? What the base for that? >> Okay, thank you. >> Thank you. Any other uh persons? >> Nobody else, Mr. President I move to close the public session. >> Second. >> All right. So moved by Bill, seconded by Mir. All in favor? >> I. >> So move. >> Yeah, sure. >> If I understand the question correctly, it's what is the base or the starting point for the budget which would be the previous year's budget. So in ation what you >> oh limit the cap what's the spending growth limit is got you spending growth limit is 2% with automatic adjustments for healthcare enrollment thank you Stephen there only two left I think so you can get right you qual you get an automatic adjustment to the 2% growing growth limit for additional enrollment if you qualify
089which the district did not and for health care increases which the district did qualify for. That's and that's it. And and that's a growth on the tax levy. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Mali. All right. >> And Stephen. All right. All right. We getting close. Good. Up the order. All right. Um Jennifer Boy, do I. Um, just a lot of excellent news coming out of Pinerove Manor as always. They just finished their seal day. They were thrilled to have so many guest readers for ReadAcross America day, including um myself, of course, Vice President Miss Inosencio, and of course, Mr. Grippo, who I believe hit every single school in the district. and I'm not sure he didn't circle around to do some twice. Um they also had a math and literacy night in which the students
090were able to actually take home kits with them um of literacy and math materials so they could continue to practice at home. They had career day um which does not sound like the career day I had in school. The East Franklin Fire Department was there. The Franklin Township Police Department was there and the New Jersey State Police Aviation Unit's helicopter landed there. I need to rethink my career trajectory. I think they might still take me. Um, I also wanted to make sure that folks know that Saturday, uh, from 1 to 4 at the Samson campus of the middle school, there'll be a presentation for Franklin 250 celebration. um women who carried the revolution in keeping with the month being March. Um there'll be activities for folks of all ages. There'll be some living history demonstrations,
091some quill writing, and you can even practice your colonial dancing on Saturday and maybe bring that to the ball on Sunday. Um so, yep, that's for me. >> Oh, that was um excellent. Um they busy over there, huh? All right. Uh Claire, >> well CES has a lot going on as well. Um I'm not going to say as much as Miss Welsh, but uh we also had ReadAcross America at CES. Um and on April 30th, the CES Dance Club is performing at the Somerset Patriots game at 6:35. So buy your tickets today. >> All right. Uh, Nick. >> Okay. So, first congratulations again to Janet and Corey. Uh, Corey, I uh had the pleasure of working with you at the middle school, so I've watched you grow through the district. I mean, I'm sure Nisha
092is going to have a hard time finding someone to replace you, but she'll just have to make do. Congratulations. Um, the Franklin High School is hosting a women's history event on March 26th. They said they're expecting about 300 guests and they're requesting donations for their gift bags. Uh Franklin High School, kudos to um Miss Martin. They hosted the book signing event for Matthew Rodriguez last month and it was a great event. Uh it was um uh joined by the Franklin Township Police Department, some um uh administrators. I know Dan Lum was there, stopped in to say hello. Um actually were there for most of the event. Yeah. Um but it was a great event that she put off. Connelly Road School scored a distinction of having high growth and high achievement for midyear I Ready
093reading and math assessments. And this is their seventh testing period in a row that they've achieved this recognition. That's all I have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh Jimmy, >> um a couple things if if you'll just bear with me. Um one, uh Franklin Park, tremendous job with Reading Across America. Bill, I think you were there right before me, by the way. So went went extremely well. Um they uh they are continuing to do uh God's work over there, especially with the the younger kids I read to uh a class of uh kindergarters. So it was really good. Um, what I wanted to do was also introduce the public uh to Mary Mloud Bthun considering it is the end of Women's History Month as well as we did have a preliminary budget uh conversation. Um,
094Miss Bthoon uh born to previously enslaved parents. She was a sharecropper uh the 15th child I believe of 17. um was not able to uh learn to read or write. Uh actually uh went into a previous slave owner's home, took a book and was told that she could not read. Therefore, that inspired her to do so. Uh she went on to be the first to be educated um in her family again of 17. Uh she also then went on uh with $1.50. I will say that again, $1.50 50 cents uh and I believe a rented room uh to begin to teach uh other uh negro women uh at the time. um with her resourcefulness making desks out of crates, using charcoal for pencils. Um she with time um consideration uh you know uh using her
095resourcefulness and continuing to ask for donations and continuing to work with the community uh developed what we call now Bun Cookman University. So that is who uh she is. She was also the founder of the National Council of Negro Women. She served as the education advisor for uh Franklin Roosevelt and um you know she was also very very avid uh philanthropist in giving back uh to women's causes. So uh Miss Mary Mloud Boom that's it. >> Thank you Mahair. >> So I participated in read across America. to thank um Magafy Road School and Claremont Elementary for inviting me. My goal is by next year I want to be like Mr. Grio where every school in the district will invite me to read across America. What did you say? Um and then uh I also wanted
096to share what books I read because I found that very amusing. Um and if you haven't read them, please do. It was for second graders. Hi, Cat Caps for Sale and Grumpy Monkey Play all day. So, the funnest and the funniest part was the questions and the thought processes from the second graders. So, it was a lot of fun. Aiming to be Mr. Grio. >> Thank you. Uh Lori, >> who's next? >> Lori is next. so forward looking for the middle schools. Um the only thing really that it's more exciting than the upcoming spring break is that now spring sports tryyouts are this week. >> So we've got um not only track and field but softball and baseball um occurring at the Hamilton Street campus. all of those tryyouts and uh I know that the
097students are going to be really excited to get out in what we hope is going to be nice weather as we move later on in the week. So, thanks very much. >> Thank you. >> All right, Bill. >> I know I said I'm not going to make any comments and I'm not, but I've been over every inch of this district in the month of March and Demley I will say that's because I'm retired. Okay, that's that's his thing. But I tell you the highlight of March for me besides all the schools and all the people and every day something was In the Heights. >> Yeah. >> In the Heights showed Franklin's true supremacy of student achievement on the stage. That was the highlight for me of all the things I've done. And I and to
098see so many of my alumni from McAfee Road School star in that show was just emotional. Emotional is the word. No comments. >> Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Hi. M BP. >> So I also participated um in Read Across America. I read for the first time at PGM and that was great. Um, I was in a second grade ESL class and they were so excited to learn that I spoke Spanish and I was Hispanic and it happened to be cultural day that day. So, the some of a lot of the teachers um and uh admins were dressed in their cultural garb or attire and um we talked about we went around the class and and each child got to tell me about where they were from, where their parents were from. It was it was really
099great. Um, I also read at McAfee Road School, which I always do, and that was wonderful as well. Great program there. Um, and again, I just want to echo, um, the In the Heights production was just truly breathtaking. I'm always impressed with the caliber of just professionalism um, and just sheer talent of the students at the high school. And I also went to the um the the middle school's show as well, but the high school performance I I I didn't know if they could top Chicago. That was my favorite one of the ones that I've I've been to so far. But this definitely surpassed it. I mean, this is like professional level stuff. It was really impressive. I enjoyed it so much I went back the next weekend and u my girls enjoyed it just
100as much as I did. And at this point, In the Heights is on, you know, repeat at the house as far as the the soundtrack goes. So, um, just kudos to to Miss Rad and the students. It was just wonderful. >> All right. Thank you. All right. Um before I guess I need to um send a shout out to Hailrest in a sense of they also did Reacross America. Um and also some of their highlights they also did was um u family engagement night and they did um parent and partners and uh a pacer visit. So those are some of the highlights that um uh Hillrest did. So um as we um about to close out uh women's month um thank you for sharing that information with us Jimmy and um uh with all the
101uh ladies in the audience and here at the table. Um my hats uh go off to all for uh for womanhood because without you ladies we wouldn't be here. And um so um uh my honors and my and humbling and um praise go out to you. But also I want to bring up also that um as we start to get closer to the end of the school year um we are getting closer to um the final chapter in Dr. Vali here in the district. But this Sunday we will be celebrating him at the at the uh having a gala in his name at the uh Imperial. >> Yeah. And um so I'm excited, you know, um some folks may have on some Chucks, some may have on whatever, but uh some Chuck Taylor tailor, some
102commerce for those who um um may uh need some help with those terminologies. But um but yeah, like I said, I'm not going to as the um as we get closer, I guess everybody would uh give their praises and their uh show of appreciation for uh what this may have shouldered to get Franklin to where is at um now. But I'm not going to uh go on and on because I'm sure it's going to be a lot of words on Sunday and continuing on as we push on through the end of the school year. So with that said, we are journ Heat. Heat.