001Francisco. >> Okay. Call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Mr. Merrell. >> Mr. Bono. >> Mr. Fio, >> here. >> Mr. Harris, >> here. >> Mrs. Perez, Mr. Santiago, Mr. Silva >> here, >> Mrs. Vasquez >> here, >> Mr. Rivera >> here, >> Mr. Holmes here. For the record, Mr. Bono's here five o'clock. In compliance with the New Jersey open public meeting law, commonly referred to as the sunshine law, divine the board of education has caused notice and posting to of this meeting to be sent to the following announcing time, place thereof agenda, etc. The Daily Journal, SNJ Today, the President of Atlantic City, Vista Bueno, the clerk for the city of Miland and the office uh administrative office public bulletin board. Please rise for the flag salute. Justice for all. >> I'll entertain
002a motion to open public hearing on the 2627 budget. >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Silva, second by Miss Vasquez. Roll call. >> Mr. Bono. >> Yes. >> Mr. Fokei. >> Yes. >> Mr. Harris, >> yes. >> Mr. Silva, >> yes. >> Mrs. Vasquez, >> yes. >> Mr. Rivera, >> yes. >> Mr. Holmes, >> yes. >> Motion carries. >> Dr. McCann, special presentations. >> Thank you. Mr. Scott Musterell, school business administrator, will present the 2026 school district budget. Thank you. Good evening everybody. Members of the board, central administration, members of the public. I'm here to present the 2627 proposed school district budget. This is the public hearing. The vote will happen next week on May 6th at the combined meeting. So just to get started the overview it's uh we I'm going to show you
003the budgeting process historical summaries the proposed revenues the proposed tax levy uh the proposed appropriations and some budget highlights process. So administration budget planning meetings with central administration principles meeting with accounting for school-based budgets supervisor and department heads meet with the business administrator and assistant business administrator for district budget and a review of preliminary budget with board members to discuss increases, decreases, proposals and initiatives. As you can see, our enrollment projected for next year is 9435. Last year was 9660. So, it has been declining slightly over the last five years. Proposed revenues for next year tax levy based on a 6% increase of uh the tax rate uh will be 37,422,355. Medicaid will be 191,000. State aid including extraordinary income or extraordinary aid would be 167,228,569. Miscellaneous revenue is 1,123,176. Use of fund balance is
004down to 11,946,976 for a total general fund of $217,912,76. grants will be 28,747,947 for a total budget of $246,660,23. This is up u almost 8 million from last year or this year's current budget. Uh here we have a piraphph of basically where our revenues come from. As you can see, 76% of our revenues come from state aid, almost 77%. Um 17% comes from tax levy. Fund balance is a little over just about 5 and a half% and miscellaneous and Medicaid come in at under a percentage. So the state calculates our fair share what they call and what that means is that's what they believe we should be raising in taxes. Uh that figure is 89,735,467 uh as determined by the state software. Our proposed tax levy is 37 million422,355. So according to the state, we're
005below what we should be raising in taxes by 52.3 million. So we're under t under tax by 58.3%. According to the state school tax information, our school taxes are based on ratables. The ratables went up uh by hund00 million to 4.1 billion. The average home assessment is $163,159 uh as given to me by the city. Again, our proposed tax uh raise uh proposed tax to be raised next year is 37 million422,355. And that's based on a tax rate of 9111. That's up. 0516 from last year, which is a 6% increase on the tax rate, not on the tax levy, but on the tax rate. What's that mean to the average homeowner? Um, again, the average home assessment is $163,000. So for anybody who owns a home for $163,000, the it would increase by $84.15. I
006think it's noteworthy to mention where your tax dollars go to. Um, our most recent information is 2025. Um, county is at 1.27. The school district right now is at 86. The municipality is 1.163. And there's some miscellaneous taxes at 0.099. So, the total tax rate is 3.392, which means the county has 37.44% of the tax rate. The school is at 25.35% and the municipality is at 34.29%. So the county is 47.67% higher than we are and the municipality is 35.23% higher than we are. [clears throat] Appropriations I broke them up into cost centers. So regular instruction categorical is just about 56.3 million. Special education instruction is 25.1 million. Support services are 18.1 million. Tuition, charter schools, inclusion come in at about 15.6 million. Uh administrative and central services come in at 11.8 million. Facilities come
007in at just about 19 million. Security comes in at 3 almost2 million. Transportation comes in at 13.53.6 million. Benefits come in at just about $54 million. Uh schedule B comes in at about 1.6 million. Capital outlay is going to come in at 1.8 million for a total of 220 million 110500. This is a pigraph of all the expenses I just told you. I guess the note most noteworthy on here is when you look at the total budget, [clears throat] regular instruction is around 26%, benefits are around 25% and so on down the line. Thought it was interesting to point out that when you look at the entire budget, 72.9% of our entire budget is salaries and benefits and payroll taxes. 27.1% is everything else. Some of the highlighted budgetary changes. So when we constructed the
0082526 budget, we used a excess surplus figure of 14 almost 5 million. However, when we're using the surplus for the 2627 budget, it comes in at 11.9 million. So we've had a decrease in revenue from excess surplus uh of 2.5 million revenues. We're increasing our tax levy by $3.1 million. And again, that's due to a tax rate increase uh coupled with the increase in ratables. Interest, we're projecting another $230,000 uh based on what we budgeted this year. And of course, the big one is change in state aid. uh that increased by $6,729,260. So the total increase in revenues would be 10 million75,568. Every year our expenses are going up. These are the increases in expenses. Our health premiums went up by 16.68% 68% which is equivalent to five almost point 5.9 million. The state however
009is increasing by 30%. On the average our prescription plans are going up by 23.5% which is 1.74 million but the state is increasing by 60%. So our HIF is doing a good job shopping around chapter 78 chapter 44 if in premiums are going to increase then the employee contribution is also going to increase so that'll increase by 520,744 and that's a positive impact to the budget. increases in salaries per the contracts, attrition, turnover, contractual increases. It's going to be almost $2.2 million. Uh we have special education compliance. We're [clears throat] adding a net one teacher and 10 aids salaries and benefits. That's $750,000 projected. Our non-health insuranceances are projected to increase by 10%. That's 350,000, [clears throat] pardon me, [snorts] back-end technology. So, we have to replace all the fire the wifi wifi in the
010district as well as uh buy a new firewall. That's projected to be 1.4 million, although we're running it through. So, our cost for that is going to be 295,000 because - pays for 80% of that. charter schools based on what the state gave us is due to increase by 956,000. Um we've now budgeted fully for CCT uh into our budget. So that uh was an increase of $931,899. We have the VSS coach coaches I should say. Uh we found out we received the bills coach for the high school. So we'll be getting devices for all the students and the staff, the instructional staff at the high school. With that comes the pledge from our part that we'll be hiring um two bills coaches at the high school level. They give us $25,000 towards that supervisor
011of PE with salaries and benefits. It was a position added this year that we will continue for next year. So we have to budget it for next year. That's $150,000. Uh we've added two positions to the to the budget next year. Uh they're secondary coaches, one for science, one for math. That should cost us between salaries and benefits $200,670. Uh we're also going to hire an itinerant nurse, $110,000. Again, that's salaries and benefits. This year we added a principle of alternative. Um so with salaries and benefits, we'll have to budget for that next year. That's $150,000. Tuitions are set to go up by probably 622,000. We're instituting an employee assistance programs for those who need it. Uh that'll we're estimating that'll cost the district $50,000. I think it's going to come in lower than that.
012Aiden Lou uh increased in students for $110,000. our busy yard camera upgrade, Wi-Fi, that'll cost us about $150,000. We're increasing the salary, the uh I'm sorry, the subs and overtime budget for facilities by $250,000 because the amount that was that's been budgeted for the f past few years uh is is is antiquated quite frankly. facilities on& and M. Um on the non-s salary side, we're increasing it by $150,000 because uh our operations, we just have older buildings and we're we're spending more and more money every year. Uh facilities, we're going to buy a lawn mower, that'll be $50,000. Security like tower, that's going to be 5,000. Uh Landis security cameras, they're on a different platform. We're going to conform them to the existing system that we have in the rest of the district. That'll be
013$130,000. We're estimating two four new bathrooms at the high school Tanner building, 300,000. We're going to do a partial roof replacement at VHS for the V-wing. That'll be 861,000. Uh we're going to need to buy scanners for our frontline system. That's 112,800. And then while we do have security guards at our alternative program, uh they weren't in the budget, so we're putting them in the budget. So as you can see, the increases in expenses are just shy of $16.2 million. decreases in expenses. So, we won't be renewing our shared services with the city for2 part-time SEO2 um police officers due to the fact that we now have armed guards uh in place. We'll save $80,000 there. We're not going to hire for the transportation assistant coordinator. It's a vacant position. Uh we'll save $95,000 on
014the budget there. Uh a technology technician, we should save $117,000. We're reducing three drivers, but it won't affect bus drivers. That is it won't affect our operations. Um we'll save 171,000 with salaries and benefits there. Um optimizing the technology I EIP budget. We saved 255,000 out of district subcontracted bus routes based on the past year. It looks like we can re safely reduce that amount by $150,000. Uh there's a bus lease purchase coming offline this year. We've made our final payment, so we don't need to budget it for next year. Uh we'll save 374,000 there. Utilities. So we're going through an EIP right now. It's an energy savings program and by the end of this fiscal year, June 30th, we should have a good portion of that EIP done uh for the LED lights. So,
015our company that's doing the EIP, which is DCO, they've assured me that we should be able to save $450,000 in utilities from that part of the EIP alone. arm guards where we have a better feel for what we're using the arm guards for. So, while we can save $475,000 by budgeting to actual expenditures, it won't affect the operations, we're still going to be able to do the same thing we're offering this year. EIP cost, there was a reduction of 45,000 uh PERS annual payment, uh we were able to reduce that by $200,000. the alternative program through an RFP last year. Uh we were able to save $840,000 sub costs were able to save $492,000 without affecting our operations and fund 12 capital projects. We're removing the $4.8 million that we had budgeted this year from
016the budget. So that brings us and remember these are all estimated and projected figures. So while it comes out to zeros, there's a lot more pluses and minuses in the budget that it's literally thousands of lines long. [clears throat] Um I want to thank Mr. Yano, Dr. McCann, um our cabinet team, Terry Godlooki, Susette Deari, Christ, Dr. Speakman, uh, Ismmail Bermudez. I want to thank everybody in my office, specifically Shannon Carrie, my assistant business administrator, and David Hart, my principal accountant. They do a ton of work on this budget. Uh, Kesha Crawford, the fiscal specialist for early childhood, Cara Irvine, my administrative assistant, all the principles, the supervisors, the department heads. Uh, It really takes a village to put this budget together. Uh, and of course the board of education for their guidance and all
017their support. So, I'm I'm here for any questions you may have. >> Any questions from board members? Seeing none, any questions from the public? All right. At this point, I'll take a motion to close the public hearing on the 2627 budget. >> Make a motion. >> Second. >> I'll wait for Scott. >> You're good. I'll go over it, please. Motion by Miss Vasquez, second by Mr. Bono. Do a roll call. >> Yep. Mr. Bono. >> Yes, >> Mr. Mr. Fokei. >> Yes. >> Oh, yeah. Closing the post. Mr. Harris, >> yes. >> Mr. Silva, >> yes. >> Mrs. Vasquez, >> yes. >> Mr. Rivera, >> yes. >> Mr. Holmes, >> yes. >> Do we have a time for Mr. Santiago? >> 509. And Mr. Santiago, your vote on that? >> Yes. >> Thank you. Any
018uh public comment on things that are not on the agenda? >> Thank you. Board member comments. Mr. Bono, >> nothing at this time. >> Mr. Harris, >> nothing at this time. >> Mr. Silva, >> nothing at this time. >> Mr. Fio, >> nothing at this time. >> Mr. Santiago, >> nothing. Miss Vazquez, >> nothing at this time. >> Mr. Rivera, >> nothing at this time. >> Dr. McCann, >> nothing at this time. >> All right. Motion to adjurnn. All in favor? >> Thank you. >> Second.